Any one recently had a baby, what was your early routine?

[nananaps]

Due in January, but its been 9 years since i had my ds, so memories have faded.

AIR ds was breast fed 1-2 hourly for the first 10 weeks or so (low birth weight, demand fed)
It was difficult fitting anything else in.

Just run through your routine for a typical 24 hour period for me, to refresh my memory.

Thanks xx

8am - 1pm Sit on comfy chair, feeding baby whenever. Nod off occasionally.
1pm Put baby in sling and make lunch. Eat lunch. Make cup of tea.
1.15pm - 5.30pm sit back down, feed baby, afternoon nap.
5.30pm make tea. Wait for dh to come home.
6pm cluster feeding begins. Sit down, feed baby.
9pm Bedtime. Lie down feeding baby, nod off - repeat every hour and a half until 8am.

Somewhere in there, find time to go to the loo, get dressed (if you're feeling ambitious), drink water and eat cake.

Faverolles...there is serious lack of cake in there.....surely you need to keep energy up with regular cake slices.

Think i need to prioritise cake prior to each feed.

Soooo basically what you are saying is kid attached to chest pretty much 23 hours of the day.
When do you chuck a wash load in, shower, wash up etc?
What about folk who visit and want coffee?

What if, like me, you have absolutely no one to help you or take baby off your hands for half and hour other than dh before and after work??

Begining to think that my memory has faded BIG time!

I FF so not sure if I will be any good to you but:

Week one - offer milk every three hours, baby on me or in Moses Basket in the daytime, bath at 6.30pm, fed swaddled and down into basket (in lounge) at 7. Woke every three hours at night to offer milk.

Week two and beyond - daytime: offered milk every three hours, on me , playmat or in basket during the day. Bath 6.30, fed, swaddled and into basket at 7 (in lounge til 8wks then in our room). Woke her at 10.30pm, fed. She woke us as 3.30am fed. wake for day at 7.

DD is 11m old now... but i remember in the early days the "routine" was feed every hour and 45 mins..... each feed lasted about 1hr 10mins

I would try and get 1 thing done between feeds.... ie hang out washing OR make / eat lunch OR wash up..... when she started to cry then i would go to the loo (and she would have to wait) and this continued all day, until about 5 / 6pm when she cried / fed / cried / fed constantly til 10pm ish

she would then normally wake just twice and the day started between 6.30 / 7.30am

This is a really helpful thread! I am about to have my first baby and like you, Nananaps, will not have anyone handy during the day. WIll also be breastfeeding. Thanks for all the tips!

My dd is 11 months now yet it still seems a lifetime ago! I used to cluster feed in the morning and dd would doze back off. Do didn't used to get up till 10/11. Then I would out her in bouncy chair in the en suite with me while I showered. Think I fed every 2 ish hours, but sometimes a feed would take up to 1hr 10 mins. Dinner would be switched off for a bit, and would go in her bouncy chair, or lay between us on the sofa while we ate. At 6 weeks we bought the fisher price rainforest swing. Worth every penny. Life saver!!!! I used to keep her basket generally for just bed time. Think I used to feed about 10pm, 2am and 6am and start all over Xxx

My DD will be 15 weeks tomorrow

6:30 am: she starts stirring so I sit up in bed and feed her. Somedays she'll go back to sleep in her crib, others she'll be wide awake and will go downstairs with DH so I can sleep, and sometimes she snoozes on me. DH leaves at 8am so she'll come back up to me then.

8:30: a big feed. Then she cuddles up on me, sleeping.

10:30: she wakes up, sing morning song to her, cuddles and kisses. Put her in her crib with projector on so I can go to the bathroom. Then I get her changed and dressed. She has tummy time on my bed whilst I get dressed.

11-14:00: sit downstairs, read books to her, play, let her nap, feed on demand, eat lunch then she'll have a big sleep. I have the tv on or music to provide background noise.

14:30-15:30ish: do my stuff, or have a nap myself

15:30-18:00: the same as the morning, letting her nap if she wants to.

18:00-20:30: DH comes home and has cuddles. She's passed back to me when she wants feeding.

