Does bf = no routine?

[ExistentialistCat]

I've put my question in a very simplistic way to make it fit into a thread title - I'm not trying to be unnecessarily contentious but am curious about people's experiences.

I was unable to bf DD1 but am having much more luck with DD2 (now 11 days old). DD1 quickly settled into a pretty consistent routine largely of her own accord, which suited me very well indeed. By about 8 weeks we could put her down at 7pm and she'd wake for 1 or 2 feeds in the night and sleep until 6 or 7 am. My HV and MW have both said that this would be extremely unusual for a bf baby.

So I'm trying to get my head around whether I need to let go of my inner control freak own need for consistency and predictability in order to follow my baby's cues, or whether there's a happy medium between being baby-led but having some sort of pattern to our days and nights.

What have other people experienced?

Hello again (just answered your other thread!)

IME (3 DC) you have to just Go With It with bf. Once you do, it becomes so much easier

Banish that control freakery!

Not if you don't want it to, and your baby agrees! I bf both mine for a year apiece, and also followed the gf routines. They both fed more often than in the routine, but it doesn't mean they didn't settle easily into their own version of the routine. Had to be more flexible second time round obviously, to fit in with dd1.

IMO a routine is just about getting them up at the same time each day, putting them down for naps at roughly the same time, and a set bedtime routine, and encouraging self settling as and when you can. The feeds all fall into place within that really. Oh, and not fretting when it all goes wrong, or changes as it does every few weeks!

(by the way, both dds had similar patterns of night feeds as yours, except dd1 dropped hers by 7 months and dd2 not until about 11 or12 months - I don't think bf per se has anything to do with it)

Totally agree with you notnowbernard- at least in the early days/months. You'll probably find she falls in to her own
pattern when she's ready.

Glad things are going well.

If you follow your baby's cues you may well find that s/he he finds a relatively predictable routine anyway, although the hard part for your 'inner control freak' is remembering that the routine keeps changing every few weeks....!

Both my DS's were breastfed.

DS1 fed every 3 hours from day 1, and continued this pattern for a few months. Slept 11-5 at night from about 10 weeks. Bedtime gradually brought forward to 9pm by about 3 months, then 7pm by 4/5 months.

DS2 fed much more randomly, about every 2 hours for the first couple of months, stretching out to every 3ish hours by about 3 months, but harder to predict. He also woke for two feeds in the night until he was 6 months old. That was hard compared to DS1 but since he was 6 months he has slept 7-7 brilliantly and DS1 was much harder to settle off to sleep. I just think that's down to their individual personalities.

Our little boy's breastfed, he's 10 weeks today, just starting to fall into a routine, of his own accord (much to my suprise). Its a pretty loose routine, but he generally falls asleep properly about 11pm, then wakes twice between then and 7 ish, then is awake for half an hour or so, then drops off again, and sleeps till 10 ish, then the rest of the day is pretty random, normally has a couple of small naps before he goes to bed properly at 11.

If by routine you mean "rigid feeding schedule" then, as I'm sure you know, this often doesn't work very well with breastfeeding which works on a principle of supply-and-demand.

Or is it more "who drives the routine, mother or baby?" Probably all BF babies settle into their own routines given the chance - of course their routine might not be the one that you would choose.

Of course you also have to allow for developmental changes - every baby is different at 5 days, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months etc ... then you may have unsettled periods due to illness, etc ... the transitions can often seem chaotic, but are much easier to cope with when your expectations are in line with what's normal at different ages.

Good luck! I was a terrible control freak, but my DD soon learned me

I always fell into a routine with mine. Took a wee while and was fairly flexible, but a routine none the less. They were all pretty good through the night. I certainly don't think bottle feeding would have made my life any easier - quite the opposite in fact. Much easier to have it on tap!

Btw, at 11 days I would just worry about getting through the day as best you can and feeding on demand! They just feed and pass out on you, nothing you can or should do about it. Give it another couple of weeks before worrying about routine. Glad the bf is going well.

I reckon it depends on the baby and where they are at developmentally. Early on a routine of any kind was out of the question, but at the moment DD (7.6m) seems to have naturally fallen into a 4 hourly feed BW style routine ie Eat, Activity (to incl solids now), Sleep.

I actually found that I was fretting about getting her to go longer between feeds but one day I just sort of did it, she took to it without a grumble and immediately started waking just ONCE in the night bang on schedule. I feed her at 7, 11, 3, 7, 11 (dream feed) and then around 3.30/4 when she wakes.

She has just had a tummy bug which meant going back onto demand feeding but she has now gone back onto the 7-11-3 pattern of her own accord. Pre tummy bug I was finding the night feed was getting later and later so was looking forward to dropping it altogether - she has slept 'through' (to 5.30 or so) 4 times in her life and I am so excited at the possibility that could be a permanent fixture!

As theboobmeister says though, I don't expect her to stick to a consistent pattern, I know she will have growth spurts, teething etc etc all of which will require more frequent feeding.

But it is nice to know that when she starts at the CM I can just say "she has a milk feed at around 11 and 3" :)

There is definitely a happy medium between being led by the baby's needs and making things manageable for yourself. Doesn't matter if your bfeeding or formula feeding. In my experience, there is no routine for the first 4 - 6 weeks (ish), after that it is possible to aim to have a routine. My DDs were all bfed up to 6months and went to bed around 7pm, and then would need feeding 2 or 3 times overnight (I think) at about 6 weeks, then this gradually improved until they were then mostly able to sleep right the way through from 7-6am from about 12 weeks.

