sleeping. should i try get a routine from birth?

[luluzulu]

how do i get my newborn to sleep at night instead of all day? advice on what you lot did would be gratefully appreciated thanks

Trying for a routine from birth is futile and will only cause grief for everyone.

Breastfeed whenever he cries.

I just kind of expected them to wake every 2-3hrs to feed for at least the first 6w. If they went a bit longer at night it was a bonus

And waking every 2-3 hours is normal and healthy for a newborn. Some wake more frequently

Cluster feeding in the evening also normal

The only thing I started straight away was a bath at 6pm, feed and into bed by 7pm in the hope he would sleep a bit in the evening and then DH and I could have some evening together.

i fed on demand and they worked it out themselves!

Go with the flow mainly but try and get lots of daylight during the day and keep it quiet at night to help set their body clock... eventually...

I did exactly the same as Collision - it worked very well for us - I always put DS in his own cot (and own room but I know that's very unpopular on Mumsnet ) at bed time - we did this as soon as we got home from hospital - 7 days old - and this routine worked really well, DS is now 10 and has never had issues with 'going to bed'.

Totally disagree with CoteDAzur - but obviously every baby and family is different .

Oh, mine seemed to work it out for himself, though in the first few weeks, the growth spurt and cluster feeding tendency had me convinced he was oblivious. We always gave a bath etc at around 6, he now has a massage and goes to bed then (he's 18 weeks). Actually, he has done that from day one but in the early days would have to get up for cluster feeding etc after about 2 hours. About 3 weeks in he left it longer and longer and now I wake him for a 10.30 or 11 pm feed, he wakes me once more and then we get up around 7. IF we're not in sleep regression mode, but that's a whole other thread...

Agree with porpoisefull.
All of mine fed (BF on demand) pretty randomly day or night for the first weeks but I tried to differentiate between night and day immediately.

I had a small red light bulb in a lamp to use at night. This was a very dim light and I kept quiet so that baby got as little stimulation as possible in the night-time hours.

thanks for advice all. can i ask what is cluster feeding? also want to ask what you lot think of washing powder and fabric softner? do you buy the stuff specifically designed for babies? are the chemicals too harsh in the likes of bold and comfort? and if you did buy specially recomended baby wash powder, at what age did you change over to what you had previously used? i have no quarms about using the nice baby stuff myself aswell but do they work out more expensive?

Cluster feeding is where you try to ram as much milk as possible into them in the hope that they will then have a full tummy for longer (& so sleep for longer!). Are you keeping a log of when your DC feeds? You might find he's doing it himself? I used to feed DD1 before & after bathtime, but I can't remember what age she was!

DD2 is 9 days old & feeds anywhere between every 45mins & 5hours. I do as the others have said, try to get out in the daylight and keep everything very quiet at night. The last few nights she's fed roughly every 3hrs during the night which I think is pretty good for her age.

Hope you are sleeping whenever the baby sleeps? I'm making the most of DH being off work & getting back in bed at every available opportunity. Once he's back at work I'll only be able to sleep when both DD's are sleeping!

Oh, and the washing powder thing - I think you are supposed to use non-bio(??) With DD1 I used the "baby" stuff but with DD2 I'm just using my usual Ecover (non bio) stuff.

I would not try to impose any kind of routine on a baby less than 6 months old, it just smacks of making extra work for yourself. Trying to feed a sleepy baby, trying to get a stimulated baby to sleep etc, just go with the flow, they need lots of feeding and lots of sleep at that age.

When they were little I just put mine down in the moses basket/pram in the living room whilst we were up, then transferred to cot when we wanted to go to bed.

They do find their own routine I think, all 3 of mine were sporadically sleeping through by 6 months (by that I mean generally sleeping through, but muchly disturbed by illness/teething, sometimes randomly wake for a drink).

We didn't do any kind of sleep training, but we did put them in own cot from birth, picked them up when upset, just generally muddled through.

Do you have a newborn? Or are you pregnant? The type of baby you get is very important, my dd was colicky and was a nightmare from 6pm-12am, then would sleep 6 hours, have a bottle/burp and sleep again for quite awhile.

My ds1 was no trouble at all apart from pesky wind, would wake every 3 hours for the first 6 months though.

DS is 12 weeks now and we've been in quite a good little routine since about 6 weeks, although he is now ff and i'm guessing it's a lot easier to get into a routine when ff than bf, as you know exactly how much they're getting at any one time?

I started loosely following the Gina Ford routine (wildly unpopular here on MN ), binned it after 2 days as found was too rigid (12-2pm asleep in a darkened room, impossible if you actually want to go out with baby and have a life!) BUT I have been following her principles of nap and sleep times during the day. i.e. don't let baby sleep longer than 2- 2 1/2 hrs hours at any one time during the day, and don't let them stay awake any longer than 2 hours (depending on age of your baby) or they'll get over tired. I think adopting these has encouraged DS to sleep more at night and gradually for longer.

So for example, DS will go down for short morning nap of 30-45 minutes about 9am. I will wake him by 10am. Then for a longer nap of a couple of hours anytime from 11.30- 2.30pm (I let DS dictate this if we're out and about, if at home I will put him down in that darkened room!), then a short 15-30 minute nap between 4 and 5pm, just to see him through until bedtime, otherwise he won't feed well and will be hysterical.

