Trying to get a routine when it's your second child and first is at school!

[georginagoodey]

My son is 3 and my daughter nearly 4 months. I was so regimented with my son when it came to feeds every 4 hours and naps at the same time each day. He went with it all like a dream and slept through from just 6 weeks and never looked back. How different could things be this time around! I feel like I have forgotten everything and I feel like getting a routine in place like before is so much harder. If my daughter is tired and needs her nap at 8.30am I have to get her in the car seat at 9am to take my son to nursery 3 days a week. The same when I go to pick him up! I hate it because I desperately want her to have scheduled naps for her own benefit for mine also! She is also hardly interested in her bottle sometimes only having 3ozs then going 5 or 6 hours before the next feed. I know she just isn't taking enough during the day to fill her up to sleep through and she doesn't. Albeit she only wakes, feeds and goes back off, the broken sleep is enough to make me feel exhausted. And unlike with my son, I am unable to nap when she naps as I have to look after my son. She will not take more than she wants to rake milk wise and as for dream feeding, my son would literally drain a bottle but again, she'll take a few ozs then she's done and will refuse to take anymore. I really thought I had this all down to a tea because my son was an angel to be fair but I just don't know what to do this time around. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks so much x

[FATEdestiny]

I think it's easier to be routines when you have nursery/school runs to do. Your nursery trips make your day unquestionably structured and routined - you do the same thing at 9am and 12pm (or whatever time it is) every day. So you just have to work your youngest routine in with that.

I used to use the EASY repeating cycles until naps extended. We used a 2 hourly cycle of:

E - Eat
A - Awake/happy time
S - Sleep
Y - You time
Repeated constantly through the daytime.

Then work backwards to ensure the sleep but bit of cycle call a in the right place for school runs.

Once naps extended past about 90 mins in length and we moved to 2 or 3 nap days (instead of short frequent naps) then I routines according to the clock, to fit in with school runs.

I used to do naps at 9am (as soon as home from school) - 11am. I'd wake at 11am so that baby had enough awake time to fit the afternoon nap in. Then 1pm and wake at 3pm for the school run. When little I'd also add a teatime power nap in.

[WordGetsAround]

Agree with PP, it should be easier in a way - but your routine might need to start at 6 / 6.30 / 7.30 or whatever - to take into account school runs.
My first was on a 3 hour routine, but dc2 only ever managed 2.5. He was like clockwork too - just a hungrier version! I just had to go with it, but still made sure it was a routine.
I know exactly where you're coming from, as I'm wired t same way - you'll get there!