Safe thread for those using Gina Ford/Babywhisperer routines

[MrsGangly]

Can we please have a thread dedicated to those wanting or trying to follow some routine, however strict or vague, rather like the attachment parenting thread, so we can encourage one another and get and offer advice without the bunfight that it invariably turns into from people who don't believe it is the way to go?

As I have said elsewhere, parents parent in different ways depending on them and their child (only have one but I imagine it changes a bit for each one) so let's all respect different people's choices.

If you don't 'approve' or 'believe in' routines and things work for you, that is great, but let's leave this for people who want to use some sort of routine.

Thank you.

Well I don't think 5 months is too late As long as you're consistent things will work out fine after a few days.

Thanks for the advice. She woke up as usual 45mins into her lunchtime nap, so I went in there, sat down next to the cot and stroked her head, shushing her and thinking 'this'll never work' because she was screaming blue murder. But within five minutes - five! - she was off again. Magic. She slept well for the rest of her nap and was lovely all afternoon. Thank you so so much for the encouragement x

Hi, Im definitely a fan of the routine but would love some advice from other mnetters with how to get a more concrete structure!

Im pretty pleased with how things are going with DD. She is 11 weeks on Sunday and is EFF.

She is not big on sleeping during the day unless we take her out in the pram/car. If we are in for the day she will rarely go down in her cot.

However, sleeping at night is great and has been for a while - she will often go for 10-11 hours on a night!

Feeding is still a little all over the place (though better since I stopped EBF). She can go for 2-4 hours between feeds.

Oooh, what a good idea. We used Gina Ford (although adapted a few bits to suit us) from week one with DS and DD - they're twins and I needed to get into a routine or I would never have had clean clothes/dinner/a moment to myself to go and have a wee. They're now v well adjusted 3.9 year olds who still sleep 12 hours a night (praise the lord!) If anyone wants some tips on how to adjust routines for twins then send me a message :)

Thank you Toddlerwrangler and SPF for posting you routines, it's really helpful to see what others are doing.

Can I ask those on this thread, when at the stage ds is (10 weeks) did you put dc upstairs to bed at 7/8pm-ish, and then wake them again at 10pm-ish for a further feed, or did you take them up to bed later at 10pm and bring the time gradually forward?

I am giving GF a go at the moment too - though not to the letter, as many others have said. My DD doesn't sleep during the day as much as GF says she ought to, but does sleep well at night - in general from 7pm ish to 5.30am ish, when she starts to be a bit whingey. I think this is due to hunger. I try to give her a feed at 10pm ish, but cannot keep her awake long enough to take anything more that 2-3 oz, so any hints on how to improve this would be gratefull received.

Another thing I have found a bit strange is when she says that if you haven't fed you baby by x time, don't at all as it will put them off their next feed. I don't think I could do this!

DinahRod I have started putting DD up in her cot just this last week - she is 16 weeks! All of a sudden I have an evening to go on MN do the ironing .

Will post my routine tomorrow.

MrsGangly brilliant thread!

I was doing baby whisperer but about 3 weeks in DD got a cold so all bets were suddenly off. She is now (hopefully) recovering from a horrible tummy bug and I am demand feeding v frequently, but planning to go back onto 4hr EASY as soon as she is better.

Marking til then! :)

DinahRod

From about 6 weeks ish, Alf has his 7pm bottle in his nursery, then he went in his moses basket in his cot 'till his dream feed, after which his moses came in our room for the night.

This wroked really well as it got him used to his cot and he just seemed to twig that his nursery was his sleeping place :)

Flossie69 - I tend to read her advice as 'make sure you have fed before this time' so you dont get to the situation that baby is hungry to close to the next routine feed. I agree that a hungry baby should be fed, I suppose in the routine section of the book there just isnt enough room for plan A, B and C if feedtime slips!

dinahRod DD went into her moses basket in our bedroom at 8pm from about 4 weeks i think and we then did a dream feed at 11pm as we went to bed. I used to put her down for naps in her big cot during the day so she always knew that her cot was a sleeping place too. Made the transition from moses basket to cot much easier.

my theory for putting her in her moses basket in our bedroom at 8pm was that she would never get any real sleep if she was down in the living room with us and we would never decompress if we had to tiptoe around her sleeping.

