To not understand the obsession with routines? Am I doing it wrong?

[ThatCuckingFat]

My DS is 5mo and the closest we have to a 'routine' is a bath, bottle and bed around the same time every night. He sleeps through and is quite a happy baby. During the day he feeds and sleeps when he wants (I haven't started weaning yet). Recently he has a come a bit more predictable with timings though I don't dictate them to him.

My friend has a 3mo DC and lives her life round a routine. She decides what time and for how long her DC feeds and naps. She tries to make the baby nap and when nap times over she wakes the baby up. This usually results in deafening screaming which makes me feel really uncomfortable but I don't say anything.

I think it's upto her to raise her child how she likes but she's started making the odd remark about how my DS has no structure in his day because of the lack of the sodding routine - not in a nasty way particularly -but she is very confident in her approach which is the opposite to me and really making me question everything I'm doing.

I'm a first time mum and genuinely feel like I'm winging it most of the time. Am I too laid back and should DS be in a set routine already?! I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing!

Penguins, yes you are probably right, maybe it's chance that my 3 dc have all been quite easygoing and even now they are good with change and uncertainty (changing schools, changing plans at short notice etc, has never been a problem). None of us seem to need a structure. But I know some dc do. and it's hard to tell which came first, not having a routine and not feeling the need for a routine.

trashcanjunkie, indeed, they were so good weren't they?

Thatcucking...I’m same as you. My ds is now 17 months.

Im a pretty laid back, if slightly scatty person but organised when I want/need to be. I didn’t read books about routine but just did what felt natural, what worked, what fitted in with our day and what DS and I seemed to like. No real structure/routine at all, the 7pm bedtime only when he moved from bedroom to nursery was the only main set time we now keep to in the day. As a result (perhaps!) he is such a smiley, chilled, fun little boy.

I, like you had a friend opposite to me and read every signle book there is for her DS.
Every time I’d leave meeting her, I felt a bit negative and guilty, compared to her perfect way of doing everything & also making the odd comment about mine. Ds would always play up when we were together, as if he picked up on the atmosphere this would make me even more stressed and comparing everything.
Then something happened (here- www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2305095-To-feel-angry-unforgiving-to-ex-friend) and we’re no longer friends. I feel like weights been lifted!! We had such different styles and attitudes to parenting maybe run this was always going to happen.

If being chilled and relaxed works for you now, enjoy it. Structure/times etc. can come later and by then ( if you return to work?) when nursery/child-minders come into it, they provide that structure and you can still enjoy your DS and being the same chilled mum when you are together!

Don’t over compare, wish I hadn’t!! we are all different and I feel by reading these books/obsessing and letting them dictate, takes away that spontaneous, natural bonding time that only your instincts can provide.

Maddaddam - Well, I am guessing that if both parents are laid back, there is a fair chance that the kids have a genetic predisposition to be too. Which can probably be reinforced by behaviour.

Ignore your friend. Your way is clearly working for you, so why change anything because your friend does it differently?

DS only had a routine at bedtime at that age. He would nap whenever, but eventually this naturally happened around the same time each day. Once he started solids, I aimed for breakfast, lunch and dinner around the same time but naps were always a "fall asleep on the sofa and transfer him to cot" routine. He never would have fallen asleep if I'd put him in his cot awake. And I never woke him, unless we had to be somewhere.

A friend nannied two children who both had to be down for a nap for the same two hours everyday. So if she took them to an activity, to the park, even a birthday party, she would have to leave so they could be home for their nap at 12pm. Friend struggled getting the eldest to go to sleep when she was 2-3yrs old, probably through naturally dropping the nap, but the mum insisted naps had to be between 12-2pm. So she had to keep putting the girl back to bed. I find that kind of strict routine a bit

Just read your thread Peasin and she didn't sound like much of a friend!

I appreciate different styles of parenting in the same way that people are just different and we don't all live our lives the same way. Am experiencing the same type of negative feeling after spending an afternoon with this woman just because of the judgy attitude she has. Unfortunately out of the mums I know I basically am the odd one out, and often made to feel quite small, for example went to a mum and baby meet up the other week and when they were discussing weaning they were all scoffing at my plans to do BLW, one of them actually said 'what a load of rubbish'. It's just unnecessary comments as if they need to prove that 'their way' is right and constant need to compare / out do each other. I'm not a BLW preacher - I haven't even tried it yet!

I shouldn't really bother myself over it I know, but I try to get out often as I can and see other people as at least it gives us something to do. I've found it pretty isolating having a new baby and DP works a lot so for most of the time I'm on my own with DS. And I don't want to fall out with friends over such daft things so I just bite my lip about it. The way she goes on sometimes is like I'm too easy going eg, allowing DS to nap on me instead of in his cot, feeding him after 7pm most night etc, she's full of facts and figures due to having done all the research.
Am feeling a bit reassured now that I'm not a complete lazy cow DS seems as happy as the other babies we know so I guess what they're doing works for them and what were doing works for us.

If she'd done her research she'd also find that putting your baby in its cot at 7pm, is a very modern way of thinking practised in a limited number of countries around the world.

In the past babies would have co-slept until they were toddlers for example. The reason that we don't tend to co-sleep in the UK now is in part down to research into SIDS. However, 90% of cases occur before the baby is 6 months old (and by definition SIDS doesn't occur after a baby's first birthday). The recommendation is to keep the baby in the same room as you up until at least 6 months though.

Just how much of our thinking down to culture and government recommendations? Do countries which don't have strict 7pm bedtime, do children have substantially more behavioural or sleep problems by the age of five?

I'm not advocating one approach over another here, my point is more that just because she can pull a pile of research out of her arse, doesn't necessarily mean anything. Apart from the fact she's looked up stuff to support the way she's parenting (and probably hasn't looked at critical analysis of that approach)

The same logic applies to lots of other things. Not to mention there is an awful lot of bollocks biased research out there (and lots of people keen to cash in on parental anxiety to flog their latest book).

I went with my DS's lead till about six months. From then on he'd try to resist napping and get overtired and grumpy so I got into the 90-min routine (put thdm down 90min after last wake up) and it made a HUGE difference.
Routine also started with weaning when we started having breakfast lunch and dinner at relatively predictable times.

So not only are different approaches suited to different families, they are also suited to different ages/phases.