Establishing a routine - Gina Ford, baby whisperer or both?? Confused!

[Rones]

Sorry this is a bit long!

I'm trying to work out a good routine to suit my DD2 who is almost 10 weeks old but still trying to work things out. Initially I just tried the Gina Ford routines from birth until about 7 weeks as this is what I used for DD1 and it seemed to work well (I think she might have been a textbook baby!). However, that was over 5 years ago so I might have forgotten a lot of stuff and I was also dealing with severe post natal depression and got married when DD1 was 10 weeks old (crazy I know!!) so my memory is a bit hazy.

Anyway, having tried pretty hard with Gina's routines for 7 weeks, I just couldn't get DD2 to fit them so I turned to the Baby Whisperer and found loads of useful information and other suggestions. So I'm now kind of doing the E.A.S.Y routine but mixing in a bit of the Gina routine too. I'm basically writing everything down each day so I can try to figure out some patterns, which do seem to be emerging.

I guess I'm a bit of a control freak (in fact I know I am!) and I'm very eager to get her sleeping through or at least as well as possible at night because I have bipolar disorder and sleep is massive trigger for me (or rather lack of).

I'd appreciate your thoughts on a few issues:

• swaddling. I stopped swaddling at about 7 weeks (Gina says to half swaddle and stop swaddling at about 8ish weeks onwards) but then Tracey recommends swaddling till at least 4 months (in her solving all your problems book). I'm a bit worried about overheating etc. but I've now gone back to swaddling which DD2 seems to be fine with. How long did you swaddle for?

• late evening feed: Gina recommends waking baby up to take a 10/10.30pm feed to ensure he gets a full feed but Tracey says to do a dream feed at 11pm and not wake baby up at all! I've started to try the dream feed and must say it seems to work and she takes the same if not more milk! This is the only feed where I use a bottle of expressed or formula milk and the rest of the time I breastfeed. Obviously these are opposite approaches for doing the late feed. DD2 still wakes between 2.30 and 4.30 in the night and I'm struggling to get her to take more than about 4oz at the late feed. Any thoughts on this feed?

• bedtime routine: I was previously doing '1 breast feed, bath and then other breast feed' as per Gina's routine but found that she was starting to associate the breast with sleep and because she can be difficult to settle in the evening, I kept going in to let her have a bit more (bad idea!). So I've now started to do feed, bath and then bed so that there's a split between the feed and bed and to stop that association. What do you do? I've been using the 'shhh pat' technique and dummy to settle her which seems to work with a bit of persistence.

• daytime sleep: Gina reckons DD2 should be having about 3.5 hrs sleep in the day at this age but she needs at least 4.5 hrs if not more, which seems to fit more with the E.A.S.Y approach...

And generally did you find that your child just came up with their own routine that suited them in the end? There are lots of similar bits of advice but some of it is quite contradictory.

Thanks for your thoughts!!

OP - glad to hear you're finding the responses reassuring. In terms of some of your questions:

My son was swaddled until 5.5 months in the daytime. He was/is very jerky and this constantly woke him during his naps at the 45 minute mark and he couldn't resettle himself, and sometimes the swaddle helped that issue. I used the Anna & Eve Swaddle Strap so it wasn't an issue re: overheating.

I think Baby Whisperer is great at this age - Gina Ford didn't work for us as he wasn't sleeping longer than 45 mins and I felt really down about that. I also found that my baby needed much more sleep than GF recommended. Finally at 6 months he went onto the GF first routine, but even now at 7 months he needs 3.5-4 hours sleep in the day.

I never bothered with the late feed. It seemed counter intuitive to me to wake the child up to feed them as I thought it would just create a habit I'd need to break. I therefore dealt with the random wakings until finally he slept through at 6 months once he was properly on 3 meals a day.

On feed/bath/feed, I changed the final feed to be a bottle to avoid any association with the breast. From 12 weeks I used PUPD to allow him to learn to go to sleep himself, and haven't looked back!! I now have it so much easier than my friends when it comes to sleep.

Thanks ladies...