I put my DS1 on to the GF routine at about 8 weeks, because I had no idea when I should be feeding and for how long. The GF helped me hugely (though I never woke him for a feed in the night when she says, I let him wake me).

I expect your DD will get into her own routine if you don't try to impose one. I only did as I was in a right old state - didn't know whether I was coming or going.

My breastfed ds fell into his own routine at night by about 5-6 weeks. Generally bedtime around 9pm, wakes twice in the night around 2am and 5am, and up for the day about 8am.

I'm starting to space daytime feeds now at 8 weeks, but to 2.5 hours rather than 3-4.

Mine both fell into a fairly predictable pattern (not sure if I'd call it a "routine"), but not by 8 weeks -- maybe around 4 months or so?

DD was going to sleep around 7pm and sleeping through to 6 or 7 with a couple of night feeds by 8 weeks, though she took a while longer to settle into a daytime pattern. But I think that was just her being a different character from DS -- both were bf on demand but their sleep was very different.

My DS fell into a routine with a tiny bit of help with sleeping at nearly 6 months (at the same time he stopped asking in the night) which was the equivalent of 3 months corrected age as he was prem. Before then I think he might have managed a routine (he would self settle and sleep 4-5 hours at a time at night from before his due date) then progressively wake more and more frequently in the remaining 19 hours, but I went with the flow. I changed my mind after a particualrly gruelling growth spurt coupled with an occasion when he woke, cried, and while I would have fed him I was doing something I couldn't stop so left him a couple of minutes and realised he was capable of sleeping more than 45 minutes in the daytime. I wish I had tried a bit sooner but I think I had to wait for circumsatnces to suit him and me.

I think it depends on the baby too - IME 'routines' are more about when the baby is able to sleep than when they want to feed. My DS took about 7 months to get into a routine, but that was because his need to sleep was completely unpredictable.

He had his own little 'routine' from 3-6 weeks, but it went out of the window once we hit the 6 week growth spurt.

I breastfed both mine to a routine after two or three weeks, until 6 months

DD2 is 10 days old and she has a routine - it involves not settling between 10 and 2am. fairly consistent over 3 nights now!

Bumperlicious - I would , but actually that sounds shit, so [sympathy emoticon] instead

Im not very routine which helps but all of my 4 have been bf and found their own routine I just dealt with it. DD4 is now 10 wks and has been the easiest. Since 4 days old she has a late feed at 22:30 then I wake her at 07:30(or Id never do the school run). So I get agood nights sleep but she can feed for a large % of the day. Swings and roundabouts.
I know Im lcky and keep waiting for her to wake but she obviously takes after her mother and loves her bed and food

If you have a routine with DD1 you may find that DD2 does settle into a routine which fits with this. I breastfed all three of my dcs. DS1 had no routine. DS2 didn't have a precise routine but fell into a much easier feeding pattern that DS1 straight away. DS3 was born when older DCs were at school and pre-school so my day was organised around school runs and older DCs bedtimes were fixed. DS3 straight away got into a very good routine, probably because he would always sleep during school runs so with a regular sleeping pattern he developed a regular feeding pattern.

This is a really interesting thread - can I ask how people have put small babies down for naps?

with mine (5 weeks) it's just a case of trying to carefully put her down in her basket after she's fallen asleep while feeding or burping (yesterday she woe up every damn time, but then slept like a log for two 3-huor stretches last night!). If she gets over tired then it's 20 minutes of pacing the room singing to get her asleep. Would be nice to be able to plan her sleep for her.

I have always put my ds down when he's awake. If I try it when he's already asleep he is guaranteed to wake up and that's it. To the extent that I try to keep him awake when he's in the pram/car as if I'm only out for 10 minutes that's the length of his nap!

I work on the basis of the first yawn, time for bed, or sometimes if I know he's been up for 2plus hours (but he's older so can stay awake longer)

Leggy that sounds pretty normal for that age. Many babies can't cope with being put down drowsy but awake until after 3-4 months, although some can do it sooner.

Up till 3 months, babies go straight into REM sleep, which means they are easily disturbable. They go into a deeper sleep after 15-20 mins, so it's easier if you put them down after taht long.

After about 3 months, they go straight into a deeper sleep, so it's easier to put them down sooner.

At that age, it'd take 2 hours of trying to get my DS to sleep if he got overtired, so it sounds like you're doing pretty well. :)

My bab is 11 wo now - spent 4 days in SCBU - only advantage of this was came out expecting to be fed every 3 hrs in day, 4 hrs in night and also I was under instruction to wake him to feed - and unbelievably his head did not explode when I did so.

We bf entirely - my approach was to encourage him to feed every 3 hrs but to obey him if he wanted to feed sooner. Now feeds roughly 7, 10, 1, 4 and 6 - have started waking him up at 11 ( stopped this as soon as out of hospital) and he wakes around 3am, then 6-7am. Did have evening feeding frenzy which is only just now settling , so he goes to bed at 7pm.

I'm not sure how to approach nights now - just SHIG, so the answer is I think you can bf to a routine as long as v observant of feeding cues and to let the baby 'over-rule' the routine - I know this sounds a bit mad, but it worked for us as we have learnt to trust each other