Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

Original poster

4 Week Old and Baby Whisperer EASY Routine

18 replies

RocketQueen87 · 23/10/2013 16:11

For the last 4 weeks we have ff on demand and gone with the flow with what baby wants in terms of sleep and wake time. Baby has started to feed every 3/4 hours as we try and stretch him a little as he was just taking small feeds often previously.

I'm now thinking about his sleep patterns. He sleeps a lot during the day and this is fine but he only wants to sleep being held. As soon as we put him down he wakes and cries. Sometimes he will then go on to sleep on us or will fight his sleep and become over tired. Nights are a little mixed. Some better than others!! I don't want to co-sleep at this stage and ideally would like to avoid all together.

I've read a few things about the EASY routine and I'm interested to give it a go. I'd like to have some routine to our day as its starting to be easier to just stay in and do nothing, rather than go out and get some fresh air and socialise with other adults!

Have any of you tried the EASY routine and could recommend? We are planning on trying to introduce next week when OH is off! Should i be prepared for a bad few days initially? Any advice or tips you could offer would be most appreciated!!

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

JollyScaryGiant · 23/10/2013 16:14

Please look on the babywhisperer forums. There's a lot of discussion on there, but most folk suggest that in the early days it's very difficult to get DCs into any kind of routine. Avoiding APing sometimes - trying to get DC to sleep unassisted and vaguely moving toward a 3 or 3.5 hour feeding schedule is all you should be working on prior to 12 weeks.

RoadToTuapeka · 24/10/2013 05:09

Agree with jollygiant, 4 weeks very young to try routines. Just go with the flow imo, mine started settling into more of their own patterns around 8 to 10 weeks. That said, EASY is a good pattern in that mine both usually did have a little awake time after a feed, then a sleep, even when very young - sometimes the 'awake' was no more than a few minutes even around 8 weeks sometimes!

And imo take no notice of the so called transition to 4 week routine when your baby is closer to 6 months some babies do, some don't. My first kind of did, but the second is 9 months now and is feeding between every 3 hours to 4, sometimes sooner (eg 6am feed, 8am after breakfast feed, then 11am after a sleep. Don't try to force a routine as it'll only stress you and them.

Hope you are enjoying those lovely baby snuggles, it really does go all to fast. I love the rare days when DS2 can fall asleep on me for day naps as juggling with DS1 it happens all too infrequently.

JollyScaryGiant · 24/10/2013 05:19

I have a 10 week old by the way. Did EASY with DS and we are working on some basics with DD. As RTT says, trading to separate S from E is useful.

Also, the sample 4 week routine in the book has too long A times. At 4 weeks you're really looking at 50-60 min. We are still trying to work out what's best with DD, but an A time of around 1hr15 seems to suit now.

Jaynebxl · 24/10/2013 05:32

In my experience babies find their own routine and you don't need to try and impose one on them. The one biggie for me though was getting them to fall asleep on their own . We did tbis by putting the moses basket in the lounge with us and letting baby sleep where they could still hear us. We used to put them down still awake to play a bit in the basket until they drifted off to sleep. This is the one big piece of advice I would give ... as a result our children have always been brilliant at going off to sleep on their own.

Purplehonesty · 24/10/2013 06:39

Easy is excellent, the key is getting them into bed while they are still awake and letting them drift off by themselves.
Did it with both mine and would highly recommend

ZuleikaD · 24/10/2013 06:43

None of mine would go to sleep without a full tummy.

laughingeyes2013 · 24/10/2013 06:49

With our first baby, we were advised to start a sleep routine at 6 weeks.

I spuffled and snorted privately laughed at the ridiculous idea, but tried it anyway (against my better judgement) and was amazed at the immediate improvement.

I got my evenings back!

laughingeyes2013 · 24/10/2013 06:52

But I agree that they sleep better with a full tum. The routine was:

Bath
Cosy quiet feed upstairs
Settle into bed

There are optional stories and singing lullabies but we skipped those at 6 weeks old, introducing stories when they could be appreciated later.

