To wonder if anyone successfully managed a routine with a baby?

[Toomanymuslins]

By routine I mean one in books (I don’t just mean Gina Ford - any book.)

It seems impossible to me. You can’t make a baby sleep it they don’t want to but also if they are tired waking them up is difficult/impossible! And if they are hungry you know about it but likewise you can’t force them to take more milk than they want ...

Do I just have awkward sods for babies or are routines impossible?

I managed to follow the Little Ones program from about four months. It was an awful month getting into it but once we were in, it was an absolute game changer. Our DS was always a pretty chilled out baby so maybe we just got lucky 🤷‍♀️

We followed the mantra “flexible routine rather than rigid schedule”. That meant doing sleep > feed > play but letting the baby sleep as much as she wanted then following wake windows / cues to the next snooze, and fitting everything else in around that.

We implemented a bit more of a time based routine once she got to about 6 months, as by then she was a lot more predictable in terms of how long she’d nap for and how many naps a day etc.

How old is your baby?

Nah. Don't bother. My experience (3 dc) is they do a routine just long enough for you to start feeling comfortable, then switch it.
I think the books try to sell an illusion you might be able to get some control over the contrary little human that's just landed.
Best advice I got was not to look at the clock when you get woken and not to count how many times it happens

I followed my dcs routines. It’s hard to force them, like you’ve said but, usually, they’ll have their own little routines of time they want to nap, feed and play.

Largely yes, from a few weeks at least. I’m quite routine oriented so falling into regular patterns comes naturally to me. Obviously it’s not always possible but having regularish feed and sleep times plus bath routines help establish a rhythm to the day.

I was never someone who just did my own thing and expected the baby to fit in though. They slept in their cot at home so it’s not for everyone.

Agree with shirley though that at 6 months they start being more predictable and a bit easier to read.

Largely yes, from a few weeks at least. I’m quite routine oriented so falling into regular patterns comes naturally to me. Obviously it’s not always possible but having regularish feed and sleep times plus bath routines help establish a rhythm to the day.

This ^

To be fair I thought the same, like what do you do if they won’t sleep... do you just keep trying or get on with the next thing?!

Then we enlisted a sleep consultant who implemented a routine, I was mortified but it worked for us.

Our DC knows what to expect, he’s tired at similar times each day, he sleeps the same time every night. It was a shock but it worked.

I used The Baby Whisperer book by Melinder Blau. I thought it excellent and got mine in a good routine from very early on.

See I think mine would stay awake all day if I insisted they slept in the cot! (I’m not kidding!)

@Bornslippery

I used The Baby Whisperer book by Melinder Blau. I thought it excellent and got mine in a good routine from very early on.

I read that. But again - the EASY routine? So they eat and fall asleep, do you wake them and insist they play?

I guess it's not quite what you asked for OP. But @ShirleyPhallus has described exactly what we did with DS too. Doing Feed > Play > Sleep and observing wake windows was a major breakthrough for us and definitely helped DS to be more and more reliable and seemingly 'in a schedule'.

Sorry The Baby Whisperer was by Tracy Hogg

EASY routine for the win

Eat
Awake/play time
Sleep
You time.

It works because baby is fed, changed, has had stimulation and then needs a sleep.
Remember a baby who is overtired will not sleep well.

Also, this all depends on what age your child is.

From a book? No

dd found her own routine and we just fit our life around that. And like a pp mentioned it changed a bit every 3 months or so.

@Toomanymuslins

See I think mine would stay awake all day if I insisted they slept in the cot! (I’m not kidding!)

Mine too 😂 no cot sleeps and he’s 9m

I remember when my twins were not schedulable, so many people told me to get them into a routine early - eg. Feed them every 3 hours, then nap, etc. They said it worked well for them.

And I said but mine want to eat every two hours at least, what did you do, just let them cry for an hour until it was time to feed them? And they said oh no, I never left them crying and hungry. They were never hungry before three hours had passed.

I think a lot of people who bang on about having gotten their baby into a schedule just had babies who were easier 😬 Not always of course, but often.

I did routines but not times iyswim? So after tea, bath - bottle- story- bed. Both mine were very chilled babies, I know I was lucky as nothing I did, just how they are, but we fell into a loose routine quite quickly. Imo too rigid a routine is really restrictive for parents but it totally depends on the baby you have. The few times i tried to implement a stricter timetable routine i just got stressed. I used The Baby Whisperer book and learnt to follow cues as to when they were tired etc.

That baby whisperer routine nearly had me having a nervous breakdown when dc1 was a baby!

(I probably DO have awkward sods.)

Lived for routine with my twins.

Woke them up from naps which according to all my family was tantamount to child abuse but I needed to have them doing the same thing at the same time for my sanity.

They’re still amazing sleepers now at 4. I haven’t got up with them in the night more than 5 times since they were 6 months old.

I think you either birth a routine baby or you don't. I've had both. DS was NOT a routine baby at all and I cried several times trying to get him onto one. As you say, what if they're hungry before the scheduled time? You just leave them?! And what if they Eat then fall resolutely and unwakeably Asleep and then wake up ready to Play? Or even ready to Eat again?? No one ever gave me a satisfactory answer as to what I was supposed to do if the baby just would not do what they were supposed to do - even for order based routines rather than time ones. It was usually implied that it was my fault and I just wasn't trying hard enough. But DS fell into a deep coma after EVERY feed for months and months and months. And wouldn't last three hours during the day.

Then I had DD. Classic EASY routine, regular nap times by four months old. Still wouldn't sleep in the cot, but at least you knew where you were with her! So I realised all my inadequacy with DS and his non-routine was actually that although I had read the baby books, he hadn't!

I tried to get my baby to get into a routine early on because I thought it was the done thing. It only frustrated me and made me anxious, so in the end I just followed his cues and plodded along. Then at around 8 months old he had got himself into a pretty good routine with two naps and a decent bedtime, and I didn't dare disturb it. He thrived on routine and he would go nuts if we travelled or went anywhere where he couldn't have his usual naps and mealtimes. So I'm guessing it's just down to your baby's personality.

For the record, after more or less sticking to his routines for a good two years he decided to ditch it and just did whatever he wanted. Still does.

I was too out of it to try and follow a routine, but my DS just put himself in to one within a few months which we just went with.

We sleep trained at 7 months though because he was a constant night waker and I was going to have a breakdown... it worked brilliantly and I’d recommend it. Use a proper consultant if you’re not sure what to do.

For the first 2 months or so we were very much baby led with feeding and sleep and then we introduced a night time routine prob about 10 weeks, bath, bottle, bed and stuck to it, we would also get her to nap at same time every day. And as DD got more into 4 hourly feeds we stuck to a bottle at 7, 11, 3, 7 and just rolled with it. Agreed as she got older her routine would change for naps etc but we would adapt and stick to it... And still do. She is like clockwork. So although we didn't read a book, we put in place a routine that works.

Currently pregnant with twins and plan to try to get into a routine asap with them to make life as easy as you can with twins and a 20month old 🤣

I read about 2, 3 4 on here. So asleep two hours after they wake. Again 3 hours later after waking and then bed 4 hours later. Was very lucky my two kept to that.i got them into a routine from about 4 months as they were going to a crèche at 6 months and I wanted to make life easier for everyone.