Hi Rones - I think you're right I'll give both a read even if I have no intention of sticking with any of it I think it would be useful just to read somebodies approach as I too feel like I haven't a clue. I knew it would be tough but this parenting game has hit me like a tonne of bricks! I too have been make a note of things to try and decipher a pattern. It would be good to try work something out as at the minute I never know when to give him a bath. the last two times we've got half way through bath time and he wants feeding so its a frantic rush to finish so I can feed him and I had only fed him about hour to hour half before!
Yes I too don't want to impose a strict schedule on him but I would like to be able have some degree of organisation just so I know when I can get out and about and try and catch up on some sleep.
Things are definitely starting to feel a bit better now just being able to post questions on here has helped I don't feel as stressed now. Thanks again :)

Hi Waterrat - Thanks, yes I think you're right...i wasn't really hoping for getting 8hrs sleep a night i think those days are long gone :( i've just been struggling to get him back to sleep after he wakes between 3 and 4. I also wake up at the slightest little noise he makes and struggle to get back to sleep. i end up just laying away listening to him paranoid that he's going to choke or has wind or something else! so the only time I actually sleep is for about 2/3hrs before my husband brings him up to bed and napping in the day never happens I do try but can't seem to get to sleep its so frustrating. Thanks

Thanks MustBeDue - that's all really helpful. Yes I'm sure you're right about Gina not allowing enough sleep time during the day, there's no way mine can only go 3.5hrs and when she has, she's been really irritable! However, she's had a good amount of day sleep today but has still been difficult to settle this evening. She had a really good feed at 5pm and 6pm (split feed) and still woke up (after difficulty settling) at about 8pm genuinely hungry. Mind you, I'd rather feed now rather than more in the early hours! I like your idea about giving a bottle rather than breast just before bed and I was actually thinking about that earlier funnily enough. I actually reverted back to the breast, bath, breast pattern this evening and I really don't think it makes too much difference. If I do start to worry there's an association, I might switch to a bottle....

I've never heard of the swaddle strap - I'll look into that.

Nina - I totally sympathise re the sleep issue. I was the same with DD1 and just could not switch off. I was totally paranoid and also have horrible obsessive thoughts which were part of my PND. A truly hideous time and I'm so pleased I haven't had it again.....However, I'm still very sleep deprived and all the broken sleep is tough. I understand why they used to torture people by not allowing them any sleep! I'm not sure what to recommend in order to switch off as I had real trouble with this myself first time round. I must say that I'm fine with going to sleep this time whenever I get a chance as I don't worry about all the things we tend to worry about as first time mums. However, you're not alone and it's very common (not that it makes it any easier). Have you thought about having a massage if there's any chance you could have one? I'm a big fan and it could help you to relax. I find that a small glass of red wine helps me to unwind too. Getting to some groups should help you too, just so that you can speak to others in the same boat. Your LO is still very young at 6 weeks old, so try not to panic, it won't be like this forever, promise. Keep posting and asking things, everyone is here to help. x

While in many ways I agree that it's good to be baby led, it's not always possible. For example for the first 6 months of her life, my baby didn't give sleep cues or feeding cues until it was too late and she was REALLY hungry or REALLY tired. So I tried to preempt everything. The day was mostly landed around her maps and I just tried to put her down when I thought she would be tired rather than when she started to yawn and grizzle. I found this to be a good guide: www.troublesometots.com/are-you-keeping-baby-awake-too-long/ and helped me know when she was likely to be tied. This worked really well. If she refused the nap, I didn't push and just tried again later. Then gradually she spaced out the time between maps on her own and the same with feeds.

*mostly planned around her naps.
Fuck you autocorrect.

DS didn't sleep through until about 18mo, that's just the way he is. Even now at 22mo he sleeps about 10pm-7am, then a 3hour siesta. I can't cut his siesta short as he wakes up really fucking angry. Hey ho. We are only having one dc and happy to go at his pace. We co-sleep; he screamed if you swaddled him. I used MN for guidance/suggestions etc and asked friends/family. I don't trust books and GF sounds like a right bitch, quite frankly!

Well, I though Baby Whisperer sounded sooo full of good sense until DS came along. He simply didn't follow it. More like Eat, Sleep, Activity, Scream, Repeat in his case. Agree with others above that basically you just have to muddle through and eventually figure out what works best for your baby and you. We wrote everything down slavishly and eventually got some vague idea of what suited him - and then tried to be ready to provide it preemptively but then his routine changed every few months antyway…

The advice here seems good, baby whisperer is maybe a but easier to manage with 2 kids, and even little sleep-resisters like my DS do seem to slip into their own routine over time.

One extra piece - stopping writing everything down is very freeing! Doing it for a day or 2 can be very helpful, but beyond that it can be another job and source of stress. I really liked the No Cry Sleep Solution approach of making a log once every 10 days to keep track of the big changes (although the book overall is probably not your style, this tip might be!)

