Routine

[Hunnybunn72]

Help, i just haven't got a clue what I'm supposed to be doing and everyone keeps asking me what my routine is!! How and when should my two month old sleep during the day time? And same for feeding please ?? Thanks xxx

Well, tbh, a routine only works and is worth doing if its what you want. There will be many a MNer who.will tell you just go with the flow and he is too young for a routine at two months but I had a routone for (now 16mo) dd from day one:

Fed at 7,10,1,4,7 in the daytime
Put down for a sleep 45mins after she last woke
Dream feed at 11pm then she woke us at 3am for.milk (this stopped at 12wks)
Bath, bottle bed by seven.

So
7am - up, bum change, milk, cuddles and playmat
7.45am - swaddled and sleep
8.30am - up, playmat cluddles
9.15am - swaddled and sleep
10am - up, bum change, milk, play
10.45am - swaddled and sleep this one usually longer
12.15 - up, bum change, play
1 - bottle and down for sleep
and so on til
6.15 - bath, 6.30 bottle, 6.45/7 - bed

i have a 3 month old bf. im flexible to his needs and try and watch his cues. we try and follow sleep time routine but he feeds on demand
he has had a 7pm bedtime routine since he was 1month old. bath activity such as story reading then bed. i try to put him down for 3 naps a day once after morning feed, once about midday and if hes tired one later. i bf him and stay with him whilst he naps because he wakes in a rage if im not there. at night its better. he sleeps till 3 wants a feed then back to sleep till 5.30 / 6am where i bf then squeeze another hour in sleepytime till we get up

This is hard to answer as it depends so much on your and your baby's personalities, and on how you're feeding your baby (breast or bottle). Do you feel like you want a routine? I never really had one with dd and for me it made life easier as we could get out and about and not be restricted by nap/feed times. She was a terrible sleeper and napper and I felt a lot better when I gave up trying to 'make' her sleep at regular intervals! We kind of drifted into a morning and evening routine as she got older.

We took to the advice from Rachel Waddilove which talks about flexible routine. Sample-of-one but DD is a generally cheerful toddler who sleeps well at night so I think it works!

We started with an early evening massage-bath-feed-bed-story routine after which she went in her basket. We didn't put a night-time routine together, just put her back in the basket if she woke before 6 or 7ish. We have never managed to pursuade her to nap in basket or cot during the day (pram or pushchair instead).
I can't remember the detail but I think that at 2 mo she'd have been on about 4-hourly feeds with activity and naps wrapped round that. I do remember that just as we thought she'd settled to a routine it would fall apart, simply because they're growing and changing so quickly at that age.

I never had a routine in 3 children, and one of them even has autism.

Having said that, routines do naturally develop. For example, I will bf ds about 15 mins before I have to go out on the school run, and he tends to then fall asleep in the buggy, meaning that when ds gets home I have about half and hour with him and an additional 15mins to get dinner started before baby wakes and I have to change his bum and possibly feed him again.

So, routines kind of operate around what you want or need to do without too much arbritrary input. Just get through the day and you'll find that your baby behaves certain ways at certain times before/after food and that you can move this around for your convenience as is needed.

My DS is 10 months and I have only just got him in a routine now... Don't stress! I loosely followed the baby whisperer EASY (eat, activity, sleep,you) to get him used to not using a bottle to sleep,but that's about it!

We started with a bed time routine of having a bath at 7pm and between 7-10 weeks DD brought her own bedtime forward from 10ish to 8ish. She's now 15 weeks old. I feed her 3hrly throughout the day (FF) and she sleeps from 8pm-8am. In the day she's has a feed then plays on her playmat or just has a wriggle on the floor, sofa, bed. She'll usually be awake for about 2hrs then she naps for about 30mins. I let her get into this routine on her own really. Just watch there cues for feeding and tiredness and hopefully it will fall into place?

How are where should she/he be feeding and eating?
wherever is right for you and the baby.

As the weeks turn into months you'll get to know what works for your baby and your new lifestyle as a mum and you'll get to be able to predict that the baby will be expecting a sleep soon/doesn't normally feed much at this feed etc
This is when you'll realise that the day has a bit of a routine to it.

At 2 months I would say that you may soon find she/he won't just drop off to sleep without help from you (be it the buggy/car journey/sling/feed to sleep etc). This is when it becomes helpful to keep an eye on the clock and if they are grumpy 90 mins (as it was for me) after waking, they are probably tired. Its very easy to miss sleepy cues, especially the first one in the morning when you can't believe they need a nap so soon after getting up - if you miss a nap they end up grumpy all day.

I really wanted to put my DS into a routine but he wasn't having any of it! he has not read Gina Ford, or the Baby Whisperer or anyone else...I found this very stressful and a cause o much anxiety for weeks!

In the end, by about 12-15 weeks I decided to give up hoping he would do what Gina said, and decided to just watch his cues (ie. when is he tired? put him down for sleep! Is he hungry, feed him!), and lo and behold, now at 20 weeks, we are in a routine, albeit one of his devising which i would never have chosen

Things tend to happen at roughly the same time every day, within an hour, and I have not done anything to affect this: but he basically has 5 bottles per day, and 4 naps which can be 30 mins or 40 mins long.

It's not perfect, I would really prefer him to nap for longer, but he just won't so I have given up ifightin it. This is his routine, and he seems ok with it, so I just have to work round it I reckon!