Routine for 6 week old

[redwellybluewelly]

Just wondering if you could share yours if you follow a CLB GF times?

DD2 is a much much happier baby if she gets enough sleep, if she is overtired she fusses, doesn't take a full feed, then cries etc etc, cat naps, has wind from crying etc etc

Problem is the older one (DD1) absolutely delights in waking baby up, I understand why she does it but its creating an unhappy baby. I was totally baby led with DD1 until I worked out when she was about four months she was happiest when we had a set routine in place so I simply firmed up what she wanted to do anyway.

So my plan is to put baby (DD2) in her cot upstairs with a mobile and the video monitor and help her self settle which she mainly does anyway and I can keep DD1 quiet downstairs. But im not really sure how much sleep she should be needing and how to to keep her awake for? If the day goes well she pretty much sleeps through the night!

Thanks

Not a GF aficionado, I'm sorry. I'd have thought 6wo was early to self-settle, but every baby's different. How old is dd1? It sounds as though you need to find a way to establish with her that she can't do whatever she wants with the new baby and, if she lets her sleep, she's more likely to get some time with you on your own.

Believe me nobody is more surprised about a six week old self settling than me. Have been known to wax lyrical on the importance of being baby led etc but it seems that my children want routine. DD2 doesn't even like to be held after a feed at night - I sit there afterwards feeling redundant!

DD1 just doesn't get it. We've explained until we are blue in the face and she still delights in screaming etc. She is just three and has a six month or so development delay.

We followed gf initially, timings ok in her book except found our baby would be tired after 1.5hrs awake instead of 2 hrs. So shifted everything a bit. Dd self settled from 3 weeks a week after we started the routine

Just to add - settled at 7pm upstairs really well. Day time naps required more work!(rocking etc) but now at 17 weeks settles well in the day too.

We have dropped gf now because i cannot solve my early waking problem (5am!) and baby has reflux and does not take enough milk to sleep through (still doing 3-4 hr feeds). But the general gist of it we follow

Xx

Thanks alexa007 can I ask what times she suggested roughly? Baby has slept almost all of today and when awake has fed, played for maybe fifteen minutes, been changed then slept again!

I think you can do a middle ground of baby led and routine, no? You could figure out her routine that she seems to prefer and stick to it, rather than following GF's strict timings that might not suit your baby.

I am still very baby led but I noticed from observing DS from about 12 weeks that he was best on a two hourly feed/sleep cycle. So I would just nudge him in the direction of these things on a rough two hourly basis. Around 7 months he naturally dropped the 3rd nap and started going longer - 3-4 hours - between naps, so now I just stick that routine instead.