Neurotic does not a calm mother make. You do not need to follow a book or someone else's parenting 'techniques'. Babies are not robots you know. Chill out!

I agree, neurotic mothers are not necessary very great! It's tough having the confidence to do what you thing is right....I think I'm getting there slowly day by day but it's not easy (s'cuse the pun!). Part of the problem is having followed Gina with DD1 and now finding that DD2 is so different and I need to think differently/more creatively to find a way to suit her and me. I'm not quite ready to give up the pen and paper yet but I'm sure I will at some point soon!

sorry, I meant 'what you think is right'

Nina it might help if you remember that 'sleeping through' in young babies is defined as '5 hours without a feed'. So no uninterrupted 8 hours. And 5 hours lets you get into deep sleep and REM sleep, which means it's really restorative, whereas 3 hours just doesn't.

I didn't follow any books, but I did find the Baby Whisperer's pick up/put down routine invaluable when night weaning DD2. It has to be said that I did not night wean her until she was 11 months. Up until that point she was taking 2 full feeds a night, about 15 minutes each and taking both sides - she was genuinely hungry, and she was a long, fast-growing, early-walking very active baby. I did not consider night weaning until she started falling asleep at the exact moment my milk let down. That just wasn't funny - picture me with enormous spraying tingling boobs and her just nodding off with a cure little sigh.

Pick up/put down does not let you leave your baby to cry, which is why I did it. The first night I did it, I had to pick DD2 up 45 times. I kid you not. The second night it was three times. The third night she slept for 9 hours straight. She has been a fab sleeper (barring illness) ever since.

My point (waffly as ever) is that I think you should try gentle methods before you succumb to controlled crying or even crying it out (neither of which I would ever consider, but to each their own).

hi pointythings...no I wasn't really hoping for 8hrs straight. ..just a bit more than 2hrs at a time. my lo is probably doing 3hrs solid sleep with an hour of twitching, gurgling and sometimes grisling beforehand but I can only manage about 2. I'm sure I will get used to it soon. I'm only jusy getting over my c section and I've had an infection that made me feel terrible so think its just knocked me about a bit so probably feeling it a bit more with the lack of sleep.

Hi Nina - poor you I totally feel for you after a c-section. With my first I had a planned c-section with good physical recovery but bad PND and with my second I had an emergency c-section and the wound has come open a couple of times and the recovery has been hard, even now after 10 weeks. However, as it's your first you should have a speedier recovery but be kind to yourself as you've had an infection. The sleep deprivation is so tough but I must say that by using the books, my DD2 is going to bed at 7/8ish depending on how difficult it is for her to settle, we're doing at feed at 11ish and then she's only waking once in the night generally between 2.30 and 4.30, so there is hope! I really do find the general guidelines in books helpful, such as no more than about 4.5 hours sleep in the day (usually about 3 or 4 naps depending on how much sleep your baby needs), not letting them stay awake for longer than 2 hours max, any more than that and they're impossible to settle!! Also, we've had DD2 in her own room in her cot since 7 weeks so she's happy in there and the room is pitch black with the lights off! There's light at the end of the tunnel and I'm already feeling better than when I started this thread a few days ago. There are good and bad days but it won't stay hideous forever....but there are things you can start doing now to makes things easier and guide your baby into good habits.

Oh Nina with a C-section and post op infection no wonder you're feeling dreadful... You will soon start 1) getting longer stretches and 2) developing the instinct that lets you identify the snuffle and gurgle so that you will sleep through the meaningless ones and wake for the 'mummy I need you' ones.

There's a huge difference in how much good sleep does you between 2 and 3 hours - a 3 stretch is much more restorative. I hope your infection settles and you start feeling better, that will improve the quality of sleep you get as well. Meanwhile, have some and .

thanks ladies. yes things do feel a bit better he's been going back to sleep a lot easier after his 3am feed and today was the first I managed to nod off too for a couple of hours!

my wound has started to feel better as of friday but unfortunately I have started really bad sciatica this weekend and can hardly walk which may or may not be related to back surgery I had a few years ago. fingers crossed its not and is just because I've been carrying around a heavy baby the last 6 weeks. so I now have to take some farely strong pain killers and my husband is going to have to take some time off from work. so just as we'd turned a bit of a corner! there's something else. ..ah well never mind.

I've ordered the baby whisperer so will have a read of that. thanks again