GIna devotees only - how & when didyou start trying to put baby in a routine?

[bodenbetty]

I don't want to start anything contentious - just windering how to go about starting teh whole routine thing. DD is only 10 days so probably a little young just yet but am trying to think ahead. her idea of night & mine don't coincide but have stared feeding her in the dark from 7pm on hoping she will get teh message!

Bodenbetty, it's really too early and too hot to try and pusht he routine. Either your baby falls easily into it, or she's not yet ready for it. We didn't bother putting ours to bed for the night at what would become their bedtime until they were at least 3mo. Until then, they just accompanied us - napping on the sofa while we watched TV, for example, if they were sleepy. When they and we were ready, we went for the bath-mlik-bed-at-7pm routine, and it all came together very nicely.

You're just getting to knwo her - don't shut her away from you. It does neither of you any good at this stage.

surely you're not expecting a 10 day old baby to sleep through from 7 pm?

I'm hardly an expeienced mum as dd is only 10weeks but I really echo what PrettyCandles, Twiglett and Enid say.

We love having dd with us downstairs in her moses basket in the evenings. If I put her in her nursey at 7pm and then fed her there in the dark overnight we would all go mad. Dp would be upset because he would barely see her after coming home at 6pm, me because I couldn't stand sitting by myself feeding her in the dark and not going on mn, readuing, watching tv and cuddling dp!

I don't intend to try for a routine until dd grows out of her moses basket and goes into her cotbed as that means she will be sleeping in the nursery rather than in our room.

If you really feel that a routine is right for you and your family then I suppose you should persevere but don't do it just because you GF tells you to .

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Have to echo what some of the others have said. GF will either work for you or it won't. I am utterly disorganised and could not have followed a GF routine if my life depended on it. Having said that I read the book in pregnancy (someone gave it to me) and it runbined the first 10 weeks with my baby as even though I was following my own/DS's routine I had half a memory on what GF said I should be doing. It wasn't until I gave the book away and accepted that DS's routine was the right one for him that I began to relax about it all. He is now 3 and sleeps 12-13 hours a night and is a "contented" child. All that from a Mum who could not leave her baby to cry and rushed in to cuddle him whenever I felt he needed it.

no of course i'm not expecting her to sleep through - not until at least 6m if I'm lucky. I just like the idea of having some control over my days 7 nights. DS hAS ALWAYS GONE TO SLEPP LIKE A DREAM AT 7PM & GUESS i WAS HOPING THAT SHE WOULD TO & MAKE MY LIFE EASIER FOR ABIT.
incidently she has slept pretty much all day today despite all my best efforts to wak e her so am trying to accept that tooday is another day where everyhting goes awry.
I realise 10 days is way too young in some respectds hence my original pst about when people started trying the routines......

Oh FFS! Bodenbetty has clearly stated in her title 'for gina devotees only'.

lol @ 'some control'

I started a night time routine with both of mine from the start... I used to wake the baby at about 10pm and give her a bath.. then a massage.. then I would give her a feed in a quiet, dark room... she would then (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) wake at 2am for a feed, again I'd feed her in a quiet dark room without even talking to her.. then she would wake at about 6 am.. the 2 am feed got later and later till at 7 weeks she was going through the night... I then moved the bath time half and hour earlier each week till she was going 7pm till 7am...

I thought I was really lucky with her till I did the same with my son and he did the same...

A routine really worked for us...

Bodenbetty, my ds used to put himself to sleep. If he was tired then he would just put his head down and go to sleep - no fuss, no bother. As my MIL used to say "You don't know you're born". But I certainly learned what the 'ordinary' baby was like when dd was born. I didn't know whether I was coming or going, as I had no idea hwo to settle her, or what to do with her if she didn't settle quickly. So I thik I have some idea where you're coming from! TBH, until your latest post, you sounded like a first-time-mum. I think you do have to accept that, in the early days at least, there will be 'some' degree of unpredictability and lack of control.

At the end of the day, there are those mums who are happier with a routine and those that are happier with a more unstructured approach. As one who followed a routine, all I will say is that if you want to go that route, you don't have to wait for months. DD was in a routine by 4 weeks and it continues happily now at 16 months.
It's totally up to you to do what feels right for you and your DD. It's about both of you and what makes the happiest mum and baby.

