15 week old with no routine - do I need to start one?

[Rachski]

HI, after speaking with other mums and looking at the threads I am a bit concerned about my lack of routine. My dd is 15 weeks old and breastfed. I feed her at pretty much the same time each morning (6.30am) although she has been waking up a bit earlier on occasion recently and goes to bed at 10pm each night (she sleeps through the night)but these are the only constants.
I do not put her down for a nap at scheduled times and quite often hold her when she falls asleep. Should I start a routine and if so how as she will be starting husery in 2 months? Also I have noticed a few mums at baby groups giving their babys water and it has been insinuated by one mum that I am doing the wrong thing by only giving milk. Should I be giving her water?

Hi Rachski.
Sounds like you're doing a grand job.
You've got far more of a routine in place than I ever did at that stage.
If what you're doing is working for you and your daughter there is no good reason to impose a routine - you'll just be creating stress for yourself! Listen to your girl and do what works best for you both.
A 15 week old baby definitely doesn't need anything other than your breastmilk.

First of all, if you are breastfeeding you do not need to give water to babies.

As for a routine, it's really up to you. Some people feel more comfortable with having a routine. With my two, we had established a bedtime 'routine' at about 10 weeks, that was bath, a story/cuddle, feed and sleep at pretty much the same time every day. But if your baby sleeps through the night at 15 weeks on breastmilk, stick to what you are doing! If you start changing things around you will probably find that your baby will start waking up during the night...

Speak to the nursery and see what time the babies have their naps during the day and try to get closer to those times as you get closer to your start date.

You so don't need a routine. If you are going back to work soonish, it does help IMHO to have a morning wake up time that means you'll be able to see her and get to work on time, but thats it. DS never had any sort of routine, and he went to nursery at 17 weeks - they fed him EBM on demand, let him nap when he needed it, and would cuddle him to sleep.
BF babies do not need water if they are demand fed.

Thanks for getting back to me, I am choosing the nursery at the moment so I will check what each one says about nap tmes etc, cmotdibbler - your nursery sounds fantastic.

What do you want to achieve?
Sounds like you are all sorted already.
She sleeps through the nights and feeds well. More than a lot can say.
Let the nursery do their job with the scheduled naps and feeds during the day and in the meantime enjoy the next couple of months.

btw, stupid remark about giving water. It's not even like we are in Greece in the middle of August and she might get dehydrated....

It was a great nursery, but any of them should meet your babies needs by giving them what they need, when they need it. We moved when he was 15 months, and obv was used to set mealtimes etc, but he still got to nap when he wanted at the new nursery.
IME any nursery that won't meet reasonable requests (EBM, cloth nappies) is to be avoided.