No routine..

[arthurfowlersallotment]

I'm wondering if anyone else found it difficult to get into any kind of a sensible routine with a new baby?

I have a 7 week old DD and we don't have much in the way of a routine for sleeping or feeding. (She is bf). I kind of let her lead the way. She doesn't sleep an awful lot and still cluster feeds. I also comfort nurse her when she's upset (MIL said the dreaded 'rod for my own back' line when she heard that one).

It's not like I can look at my watch and say 'ooh she needs a feed in x minutes'. I just wait until I get the hungry cry.

I've made a couple of half hearted attempts to get a routine going but DD often scuppers it! She goes to bed around the same time every night- about 11pm- and that's about as regular as we get.

I'm wondering if the more experienced of you on here could offer any advice as to whether I am f*cking myself over for the future weeks, and if I should start imposing a little order now? What kind of a routine did you have for your newborn baby?

I found that attempts at routine with a wee one were pointless as newborns just arent built that way :o
So I stuck with just following their lead but always being sure that they were used to going to sleep in different ways - in a sling, in the pushchair, in the cot etc.
I also deliberately 'lost' any dummies at 5 months (and never encouraged them to get to attached to them anyway)
Then at 6 months I found it not too tricky to have a routine - morning nap, lunchtime nap, bedtime at 7 etc. FWIW I didnt manage to continue bf beyond 6 months but that wasnt due to a routine.
I function much better with a routine - my ds is now 10 and to this day is much happier with a routine/some clue as to the plan for the day - we neither of us are fans of spontaneous action!

For now I would just enjoy your gorgeous baby

Thank you ThreadWatcher :o
I read too many bloomin books and listened to the other mums from my antenatal group who have started controlled crying etc from 4 weeks and I felt like I was doing completely the wrong thing by letting DD run the show.

Especially as she doesn't sleep all that well and loves a good cry.

I should zone out the people who say 'oooh yes, our DC slept through from 3 weeks' etc.

I'll just chill out and get back to smelling my newborn :o

DS didn't have any real routine until about 9mo, we just had to wing it. He was a tricky one tho, and a real screamer, so he just laughed in the face of routines...
For a while I wrote everything down, feeds, sleeps, poos etc, and altho Gina would not have approved, he did have a routine of a kind, but it was rather elastic.
Now he's 13mo, he has developed his own routine, and it's brilliant. Not always the exact same every day, but fairly predictable.

I'd say it's early days to be worrying about a lack of routine, and maybe it's just your mum groups happen to be routine-heavy - another lot might be all free and easy and there might be someone there worrying they're doing the wrong thing by having a routine! :)

I think you're absolutely right -lots of mums' groups seem to get competitive about routines. Take no notice. Do what feels right for you. I just followed my baby, went to bed late like you and she has gradually instituted her own routine, just at the point we both need a bit more structure (she's 13 months and now gets up at 7.30. So shove it up your arse, gina ford. We slept in all that time and loved it! Turns out she's not going to grow up unable to get to work on time.).

Controlled crying from 4 weeks that's just wrong and people who say their child slept through from 3 weeks are just not telling the truth.
I'm hoping for a routine myself but don't expect to get one for a while (DD2 = 3.5 weeks)
Good luck & congratulations!

Controlled crying is NOT recommended before at least 6 months, some say even 1 year. It is mad to do it with a 4 week old, poor babies... Anyway, 7 weeks is very early to think about a routine. I am all for routine and having one has been very helpful, but trying to have a routine too early will add to your stress levels. Very young babies are meant to feed on demand and have day and night mixed up.

IME when your baby is about 3 months old, you can try bringing bedtime forward gradually. That's how I started my routine, with a set bedtime. All I would do now is have the evening/night feeds in the dark and keep everything quiet (as much as possible), and the day time feeds the other way round.

You are not making any rod, ignore, ignore, ignore. Your baby cannot form memories yet, and her brain has a lot of developing to do. Just listen to her cues, cuddle her as much as possible and enjoy her. It's not love which spoils babies, it's lack of boundaries and consistency, but it's way too early for this. It sounds like you're doing a great job.

I remember panicking about this (my DD is 9mo now).

I did exactly the same as tootired above, when DD was about 12 weeks, I was a bit worried that everyone else seemed to have a 'routine' so started by deciding that 8pm was the start of night-time, and made it dark and quiet after that, and things kind of slotted in from there. If you want to make 11pm the start of night time then that is cool! My DD has always been a morning person (horror) and would usually sleep slightly longer stretches from about 8pm ish anyway so that's when I decided to make that night time. I made her a little bedtime routine which back then consisted of me feeding her in dim light while singing some nursery rhymes then putting her in her bed. Now it's a wee bit more involved, she gets fed, we read a book together then say 'night night' to the daylight. DD now goes to bed at 7 and while she doesn't sleep through, she is quite a routine driven little thing naturally.

I remember reading that people had a bedtime routine and such like and thinking OMG this will never work and at the time I read it, that was true... so just continue going with the flow until it feels to you like it's a good idea to introduce something like that.

I think it also helps a bit when they start solids, I know that seems like a million years away at the moment but my DD started at 6mo and loved her food instantly. Having mealtimes to structure the day around makes it seem a bit less chaotic.

The only 'routine' I had when DS was that small was bedtime. I felt it was important to declare an end to the day from an early stage. Even if he woke up again a few hours later I had my 8pm cut-off and a few hours Mummy Time!!!

For the rest I remember him eventually settling into a fairly predicatable sequence of feeding and naps and going with that rather than trying to impose my own timetable. As he was a champion napper, it worked out great.

