Read a book about routines - now worried

[tealover1985]

So I thought I would try to get my 7 week old into a bit of a routine, mainly wanted to get him to sleep a bit better of an evening. He already sleeps fairly well at night, waking once or twice to feed then straight to sleep. He is exclusively breast fed.

Read the Contented Little Baby book which says that I should never let my baby fall asleep whilst feeding or I am giving him all the wrong sleep associations and he will never fall asleep on his own. Whilst I was reading this last night he was asleep across my lap having fed to sleep. I feel like I have done everything this book says not to do and am now a bit worried I have got him into bad habits.

I just wanted peoples experiences of getting babies into routines. Do the majority of people follow a strict routine or is it better to just go with the flow for a bit. This book basically mapped out every 15 minutes of my day and even told me when I should have a glass of water for gods sake!

Also, if you have to be out of the house at these set nap times, eg for baby clinic, would this mess the rest of the day up if you are trying to follow a routine? Not sure how anyone would manage to leave the house following something like this?

My most miserable two weeks were trying to get DS1 into a routine based on something I'd read in one of those books. I dragged myself out of bed totally knackered and was walking round a shopping centre with him tickling his feet because it was supposed to be a wakeful walking time and he kept nodding off!

Then I relaxed and thought "stuff it, this isn't forever - if he wants picking up and cuddling, that's what I'll do. If he cries I'll feed him and see if it helps. If he's sleeping I won't wake him up for tummy time or whatever it was supposed to be time for, I'll leave him in peace"

14 years and 2 more children later, funnily enough they're all quite capable of settling themselves to sleep without needing to be fed!

I'd say forget routines, if you can cope with things being a bit more flexible then let your baby and you dictate the pace that suits you both. There will be times you'll wish you had a bit more sleep or your baby is tired and frustrated, then you can try whatever comes naturally, but don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work. Babies are all different and so are we. What works for one may not work for all, or even for the same baby on a different day!

Just enjoy your snuggly little bundle of loveliness.

Trilby that's what happened with mine and there was no dummy involved

Scaremongering at its finest!! Did anyone ever hear of an adult who couldn't fall asleep without feeding? Or a child for that matter? Of course not! I think the feeding to sleep, dummies to sleep etc, potentially might cause a little bit of hard work into toddler-age, but of course it doesn't mean they're never going to sleep without it!

With regards to routine... I have a 5 month old, and I would say we follow a "pattern" rather than a routine. So I can fairly easily predict how our day might go and I stick to it were possible, but I'm not going to force it, not stress if things don't go as expected.

From about 8 weeks or so, we seemed to have naturally fallen into a pattern of feeding every 3 hours or so (but this could be longer sometimes, or less time sometimes). I also knew that she would most likely only stay awake for about 90 minutes at a time, so that kind of predicted when naps would be. And everything else fell into place around that. If I wanted to go out somewhere, or there was a baby group, or something, she'd sleep in the car or pushchair - or if she was too curious about what was going on and wouldn't sleep, then she'd just have a nap a bit later.

The one thing we did was implement a good bedtime structure and I'm so pleased we did. It is now bath at 6:20ish, bottle and into bed by 7pm. And we have an evening, which is so nice!

Now we just need to get rid of the dream feed, lose the dummy, and we'll be well away! Try not to stress, everyone does "bad habits". Ultimately if your baby is happy, you've done a good job!

Feeding a baby, a toddler or a primary aged DC to sleep is beautiful.

Doesn't mean they don't self settle for DH or a baby sitter or go to sleep quite happily on Brownie pack holiday

Same here trilby. Dummy dropped at 6 months, the not feeding all the way to sleep came at about 10 months (and then on and off for another 5-6 months)

It's kind of a terrifying moment

Agree with everyone else - bin the book! Relax and go with the flow

My little boy is 17 weeks now and we have just gone with it and he now has his own little pattern.

I wasn't able to bf so he was ff from birth and would very often fall asleep having his milk during the night. We also let him fall asleep on us as that's what he liked to do.

Now at 17 weeks he has a little bedtime routine of into sleepsuit, milk, into sleeping bag, cuddles and into cot by 7pm. We can put him down awake and he self settles. He will settle himself if he wakes up in the night. He sleeps through until around 6.30am.

Day times are not very rigid. He usually has a snooze of about 45 mins around 8.30am and one a bit longer around mid-day. I don't stay home for them though if I need to be out - he naps in the car/pram.

I truly believe you can't spoil a baby with cuddles etc so feel free to cuddle away/feed to sleep abd enjoy xx

Your baby hasn't read the book. Or any other book. He has no idea what he is supposed to be doing according to the books. He will just do what works naturally for him - and you will just react to that and do the best you can to try to figure out what works best for the pair of you...