The Baby Whisperer was mentioned upthread too.
I'm not keen on that one either! It also goes agains natural instincts IMO.
It promotes "EASY" which stands for Eat, Activity, Sleep, You-time".
IMO it should be ESYA! (Am I being overly cynical to imagine that they went with the order EASY partly because - well - it spells easy and therefore sells more books?!)
Cynicism aside, this simply wouldn't have worked on DS. Like many (most?) breastfed children, he would fall asleep while BFing. We would then put him down for a nap. Trying to get him to do an activity while he felt so drowsy would have been nuts! BF is designed by nature to make your baby tired, why on earth would you want to fight it? I t makes no sense to me!
In fact we didn't follow any kind of routine, but we fell into one naturally. Here's what we did: DS fed on demand. While breastfeeding, he'd fall sleep, naturally (no coaxing from anyone). We'd put him in a carry-cot (like a modern moses basket) and we'd take him with us - asleep - wherever we went. When he woke up we'd pick him up and play with him, until the next time he asked for food, I'd then feed him and he'd fall asleep.
In the daytime when he napped we just carried on around him - we didn't keep the noise down or dim the lights. When he slept at night, we put him in our bedroom with us, lights off. He soon started sleeping more at night and developed his own routine. I couldn't tell you what time though as we hardly ever even looked at the clock!
It worked very well for us, and one of the major differences between us and my GF-following friends is that I wasn't stressed! They on the other hand were, very much so! I can't say whether this was because of our babies or our parenting methods. What I can say with certainty was I would have been very stressed if I'd tried to follow a routine instead of going with the flow. Just the thought of it stresses me out!
The only thing I would change for next time is to use a wrap around sling from the beginning - I didn't discover them till fairly late last time, but they're brilliant!
If you are a fairly laid back person and your baby sleeps when fed, I'd strongly suggest trying going with the flow, not even looking at the clock and simply enjoying your baby.
A friend gave me a great bit of advice when my baby was born. If you manage to do one things each day, you're doing amazingly well! Simple things like getting out of the house, going to the shops (nightmare the first few times!!) or meeting friends become difficult when you first have a baby as they throw up a whole new set of logistics to think about (car seat / nappies / spare clothes / buggy etc etc) and it takes a but of practice. If I'd also been worried about clock-watching if would have driven me bananas!
If however you are the kind of person who thrives on structure and routine, then set routines are probably worth a try (although please, please don't think you've failed if it doesn't work for you!)