LOL @ "Gina devotees only"

Next time I start a thread on here I must remember to title it "Only people who agree with me in every way need bother replying".

Could be the world's shortest thread...

Zippi, I love your post. In fact I think I love you.

I had bedtime routine from coming home from hospital and still have the same routine at the same time and ds's are now 4 and 3 1/2. Bath, feed, book lights out. They are great, although time is later due to heat in summer months. But they even ask to have their bath and go to bed. I did feed on demand though no routine there, and yes I did buy GF's book and read it from cover the cover.

I only put that in the title because I know what strong feelings the whole routine question evokes. i didn't want to provoke a whole routine or not debate, just receive advise from people doing it on how they did it.
by all means have a heated debate on the subject but that wasn't my intention!!!
you're right i'm not first time mum - just 1 who can't remenber anything from first time round & who is feeling alittle overwhelmed at the though tof coping with 2!

bedtime routines are great for adults too..it's called sleep hygiene

quite a hardcore of mns don't indulge in it judging by some night time postings!

I was surprised you are not a first time mum Bodenbetty..that is what i assumed when i posted first time

I sympathise with anybody who has young babies and is trying to keep them cool and hydrated in this hot weather..

Hi franny love you too!

I'm not a Gina devotee by a long chalk, I wouldn't have considered her methods and routines, but a routine did work for me and dd eventually ... but one that suited us, not a "one-size-fits-all" routine. I may have been very lucky, but for us it just progressed naturally and dd found her own natural routine pretty quickly. She started off feeding when she was hungry, sleeping when she was tired and being cuddled when she was grumpy, and eventually her own natural rhythm emerged - it started to take shape when she was about 4 months old, and by 6 months was pretty well established. Her routine altered as she got older, but again it was a natural progression and was tied in to her rhythms, not someone else's idea of what her rhythms ought to be.

10 days is way too early to "get the message" about routines and the difference between night and day, but you already know that. She's still getting used to being outside and the fact that everything isn't on tap anymore. I think your midwife is spot-on - just go with it for now, and see how you get on for a while. There's plenty of time for settling her into her own routine when she's ready to settle into one.

by ten days bodenbetty, elsie was following the routines pretty closely as you can see by my earlier posts, she settles by 7pm every night, wakes by 10pm every, night, feeds only once in the night, as she has done since she was born, at 2-3am and sleeps through till i wake her at seven. DD1 i started the routines at three months, she slept through seven till seven immediately....i have no problem using the routines with both babies, its perfectly possible.

On ginas website there are lots of mums who started the routines from day 1 and have great success, it costs 40 pound a year for membership and you get a lot for your money, i would suggest joining there to get some advice from mothers who have tried and tested GF's methods with their first, second, third and more children.

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Yeah right, like someone who wears a vest is going to be much use in a fight

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"£40 a year to get advice from other mothers "

bloody hell you can get that here for free .. and get a wide range of opinions if your baby doesn't happen to fit in with the 'routine'

friends also give advice for free... you will meet loads of people in your situation at post-natal classes

now my interest is picqued .. what else do you get for your money happybebe .. apart from access to CLB forums that is?

"am trying to accept that tooday is another day where everyhting goes awry."
that sums up for me everything that I find so sad about this "Gina devotee" business. I think it is immeasurably sad that, on the 11th day of your baby's life, you aren't just enjoying her but thinking that she is contrary amd that you have failed.
it makes me sad and I hear it a lot in my professional life.
btw, if it is a routine that would make you comfortable, then Gina Ford doesn't have any sort of copyright over routines, she didn't invent them. Miriam Stoppard has some good suggestions and Yehudi Gordon in his book Birth and Beyond suggests somebasuc flexible routines for feedings/sleeping/activity times.

dont get me wrong our household runs like a military regime (for the older dds), we have routine every day and dd1 and 2 sleep happily all night

but the second you need to post about HOW to get a 10 day old into a routine and worrying about distinguishing night and day at that age...I think serious chill out time is in order. I don't think I had even got out of bed by the time dd3 was 10 days old