Rhubarb Excellent news, its weird how they can go from screaming so hard they look like they'll burst to fast asleep isn't it?!

Dinah With DD2 she started going up to bed in her cot at about 7/7.30pm each night when she was about 7 wks old, I then wake her at about 10.30pm when we go to bed to change nappy and feed her and then she sleeps in a crib in our room overnight. With DD1 she was about 12wks before we managed to do this reliaably but she was a much trickier baby. For both girls though, we started doing it when they were managing to sleep from consistently in the evening with us downstairs, usually in a rocker chair.

Flossie With DD1 she wouldn't wake enough for a 'dreamfeed' at 10.30pm so we gave up on the concept of dreamfeed and properly got her up, lights on, nappy change and then a feed. By the time we got to the feed she was awake enough to take a decent feed. Maybe try that one night?

Well, its all gone to hell in the Chunki house. DD1 has just learnt to walk and is consequently exhausted the whole time and for 'exhausted' read crying, grumpy, angry etc etc. Her normal 2 hr nap at lunch doesn't seem enough some days and other days she doesn't want to sleep at all. I don't know whether I'm coming or going!

DD2 had her 12wk jabs today and combined with a growth spurt makes for a very grumpy baby, if I'm not holding her she screams - not like her at all, she has always been quite an independent neglected second born baby. So all in all today has been pretty sh*t!

oh and we moved her permanently to her big cot at 9 weeks when her head and toes were brushing the ends of the basket.

Dinah some breast fed babies like cluster feeding in the evening in the early days, so it is difficult to get them down sooner. However I eased both my new borns bed times forward slowly over many days, as both were unsettled in the early days in the evening. DD I think by 4 weeks in, she was being a gem and settled by 7pm and then I dream fed her at 10pm, DS was a different story as he had colic and screamed every night for 3 hrs, so I didn't master bedtime with him until 10 weeks.

Flossie if I couldn't get mine to take the dream feed then I would leave them until they woke. It was never as bad as I thought it would be if they didn't take much at that feed tbh IYSWIM?

Chunki those developmental milestones do foul things up don't they? Once mine began walking they were more tired so I actually ended up giving them a nap at 10.30am and then again at 3pm for a while, as they needed it.

Chunki I already do this - lights, nappy change, telly even - but she is used to sleeping through all sorts!! All of the above wakes her up enough only for the 2 oz. Once she is done there is no getting the teat past her little rosebud of a mouth!

teanandcake I have thought about just leaving her, especially on a weekend night - may try this again tonight. Last time I did it she woke at 3am, but maybe tonight will be better!

Our routine is:-

6.30 Wake
7 am Bottle
8 am Starts to yawn, nap time for about 45 mins. This is generally in cot.
10.30 - 11 ish bottle
12ish -2ish nap of 1 hr somewhere here. This is generally under her playgym - last time I put her in her cot here she made it known she just was not sleepy!!!
2-2.30pm Bottle
3.45 - 4.30 - Some sleep in car while we pick up DS from school.
5.45 Get ready for bed, often bath (but not everynight)
6.15 bottle
7ish into cot, bit of a yell, to sleep generally quite quickly.
7.30pm glass of wine
10.30-11 ish, nappy change and wake for a top-up, then straight back down.

As you can see its not to the letter of Ms Ford, but following the general shape. But it wasn't until I strated GF that I brought the bedtime bottle forwardd, and this really made sense, as before she was having an extra bottle at 5pm, then bedtime one at 7pm, and then she was overtired and much more colickly.