20:30ish: DH gets her ready for bed (bath on bath nights). I have a bath and get ready for bed.

21:00: DD and I are upstairs, bedroom is darkened, no tv/music etc. She feeds until 22:00ish, then will fall asleep. I wait.30 mins then put her down in crib. She then sleeps until 6:30ish. Sometimes stirring in the night so has another feed.

What I do in the day isn't important as long as I let her nap and feed when she wants to. Night time routine is the one that I stick to. It seems to work as she was fine when we had to stay at DM's house, she had good sleep.

DD is now 8 months, we've never had a routine really, even now. She would clusterfeed all evening for about 6hrs, that's the only bit of regularity we got. I spent most of the first 12wks parked on the sofa feeding but then my section wound didn't heal properly so I was on strict instructions to do nothing but deal with baby until it closed so DH was doing washing and all meals etc

" What about folk who visit and want coffee?"

You say "there's the kettle, cut me a slice of cake while you're at it"

My routine is the baby's routine, start with no expectations and just go with it.

A sling you can feed in is a lifesaver. Then if you need to do stuff ( you have a 9 year old if I read correctly)

So making lunch etc with baby in sling/ walking eldest to school etc..

I actually find the smallest of routines helps. So for exame every night at 7pm roughly was time for bath/ change baby/ feed/ begin 'nighttime sleep'

So by 7.30 baby is washed/ changed and probably feeding, then pop in cot/ Moses basket for sleep (or we used to put back in sling and allow to demand feed/ sleep almost at the same time until we tried to go to sleep- saves getting up and down all eve!)

Ha! My ds is now 11 weeks and I can't remember the early days at all as it was all such a blur!! :) ... Now its basically a case of feed ds, play with ds (him smiling at me pulling faces and chatting) and move him from play mat to bouncy chair all round the house with me as I try and attempt (and fail) to do housework!!! ... My ds doesn't sleep more than one hour during the day (and not all at the same time!)But he does sleep 7pm-4am and then 4.30am (after a feed) till 7am!!! So its not all bad :)

My dd was completely different... Sleep during the day and sleep at night too! I guess they're all different!!!

Dd (DC2, now 9 months) lived in a sling for the first 12 weeks. She only came out for feeds (every 2 hours) and nappy/clothes changes. We coslept too.

This meant I could do stuff - look after DS, cook, clean, go out etc etc. if someone had DS I'd use the time to sleep!

It was useful having a sling as dd was a very unsettled baby so she got constant cuddles etc.

Slight hijack, sorry Iggly what sling did you use?

Iv used the baby ktan sling

I had two. A close baby carrier for when dd was tiny and a manduca for outdoors and when she got heavier.

My DS is 4 weeks old. So far, this is what he's doing (and I'm following):

Between 6am and 8am: Wake up, change nappy, feed. DH leaves by 7.30am.

DS will sometimes go to sleep until 10am-ish. Even if he's not asleep, he's generally still calm and contented, so I put him in the moses basket and take it into the bathroom while I shower etc. Then I get some breakfast.

Morning: Sit on sofa, feed, talk to him, see if he'll sleep (usually he just wants to feed, today he dropped off at 11.30am, yay!).

At some point, I might go out in the buggy, when he'll generally drop off for a while.

Lunch: Got when I can. Today he was asleep, yesterday I ate one-handed while I fed him.

Afternoon: Like the morning! I'm more likely to go out in the afternoon, and he is more likely to have a long sleep, but that's completely unpredictable.

If I need to get dinner/do stuff, I put him in the sling. He generally drops off to sleep eventually (after some protesting).

6pm ish - DH comes home and takes him for a while. If he's crying, DH will take him out in the sling for half an hour or so.
We try to eat dinner with DS in his bouncy chair. However, more often than not, he starts crying and wanting to be fed or entertained.

Evening - Cluster feeding until 8pm ish. Then bath, feed and try to get him to sleep. This can take a while! He will then sleep through, waking once for a feed and going straight back to sleep.

Night-times seems to be fairly predictable, but the daytimes are not at all. On Saturday, he was awake almost constantly from 9:30am until 9:30pm. I'd say a sling is your friend!