Starting to establish a routine for 6 week old

[sophiad]

Hi all

My DD is nearly 6 weeks old, shes formula fed. Goes usually between 3-4 hours between feeds depending on what we're doing in the day etc. She has 4oz and am going to increase to 5oz maybe just at nighttime for time being soon. At the moment she feeds inbetween 6pm and 8pm before a bath etc and I put her down in crib and she goes until around midnight. Basically I know I need to push that feed back until nearer 10pm. I know I should maybe wake her for feed then, but at the moment it means I can go to bed when she does and get a few hours sleep before she wakes again. Then she'll usually wake around 3am and then 6am. Just wondering if I'm doing things right (first baby!) and how I can try to delay feed to later to try to get her to go longer thru the night etc?! Because she changes when she wants feeding during the day it's hard to keep up with feeding times at the moment
Thanks vm

Hi, i am doing the same with my FF 5 week old. At the moment i have her on the following routine: 6-7am feed, 9-10am feed, around 2pm feed, 5pm half feed before bath, 6.30 remaining feed, 7pm bed time. I then wake her up at 10.30pm for a feed. And she will then either wake up or I will wake her up at 3 for a dream feed.
Wondering if anyone has advice on what the next steps are for me too!!

With both of mine I found there was no point in establishing a routine so young - they both naturally started getting into the swing of things around 10 weeks. Continue to feed when baby needs it and slowly bring the feeds into line with where you want them to be.

We FF DD (now 10m) from the outset and dropped the 3am bottle around the 7 week mark, so she was going to sleep at 7pm after a bottle at 6.30pm, then we would give her a bottle & nappy change at 10.30pm then she slept til 7am.
We did Gina Ford and essentially her routines gradually get to a point where you're getting the daily milk requirement in between 7am and 10.30pm (and eventually 7pm), and structure daytime naps so they don't sleep too much in the day. It's not everyone's cup of tea but it worked really well for us.
Nicole your timings sound very similar to the GF routine

It seems abit early to expect a routine and for her to go longer at night. If you hang in there she may do the hard work for you. My DD was similar to yours feeding four hourly and she was going to bed at about 10pm. Between 7-10 weeks she brought her own bedtime forward to 8pm. After a bath at 7pm. Now at 15 weeks she feeds 3hrly during the day 6-7oz between 8am and 8pm and sleeps through(usually I have to wake her up at 8am). This has been happening since about 12weeks.

There's not that much point in thinking about it this much tbh. You will settle into a routine and then one day it will suddenly change!

My DS is FF and was in a similar pattern to yours. At 7 weeks old he suddenly went from his feed at midnight through to 6am. This rapidly changed in length over a week or two until he was pretty much in the following routine:

Feed at 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm.
Bed at 7.
Dream feed at 10pm (because he would start to wake slightly for a bottle).
He would sleep through then until 5:30/6am.

I'd say leave your DC to settle into their own routine. Don't wake them in the night either as you may be introducing a feed that they don't need.
The HV told me that a dream feed when baby is sound asleep would be like someone prodding you at 2am and saying "eat this roast dinner". [Grin]

At 4.5 months my DS has just dropped the 10pm feed and now sleeps 7pm-6am!

Auto correct changed it to a capital!!