JollyScaryGiant · 24/10/2013 09:16

Just realised DD is 9 weeks not 10. D'oh.

NoisyBrain · 24/10/2013 10:54

Out of interest, how long 'should' it take baby to fall asleep on their own? I know, I know they're all different lol. I admit I've not tried very hard to get my 7 week old ds to fall asleep by himself so far because he got so upset when I did try, it stressed me out. Do i just need to tough it out? He managed it once without crying, in the early hours. It took him 20 minutes to stop fussing. Does that sounds about right? Sorry for the thread hijack!

ZuleikaD · 24/10/2013 18:15

I wouldn't ever expect a 7 week old newborn to fall asleep by themselves. To be honest I wouldn't really expect a 7 month old to fall asleep by themselves. 7 weeks is definitely too tiny - they need the absolute maximum physical contact you can supply at that age.

hardboiledpossum · 24/10/2013 18:52

some children do fall asleep by themselves that young but it is rare. I wouldn't leave a baby that young to grizzle for any longer than 5 mins and I wouldn't ignore any proper crying.

BonaDea · 24/10/2013 19:04

We fell into the rough EASY pattern after a few months but your LO might yet be a bit small.

My DS slept on me until about 7-8 weeks at which point I started swaddling him and also playing some white noise to help him settle. Read up on safe swaddling before you do this.

Once he was able to sleep 'alone' all be it right next to me in his co sleeper the rest fell into place. I got such a better quality of sleep even although it was broken!

BarbarianMum · 24/10/2013 19:11

I tried the EASY routine for about 6 days when ds1 was few weeks old. I can't remember why, just this feeling that I should be teaching him how to self settle. After 6 days dh pried it from my hands as I wept and binned it. Ds1 feel into an EASY type routine unaided at about 10 weeks and we did teach him to self settle for naps at about 5.5 months. He started sleeping through at 10 months (after I stopped night feeds and made dh sit with him instead).

Based on my experiences, I would say that your lo is very young for this sort of thing - but obviously it's up to you. I just wish I'd waited.

mummytowillow · 24/10/2013 21:45

I loved the EASY routine. It worked really well for us, I fed DD every three hours and by 5 weeks she slept from about 10 til 5.

JollyScaryGiant · 24/10/2013 22:14

DD self settles some of the time. Especially at night. DS really didn't though. She's just a much more relaxed baby than he was.

NoisyBrain · 25/10/2013 12:15

Interesting. I've tried hard to ignore the 'rod for your own back' type comments and I was fairly sure that ds was probably too young to be expected to self-settle (I should point out I didn't leave him alone to cry, just sat next to the moses basket with my hand on his chest). He usually falls asleep on me then I transfer him, although he does drop off in the car too.

bumpitybumpbump · 25/10/2013 15:33

I think it's fine to try and put a routine in place at this age as long as you're prepared to build a lot of flexibility in to it - and please don't worry or stress yourself it if isn't going to plan. Some babies are great with routine from an early age and some aren't. I would also add that even when you have mastered some kind of routine, it's not a magic formula, there will be plenty of occasions where it's interrupted because what worked yesterday suddenly no longer works - so flexibility is good! On the self settling, I think leaving them to grumble a bit with you in the room is a good approach, but I agree that I think proper crying at that age should be soothed.

However I remember one time when my LO was about 3 weeks old and she was clearly overtired, she'd been cluster feeding all evening and I hadn't been able to get her to sleep for love nor money. eventually because I had run out of things to try I just put her in her moses basket and stepped out the room for a few minutes to go to the loo gather my senses. she moaned for about 30 second and then fell fast asleep. I think she was relieved to not be handled anymore she was so exhausted!

I also only started swaddling at 4 weeks on advice of a midwife - I'd been too nervous to before. It made a HUGE difference on getting her to sleep in her cot. Admittedly I had to rock her to sleep but swaddled she stayed asleep when I transferred her.

Flip