Scheduled babies- how’d they work out?

[EverybodyJumpsuit]

There are lots of books apps and websites promoting various baby routines- I know there’s one major one who cannot be discussed on mumsnet. But there are others!

my DC are 8+4 now so I’m totally out of the loop.

tried to schedule DC1 for about 3 weeks before giving up. One NCT mum was maniacal about sticking to timings, she had no family support and was very isolated. Seemed like schedule made this worse not better but who knows? We lost touch anyway.

im wondering if the parents who did use the kind of minute by minute routines- how long did you do it for, and if your DC are older now, do you think it had any long term impacts either way?

please don’t name the schedule you used! Just in general…

I used a a loose schedule once mine were a few weeks old. I adapted well known ones to suit my baby. Worked really well for me.

Used one for mine (loosely the She Who Cannot Be Named regime. 😬) and it worked well for us.

Both slept extremely well from very early and still do now that they are huge adults.

As we arrived home from hospital with no clue what we were doing our neighbour popped out and insisted we needed to get Gina Ford.
DH went to Waterstones immediately.

We stuck to it rigidly for a week and it was hellish. I was getting up at something like 5am to shower?

Then we realised our neighbours kids were feral and highly annoying

So we stopped and just did our own thing.

My grandmother's advice was babies are portable take them with you if you want to go out. So DS happily slept through some raucous parties (we were sober), fed during the cinema (we'd have left if he cried), came to nice restaurants and slept there (timed to eat during nap time)

So no routine and it worked for us really well - never really fussed over strict mealtimes but always had healthy snacks available/fed on demand.

I think it depends on the baby as much as the parents.

Friends of mine scheduled their son from the start. I can say they were the only new parents I’ve ever known who were not continuously knackered for the duration of their DC’s early childhood. We are all still in regular contact and their son is at college and lovely.

Similarly our friends followed She Who Cannot Be Named.

Used a combination of SWMNBN and EASY DS slept 10 hours at night from 10 weeks ( ebf). One nap a day 12-2 from 9 or 10 months. He is 19 now healthy and happy. He has always settled easily at night and only needed waking for school after the secondary transfer. Dd follwed her big brother's footsteps and slept 11-6 at 8 weeks. She has always been an exceptional sleeper. I would definitely do it again.

In my last few months of maternity leave I followed a very firm nap schedule as it seemed to make DD sleep well. All went out the window once I went back to work and naps had to work around childminder and looking back I wished I’d been less rigid as I’d of gotten out more and enjoyed it more. I don’t think it had any long term effect; she’s a better sleeper than my other DC who I was more relaxed with but she was better than my other DC at sleeping even before I had a routine

Expecting our first....who is "she who cannot be named" ???

I don't understand how routine= not going out. DS 's schedule from 4-9 months was:
Nap 9:30-11 and 2-3:30 give or take, generally we headed out either before or just after his am nap and he would bap on the way home. Solids were at 8am, 11:30 am and 5pm, with milk feeds at 6:30, 3:30 pm and 8pm.

Nap on the way home obviously.

I dont know who you mean, as I never read any books, but I suppose I did do a routine of sorts. Fed every 3 hours or so, bath and bed at the same time. In own room to nap and sleep at fairly set times. Slept and ate beautifully, very well behaved and happy. Always easily portable because well fed and rested when we wanted to go out.

Dd slightly different waening guidence had changed so no solids till 6m and mix fed. From 2.5 months she did feeds at 6:30-7;30( breast feed) nap 8:30- 10ish feed 10:30/11am (formula) nap 12:30-2ish, breast feed 2:30-3pm, micro nap 4:30-5pm breast feed 5pm ( one side) bath, massage/song breast feed 8pm ( other side) bedtime, dream feed(formula) 11pm. That was until I went back to work @ 5.5m. Like DS by 1 she was sleeping 7-7 at night and 11-1 in the day.

I had a toddler then twins and we had a strict routine that evolved as they grew. Stuck to it for over a year. Oddly, dd1 had a rubbish routine but now loves order and routine whereas dtds were great babies in their routine but totally flexible now. Routine kept me sane and ensured they got enough sleep (and so did I). To be fair, scbu started them off.

My baby is nearly 4 months old and we don't have a routine. Her feeds and nappy changes are quite predictable though and she goes to sleep around the same time every evening. She doesn't really nap for long during the day.