That's pretty good if she only wakes at 3am. However I suppose the aim is getting them to sleep through

Fantastic idea for a thread. My DD is now 27 months old but I just wanted to chime in to say we used GF from birth and woke to eat at set times etc according to the book (though we allowed some of her naps out in the buggy so I wasn't housebound) and she thrived on the strict routine - sleeping through the night at 13 weeks (though we woke her at 11pm each night for her last feed of the day). She was textbook GF baby and is today a very good sleeper (except when ill or teething!).

If she hadn't conformed to GF then I would have tried Baby Whisperer. We decided on a routine from birth because I like routines and it suits our family.

Good luck to you all :-)

APer runs through the routine room, sticks out tongue, runs away.........

Toddlerwrangler bashes highlander with her latest copy of GFs 'contended toddlers' as she runs!

I loved the BW idea of routine because it didn't say 'at X time' but just 'A then B then C'
DD was a really easy baby who, although never a great sleeper, has always been really manageable and I loved the tips on how to deal with settling etc.
I still fed on demand, but as the routine was underway from the 2nd month, that demand was roughly every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day. It was all really predictable.
As for pick up, put down - Whether it works for you or not, the secret is not so much what you do, but that you are consistent.

I fed both my girls on demand and waited for their own little routines to settle. They happened to sit pretty much in with the Gina Ford book - I didn't read any books, but when I looked at the contented baby book at my friends I found that my 6 week old at the time followed her routine pretty much (except I thought my routine was better as I don't believe in ever waking a sleeping baby and it lead to both girls sleeping 7 til 7 until about 14/16 weeks with no dream feed).
I still believe in letting my DDs do their own thing, but I also believe in looking at what routine seems to be standard for each age and getting mine to follow that. That may be a contradiction, but I know that my girls - 3 and nearly 1 are pretty average so following an average routine suits them and me.

Well, its all gone wrong here. DD2 is totally off any sort of routine. Both eating and sleeping are completely all over the place, no idea what is wrong with her. She isn't sleeping (normally really good, even self settling) and is fussing at the boob and seems to be permanently starving.

I'm hoping its some awful combination of jabs, a bit of a cold and growth spurt and its all going to come back together soon.

I'm so tired I keep crying, I NEED sleep. Hope we get the routine back on track soon, this shows me how much I need it and rely on it to get us through the day !

just a bump for any lost routiners

I didnt use Gina Ford as i found it too restrictive but i rigidly stuck to a feeding and sleeping routine.
My DD aged 2 is loving, secure, happy and has no eating or sleeping problems.

For me, this is what worked
3 hourly feeds from the early days (as in day 5) and stick with it.
4 hourly from about 7 weeks.
Cut out middle of the night at about 8 weeks. By then you will hopefully be getting 11-6am anyway.
Up to 3 months, daytime naps can be sporadic. After that nap for roughly an hour and a half at 9.30am and another at about 2pm until old enough to go to 1 nap.
I bfed until 4 months then moved to formula.
I didnt do controlled crying although when DD went into her room at 12 weeks we had about 4 nights of tears but we took turns in staying with her until she calmed down. Not sure that is any help to anyone but thats what worked for me.

I've just realised I have no idea how long DS has been snoring next to me here, nor exactly what time I took DD up for her nap today after she threw her ate lunch .... I'm in the wonderfully peaceful limbo of waiting for them to wake. DS will want milk about 3ish, DD will have 2-3 hours sleep on average, then I'll come up with a plan for the rest of the day!

It's a verrrrrry stretchy routine here

I am still cutting down DS's 3am feed. Last night he was offered a pathetic 3oz (he normally gets offered 7 and has nearly all of it) but he still went back to sleep ok afterwards - chatting away to himself really cutely in his cot at the end of our bed, while I pretended I couldn't hear him. I'm hoping we can soon move to just sucking the dummy a bit at 3am and then just not bothering to wake at all! Now, that's my cunning plan, just need to persuade DS it's a good idea .....

good luck lovethesea. We did the same with DD for her 11pm dream feed. once we got to 2oz it wasnt worth making the bottle up so we crossed our fingers and by jove, she slept through.

I did notice she stirred for a few minutes around 11pm but didnt actually wake up.