Routine - is it real??

[karenferris]

Our DD is 4 months, has been fed on demand since birth and has never slept through the night. We are keen to get a routine started, I've read about feeding every 4 hours but I think it would be a bit too much of a shock for her. We also want to encourage a more structured sleeping pattern. Any advice gratefully received

My dd was demand fed, but I found that she developed her own routine for feeds at about 4 months. Is she showing any signs of always wanting to feed at a particular time of day? If she is then maybe you could work on that to try and structure her feeds a bit more, if that's what you want to do.

I like the Baby Whisperer's (Tracey Hogg's) approach of eat, activity and then sleep. It is a structure which remains child-centred. DS took to it like duck to water. Google

Also FYI, at 6 months old is excl BF + some solids now and can only go 2.5-3 hours between milk feeds.

HTH

well, forget feeding every 4 hours (that's for bottle fed babies isn't it?)

basically the trick is to find the existing pattern and then move feeds round bit by bit until you find something that works. there will usually be some sort of pattern by 4 months - is there?

trick with night feeding is to give no eye contact etc, feed v quickly then put baby back. that is the theory! NB I think most babies sleep through the night for the first time at or after 4 months - your dd is not unusual.

Hi Karen,

Is your DD breast or bottlefed? And does she sleep at all in the evenings. My DS who is 3 now was a dreadfully unstructured baby - no routine at all and I got sick of going to clinic and hearing other Mums tell me about their little angel of 12 weeks who'd been going through the night since 8 weeks.
What I did notice was that at around 16-20 weeks (can't remember for definite( was that we got an evening back. He still woke for feeds several times a night and after six months woke for one feed a night until he finally slept through at 10 months. He was bottlefed (so if you're breastfeeding don't worry about having to introduce bottle feeds as it's no magic cure ).
I started off by cuddling DS to sleep and then putting him down as I was crap at the controlled crying thing and if you don't like leaving her to cry this might be one way of starting her sleeping for a few hours. Mine would then sleep through until about 10-11pm when he'd wake for another feed - then we'd be off on a 3 hourly routine for the rest of the night but having got him used to being cuddled to sleep and then put back down he was easy to replace in his cot after feeds at night (although admittidly I took him in with me sometimes).
She WILL do it - it's hard though when all the babies around you sound as though they are sleeping like angels and yours isn't.

The advice that I vaguely followed was:

change her nappy after a feed, to wake her up; keep her awake after feeds for about an hour

then do everything you can except feeding, to get her to sleep, preferably 45-90 minutes (hah!)

when she wakes up, feed her and start again

this works out to roughly 3-hrly feeds

at night, change nappy if necessary before feeding, so you can just park her back in the cot after feeding

Getting to this is another matter! Dd had no routine. Ds was got into a routine at birth by the lovely people in intensive care.

every 4 hours is way too infrequent (even GINA Ford advises every 2.5-3 hours during day light hours).
You could do worse than look at the GF books (and I'm no fan, believe me; i couldn't stand to live my life by a tight schedule).

Actually, the GF books are good for getting a vague idea of a schedule that a baby of the age of yours could do.

Gina for 4-month-olds is roughly:

up and feed at 7 (or whenever, adjust later times accordingly)
sleep at 9ish for about 45min
feed at 10:30
sleep at midday for a couple of hours and feed when they wake
sleep at 4:30ish for half-hour or so and feed when they wake
feed and bed at 7ish
"dream-feed" at 10 (get them up and feed with as little disturbance as poss - some babies feed in their sleep)

feed when they need it at night (but don't rush in at the first whimper; take your time and she might resettle)

• So, a morning nap a couple of hours after getting up, a nap after lunch, an early-evening nap, bedtime about 12 hours after getting up. Feeds about 3-hourly. Naps can be in the pram or car if you're out.

This is very, very, adapted Gina Ford!

Must say gf was a great help to me, i demand fed ds for 5 months and was still feeding every 45 mins in the night and he was constantly at breast in day. Granted he was putting on more weight than bottle fed babies, but i was exhausted and didnt enjoy doing it. Once i started gf, felt more relaxed and comfortable and had a little sleep too

i breast fed 1st baby for 8mnth every hour during night an day nightmare! This time bf for 3mths on demand then wanted a routine so went onto bottles. At 6mth he has no night feeds (this has been for last 2mnths) still doesn't sleep though!!!!! So I'd say feeding has only a party to play in the whole sleep business. Sister in law has 5 babies under 2yr all sleep from 6pm till 7am she ignores them if they cry at night they are bottle fed. Maybe express so you can moniter feeds i think its an oz for every month given 4hrly?

Five under 2?

Yep she makes me sick shes soooo organised she had triplets via IVF then two more by accident lol.

Hi Karen. My DS is almost 5 months and has a slight bedtime routine. Basically, he doesn't give me obvious hunger signs so I offer him a feed every 2.5 to 4 hours during the day. So he is effectively demand fed. However, every night, around 7pm, we bath him, get him ready for bed, feed him in bed and then put a lullaby on and lights out. It's sometimes still a bit variable whether he will nod off easily though! But having a little bit of a bedtime routine seems to help all of us.

He usually wakes 1 or 2 times to feed during the night. What time is anyones guess! He then feeds about 4 times during the day.

Personally, I would follow your DDs cues and see when she wants to sleep etc during the day. But would try and implement a bit of structure into the bedtimes.

Thanks for all the messages - working on a 3 hour feed routine and it's ok, much better than expected. Still can't understand why she's knackered at 17.10 after a feed at 3pm!!

In a similar boat to you Karen. Our dd is 12 weeks and breastfed on demand. Dont like the idea of strict routines, but desperate to get some kind of structure to the day - for her benefit and mine! Main problem is she gets over-tired and then really grumpy as a result, because she wont nap during the day. Gets tired but wont let herself go. Used to just fall asleep until she was about 2 months and then became more alert and aware. Falls sound asleep after a feed but if you put her down asleep cries when she wakes up in cot. Have read the Baby Whisperer and Baby Secrets (sounds similar to Gina Ford) and these routines make so much sense but finding it hard to get her onto the eat, play, sleep pattern when she wants to eat, play, cry, eat, sleep, cry, play, eat...... The fact that she's quite windy and seems to have tummy ache alot prob not helping either.

Reading from others about their babies establishing their own routine at 4 or 6 months certainly engenders hope that things can improve! Thinking of cranial osteopathy as have heard it can help with sleeping and digestive probs.