My opinion is that anything before 12 months doesn't count. No rods for your back, no routine, just survival! After 12 months I think as other posters have suggested, start bringing bedtime forward gradually (depending on how she reacts - with my DS it was quite sudden and in big leaps) and naps tend to follow in a pattern - but not always! DS was a hideous napper for months!

Good luck! You & she will both be absolutely fine.

Before I had dd I was convinced I'd develop a routine for her.....haha that went out the window! To be honest I'm much more comfortable just following her lead and this makes us both happy. She's now 21 weeks and breast fed on demand. She has developed her own routine without any intervention from us and goes to bed earlier each week (currently 9pm). She was a very lively baby and has only just started napping over the past few weeks (which is great for me). The only routine we have is singing songs in the morning, baths every couple of days and story time each night, but even this is when she is the right mood for it, not at a certain time. I think routines work well for some babies/parents whilst not for others. Just do what seems right for your baby :)

I've read all these responses, and my shoulders have just slumped with relief, if that makes sense...I really did think I was doing something terrible by having no routine to speak of and not writing down feed times etc. It made me hyperventilate when I thought of all the things I wasn't doing..

So thank you for sharing your own experiences and valuable opinions. I have found them very comforting and reassuring.

I was given a book by a particularly controversial author that discouraged snuggling your baby for your own benefit... I didn't read further than that. Another book had such a rigid schedule that I panicked that I would never be able to follow it; as well as a list of all the 'essential items' that I would never be able to afford. I have since given those books to the charity shop along with my giant maternity tops.

I don't think you need a routine either if you're not that way inclined but I do think it's useful to make a distinction between day and night very early on, they can be tweaked towards that without much fuss.

Remember both you and your daughter are individuals - there's no set of rules that can be applied to every parent or every child.

My DS is 18 months and I'm still not bothered about routine. He naps at different times each day, or sometimes not at all. He is perfectly happy.

The only thing we had from the early days was... daytimes are light and nighttimes are dark... so I would bf him in the dark in bed during the night.

We follow a chain of events before bed, but the time can vary a bit.

I still just do what my daughter needs, when she needs it, and she's 15 months. I don't work or live with a partner so I don't feel the need for any kind of routine.

Have a look at this book, it's reassuring for your kind of questions:
www.pinterandmartin.com/Kiss-Me

FWIW, I got myself into a right state when DC1 was 5mo as she had no routine and was starting nursery at 6mo. I tried to Gina her. She didn't want to know. As it turned out the nursery had no set routine and my efforts were for nothing.

With DC2 he has fallen into a bit of routine by accident, around DC1's routine, but every day is slightly different. He now does a day a week at nursery at 9mo and meals are set times but naps etc are not.

Meal times help to bring some kind of routine, but otherwise...don't worry about it.

Hi there, I just wanted to revisit this to thank you all for the reassurance about routines. I was in knots prior to this and felt generally sleep deprived and chaotic.

I want to share my experience for any new mums who may also feel that way.

I went with the flow, followed DD's lead, exclusively breast fed which meant I was often knackered and emotional beyond belief.

The only routine I implemented was a bath every night followed by a feed. Now, since week 8 (now 11) she sleeps from 11pm-7am or 6 on a 'bad' day. She does this every night and also has a nap from 8am-9:30am, meaning I can shower and dress myself! Maybe even have a cuppa.

She is a much more efficient feeder and sleeps like a dream at night. Long may it continue- well- save the next growth spurt and teething :o

My point is, everything fell into place naturally. So my advice to anyone about routines in the early days is not to sweat it if you can't. If you can, I salute you!

I know all babies are individuals but maybe my experience will benefit someone else.

Much love x

sounds like you're doing fine.

DD goes to bed at the same time as us, because that makes most sense.

the only other routines are mine, not hers.
(eg, i have to get up at 1/4 to 9, so she does- she can sleep in the pram if she's tired. we have lunch at about half 2, but she feeds whenever she needs to, and she gets nappy changes as and when)

don't worry about her routine - sort out your "routine" and just make sure that you attend to her needs when she needs them :)

We were baby-led no routiners (DS is now 18mo) but DS is fairly predictable and increasingly independent (self settling, relaxed after separation, confident socially). We have had our ups and downs but the only thing that worked for us was to not resist what suited him, or spend time worrying that he 'should' be this or that. WRT comfort feeding, he still does when hurt and I'm glad; nothing calms him anything like as quickly. He doesn't use a dummy or have a transitional object (yet).

My advice would be that you needn't worry, the rod-for-backs comments arise because people forget that babies grow up without needing special teaching in Becoming Independent and Self Regulating. It's just what they inevitably move towards, so trust that you can just stand aside and let it happen.

We don't have a set routine and just follows dd's lead. I have found that she has just naturally moved her bedtime earlier herself bit by bit and now at 3.5 months has just started going to bed about 8:30ish most nights. This is quite new (it was 9:30 a week or so ago) so she is currently waking up for a quick feed at 1am but this is getting shorter every night so a suspect she will drop it in time. The tricky bit is keeping up when they change and adjusting for it.

Interestingly I was comparing notes with a friend of mine who also hasn't bothered with a set routine and her ds has almost exactly the same patterns as my dd.

I never had my dc in a routine until they were 5 months & they both were bf as they got older they started getting themselfs into a routine & just encouraged it a bit more when it came to putting them on solids don't stress yourself out too much its not essential yet so just enjoy yourtime with dc cos they grow so quick & you will wonder were the time has gone hope this helps

We've never had a routine. DD is the most laid-back easy baby you could find, and she sleeps 14 hours a night (she's 2 and a half now).
We just went with the flow when she was newborn and carried on.

You can't love or smell or cuddle them enough in the early days, it goes so quick