At 6ish, we'll give him a bath, massage and dress him, and then feed him quietly in his darkened room, before putting him to bed in his cot in his room. He now will sleep until 10-10.30pm, then we feed him again, before taking him to bed with us, either in his basket or in our bed. He'll then wake between 3 and 5am for a feed, before sleeping again until 6-7am.

I think if you are a routine sort of person, then it's worth perservering with for your sanity, and DS got the hang of it after a week or so. Now during the day I do let him dictate his sleep, but perhaps gently guide him to having a nap/waking him up after a while. Now he wakes up after the 'correct' times (probably wrong word but I know what I mean!).

With a really newborn though I would expect them to wake and feed every 2-3 hours whatever time of day to feed to be honest. The main bonus of DS having a bit of a routine now is that DP and I have an evening together, and I know that DS will sleep for the best part of it! Ultimately they will get themselves into their own little routine anyway after a few weeks- but you can gently guide them.

Forgot to say- DS has pretty much same feed times every day too, give or take half an hour; during the day he goes no longer than 4 hours between feeds, so he gets a good quota of milk during the day so can go longer at night, but as I said before, he's ff so might not work if you're BF?

Yeah, you can do that when they're bf too - I used to feed DD1 every 3hrs (or earlier if she wanted) during the day & on demand throughout the night. Will do the same with DD2 once she starts going l

Yeah, you can do that when they're bf too - I used to feed DD1 every 3hrs (or earlier if she wanted) during the day & on demand throughout the night. Will do the same with DD2 once she starts going longer between feeds by herself.

Cluster feeding for me felt like hours in the evening where he cried for boob, and fussed off, and cried, and fussed off, and my boobs never filled so it seemed as if he wasn't getting enough, for about 5 hours at a time, between 8 and 1 in the morning, then we both passed out on the sofa. This was a common first month experience for us.

No routine, but I encourage lots of daytime naps (every 2 hours at least) and feed (FF) on demand. She doesn't sleep through, but at 11 weeks goes from 7pm to 5 or 6am with just one nightfeed (a quick one and straight back down). Nice to have some evening time, but CANNOT wait for a 12-hour stint of sleep!

PossetFeatures, may I ask how do you actually put your DS down to nap during the day? Do you just place him in the mosses basket and hope for the best? Because like duckypoo, I wonder how do you actually get an awake baby to sleep or a sleepy baby to feed?

The only thing you can do with a newborn is encourage them to distinguish between night and day. We had a bath and bedtime routine from day one, although the timing changed each day depending on when our DS got naturally tired or had a feed that roughly coincided with 'bedtime' etc. Things like a different, quiet place to feed your LO at night than during the day. Make things bright, noisy during the day and calm and quiet at night (speak in whispers) etc. I fed DS with lights low, no noise, in our bedroom at bedtime and downstairs in the lounge during the day. This all helped my DS fall into a really good bedtime very early on, giving us our evenings back from around 8 weeks i think.

Hi Lilham, getting sleepy DS to feed is nigh-on impossible, will fall asleep with his mouth wide open! That's why I try and second-guess when he will be tired (and not feed just before nap times mentioned above during day if poss) and use principle of if he's been awake for 2 hours, or coming on 2 hours, then even if he looks pretty perky, he will actually fall asleep pretty quickly if put down. For morning nap I do put down in moses basket, but there is the odd day when DS doesn't seem to want to go to sleep and fights it, and if I have chores to do and don't want to be going back and forwards to basket, then I will put him in a sling and he falls asleep straight away.

For lunchtime nap, if i'm in the house I do put him down, and mostly he goes to sleep pretty quickly, but now he's a bit bigger he is more awake during the day, so he often doesn't sleep that long now in his basket at this time (maybe an hour or so). What I will often do if i'm staying in during the day is have lunch on the sofa and then watch tv or MN whilst DS lies next to me with blanket over him, as he likes being close to me and drops off quickly.

Late afternoon nap is the hardest to get him to do, but he needs at least 15 mins as if he doesn't have this he'll be hysterical and overtired by bedtime, and won't feed at all as will fall asleep on the bottle. Do 'make' him do this, I don't tend to put him down in basket, but have on the sofa again or just cuddle him, and he'll fall asleep.

I must add that I do use a dummy with him to help send him off to sleep and it works a treat, although I do realise that this isn't a popular method with a lot of people . Don't mind using it with DS though as he doesn't NEED it to fall asleep, and will often refuse now as currently obesessed with his fingers and thumb- it just helps speed things up during the day for the naps!

I don't agree with controlled crying (he's way too young anyway), but I feel comfortable now leaving him for only a couple of minutes to cry if i've put him down and I know he's tired whilst I finish say washing bottles/hanging washing up/taking a dump , before going back and reassuring, stroking him and putting dummy back in. I try not to pick him up though, unless he's really not settling and I need to crack on with things (sling comes into play here). More often than not he will nod off after a couple of 'dummy inserts'.

Just realised i've waffled on here a lot - i'm really not an expert as DS is my first and i'm learning as I go along, but the above seems to be working for us. I think a lot of Gina Ford is crapbags and too rigid, but the sleep principles are really good I think and make sense- worth a read and then take the bits from it that you like!

Also what Matana said, and what duckypoos said about the type of baby you have playing a big part in it- my next DC might not be so cooperative!

Thanks PossetFeatures, your post has been really helpful.

No worries!