Ds4 was in nicu so he was in a routine when he came home. It was actually really awkward because he wanted to be fed at 3pm precisely which was the time I was picking my older dc up from school.

Schedule, routine I thought worked great. However, with two older kids may be diffficult. Mine are 6, 4 and 2. Very strict routine with 1st, because he had slept and fed when he needed he was a happy baby but he doesn’t go to sleep particularly easy but this is personality for sure! 2nd took a while to get in routine but once there he was an easy baby and now sleeps great….-again personality? He’s tired he wants to sleep….other two are desperate to be awake all night if can! Third was really hard to get a routine due to nursery and school. But we tried. He’s happily stay awake all night given a choice😬. I think it’s just him! I’d say babies are happier with a routine they know what’s coming and they don’t get over tired over stimulated or end up tired and hungry at same time. Every baby I meet who is not in a routine seems grumpy and tired and hungry and sad and a bad eater. No wonder. Routine is the way to go!

@cheese?

Gina Ford:

https://www.motherandbaby.com/baby/baby-care/routine-gina-ford/

Controversial because it goes against NHS guidelines and also ignores the common sense behind the concept of the fourth trimester and basic instinct with newborns...

Did SWMNBN for 3 of my 4, insomauch as I took the feeding and nap timings (but I was always a couple of weeks “younger” than I should have been) but not the other bossy instructions “drink a large glass of water” etc. They were and are excellent sleepers and generally quite calm and easy going people. They were easy children and I do think not being overtired helped when they were small and again during puberty which is another period of life when routine and good sleep is helpful. The child I didn’t do it for was unwell and in hospital for a while and once discharged was on 3 hourly feeds night and day which is not very much different from SWMNBN first 2 weeks. He was also a very good sleeper but wasn’t particularly well and nicu babies often sleep through anything anyway. Downside was 1 of them were awful at sleeping in other places (even the car) so I can see that it can effect social life. We tended to go out in the morning and stay home in the afternoon but I was a sahm at the time so it was easy and suited my lifestyle.

I also did She Who Cannot Be Named for DC1. Worked a treat as a single parent with PND. I needed to protect my sleep and MH.

She’s now almost 16. I rarely had sleepless nights when she was younger (unless ill) and hasn’t suffered any ill effects.

I did it with DC2 but on a much looser schedule. He also slept incredibly well.

I should say I’ve just skimmed the article linked to and I certainly didn’t leave her to cry for an hour a day. I was a huge fan of ‘ssshhh pat’ though.

We didn't schedule as such, but did stick to fixed points for getting up (nothing crazy and never any earlier than 7.30am) and baby going to bed, fed on demand but introduced solids at relatively fixed times of day. Treated every feed before 7.30am as a night feed and did the 'pause' method. Had a short bedtime routine from early on and a reasonably similar routine every day in terms of leaving the house around the same time. We introduced a Gro clock at 18mo and, once baby left our room to sleep in her own at six months, she's never been back in our bed during night hours. She comes into us when her sun lights up in the morning.

She's never been left to cry and we respond by going to her but she's always seems happy and content (bar obviously teething and illness).

Baby slept through from six weeks. We've had none of the sleep problems friends have experienced where baby and then toddler and then child is up all evening and multiple times at night. Kid is now at junior school, happy, confident, thriving, exceeding in most subjects. The kids of the parents I know who avoided routine etc tend to look absolutely knackered, as do their parents.

Yes, a combo of SWMNBN and EASY. Got a 12 hour sleeper who to this day likes a 10 hour sleep and is a teenager.

I also like my sleep so it was essential for my MH to be able to sleep too.

I left DS to cry once for less than 5 minutes ( I timed it) he was overtired and about 6 weeks old. That's it, as GF herself says " I'd be horrified if one of my babies cried for an hour a day".

The other thing I've noticed after doing the pause method with ours from a couple of weeks old (where you wait and observe a few seconds if they start to stir instead of immediately assuming they're hungry and pouncing to feed) is that mine has always pretty easily dropped off to sleep without intervention from us - very little feeding or rocking to sleep. She just went down content and drowsy.

Whereas friends who didn't do this are still doing no end of patting, back rubbing, singing, constantly up and down the stairs to get the kid to settle. And that's with kids in year 3 and 4!

Bloody hell, it’s only now I’ve twigged that I ended up following The Baby Whisperer and not GF. I had both but Tracey Hogg suited us better.

the EASY acronym has obviously been burned from my brain 🫠