So, if I don't 'do' routine with DC2, will they just fall into one?

[kwaker5]

Or will I end up never getting a full night's sleep and having them grizzling all day?

She's only 8 weeks but I'm finding it harder to see much of a pattern in sleeps/feeds this time round because I don't have the 'luxury' (?) of devoting much time to it with DC1 around. Although DC1 seemed 'pre-programmed' from about 8 weeks to some extent!

ATM, just getting her into the routine of eat/play/sleep isn't happening.

Well not a routine as such, but check how long your DD is happy to stays awake for. At 8 weeks, with DS2, he would only stay awake for about 1.5 hours. At three months, it was about 2 hours. So he'd wake up, I'd feed him, he'd stay awake for a while, and put him to bed after 1.5 hours. It added a bit of predictability to what we were doing but not a routine as such, as it changed every day depending on how long he would sleep at night and during the day.

DS was like clockwork when it came to amount of time he could stay awake. DD, however, seems to be able to take power naps when feeding (just a few seconds) that throw everything out. Plus I can't stay at home all day everyday clock-watching this time round. So a typical day might start with a nap after 1.5 hours, but then goes pear-shaped for the rest of the day if I am out with DS (10 min nap in the car, awake for a bit then 30 mins nap in pushchair, etc. etc.)

It's hard because the second one has to 'fit in' with the first one. I only had 18 months between my 2 boys so the oldest one wasn't at school yet, had very little activities outside the house, so maybe it was a bit easier. Anyway, have you got a car seat that you can transfer directly onto a pushchair? It might help a bit to keep your DD asleep from one place to the other.

never tried to enforce routine but as we do things the same times every day roughly ds fell in with dd and now sleeps same times. he used to sleep much more (bless him!)

8 weeks ...very early days.

The Easy routine from baby whisperer is very good for people who don't want to do routines and want their baby to settle into one by themselves.

Kwaker There is an 18 month age gap between my boys, and it was def harder to 'get' ds2 into a routine. I am a huge fan of routines, but for a while, thought f-it, I'll just try going with the flow to see what hapens. I stuck to ds1's routine mostly, had to really, you know, just same meal times, same playgroups etc and then slowly started adding new things in.
I keep a little diary of what the boys do and at what times each day. Was very useful at first because I had all the information written down and could spot if there was a natural pattern to ds2's stuff and could see where I could tweak it to fit me iyswim.
The down point of routines, as you may already know, is at this early age, as soon as you think you've cracked it, something ahppens (feeding habits, sleep patterns etc) to mess it all up anyway, My freakish OCD mind thinks that if I keep a diary, I will see early on when these things are happening and will be able to tweak other things to fit it for less difficulty. I sound like a crazy person don't I? Maybe the meds need upping

Thanks for the input. We have a pretty busy summer with weekends away and stuff so once we get to September I'll see if I can make any sense of when DD needs to nap.

It suits me for her to be portable at the moment because I can stick her in a carrier and she will sleep in there OK if DS and I are out somewhere.

She does well at night (just one night feed and then she wakes at about 7am) so I can't complain. The daytime grizzling doesn't seem as bad this time round!