The great routine debate!

[loobins]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the site and don't really know what I'm doing, so bear with me if I'm doing something wrong! I don't really know the etiquette! Also, I posted a version of this message on another thread yesterday, wso if you've already read this - sorry!! But someone suggested I start a new one - so here goes!

I wanted your opinion on something, if poss. My baby was four weeks old yesterday and I'm quietly going off my head, tearing myself apart about whether or not I'm doing it right. Thankfully, this site has helped me realise that's normal, but I'm still questioning what I'm doing!

What does everyone think of routines? We're following the Rachel Waddilove one, and I'm swinging wildly between thinking he's better when he knows where he is and sleeps properly and thinking I'd like to throw the damn book out of the window! I know he's had bad days when he hasn't gone down for naps and he's definitely not as happy then, but some days I feel like I'm trying to squeeze him into a routine that doesn't suit him and I'm permanently trying to get him to sleep when he doesn't want to. I can't work out if he's crying because he's not used to it and I'm doing him a favour by putting him down or if he's crying because he really doesn't want to go and I'm being a bad mother!

I not arsed about getting him to fit into my day or anything - I've got nothing else to do but look after him! I just want him to be happy, and I think getting plenty of sleep helps that. I just seem to be constantly trying to get him to sleep or waking him so I can feed him - and not a lot of enjoying the 'happy little boy' I'm meant to have as a result.

Sorry for the rant (god, you're all going to think you've got a right one here!!) but I'd love some help! I think I'm crying more than the baby!!

• Just to add to my confusion, I've had a brilliant night and morning with him today!! The best yet!! So now I really don't know what to do!! Your thoughts would be appreciated!

x

I think it's hard to follow a routine from a book word for word, hour for hour. I read several and tried to take a bit of advice from each one. My words of wisdom based on experience are:
Daytime naps take a few months to kick in with regards to length of time and regularity.
Rather than having a time in your head that you want him to nap, rather read his tired signals. DD always used to bat her ears. As soon as I saw her doing that I would lie her in her cot, with the curtains closed and close the door.
I would introduce a bedtime routine now, even if the timing differs a little. I did bath, bottle in a dark room, no eye-contact, little cuddle and a song, bed from about 2 weeks. Some times it would take her a little while to settle, but she soon got the idea that bathtime meant bedtime was to follow.
DD slept through from 12 weeks, was napping 4 hours a day from 14 weeks, and today at 19 months, sleeps 12 hours straight at night with a 2 to 3 hour nap in the day.
I firmly believe in the value of a routine, but you will go mad if you try and do exactly what the book is telling you you should be doing. Relax, adapt it slightly and you should be on your way.
Good Luck.

This is such a good thread! A lifesaver no less. My ds - 6 weeks old 2morrow is totally unpredictable and has sleepy days and non sleepy days. I have a dd - now 8 and half yrs and she was totally different so I am finding baby no.2 utterly confusing! It is such a relief to hear other mums are as bewildered as me. I mean, should he be finding any sort of pattern at all yet??? Some days he will only sleep if being held yet 2day he was happy to sleep for hours in his car seat. I guess I can seek solace in the fact that so many mums are going through the same thing. Has anyone got any tried and tested (yet baby friendly) tips for resolving unpredictability?! Would love to hear.......

don;t forget they change as they grow tho.... a routine that suited your 6 wk old might not suit them at 12wks...etc. also different babies DO sleep differently. no point trying for 2 hour naps with my lad from about 3 months on, he does 45mins then is awake and just gets miserable if left in his cot. OR at least that what he does most days, now hes 7m/o on solids and getting more mobile hes occasionally chucking in a longer nap, so his routine is changing again as he grows up.

used a routien to great success with both my two children, and mumsnets favorite guru too (lol) my elsie is now 4 months old, has slept seven till seven since she was three months and goes down happily without any crying to get to sleep...and you know the best bit...i never had to FORCE her into anything. nor did i my first child...amazingly for some, both my children have followed the same routine with the same success despite being totally different babies (obviously)

the key to it was to start the day at a set time, put baby down when tired even if its 'too early' according to a book routine, and wake at the next time the book recommmends...eventually as baby grows up they will just start staying awake longer themselves. As for feeding, Fed at the start of the day even if they only fed an hour or two before and then feed next time they are hungry, even if its not quite routine...they will be able to last longer themselves one day...

so to sum up, by all means use a routine, but make it a gradual thing and progress as your baby progresses. Book routines have to give exact times etc etc, it would be a pretty long book if not, but in most cases it will say somewhere inthe book that every baby is different and it will take time.

no routine here

think kids find their own routine

everything else is just hard work

up until ds was about 5 weeks he would not have bottles regularly. he would always go longer than 4 hours, sometimes as many as 7!! he just slept all the time. hv kept telling me i must wake him. and when i said he slept 8 hours at night she said i had to get up and wake him for a feed. stuff that for a bowl of bananas. he'd always slept 6 hours at night from being 1 day old and i remember reading on here that one woman got her baby so much into a routine of having bottles 4 hrly (she used to snack feed, an oz here and there) that she then started to wake 4 hrly at night too. i didn't want that to happen. then at about 5 weeks he just got his appetite and didn't go so long between feeds in the day. now he goes anything from 3 hrs to 5hrs, but the majority are about every 4 hrs and he seems to have got himself into his own little routine. some days he doesn't have a nap all day, sometimes he might have 4, but on the whole he has about 3 after he's been awkae about 2 or 3 hours. i agree that you should just let him find his own way and then once that is onthe whole quite regular, enforce it yourself but be flexible with it. i know sometimes i have to have a nap at nightime or go to bed early cos i am very tired. same as sometimes ababy is just more or less tired on a certain day.

I am convinced that 'squeezing' my DS into a certain routine from a young age is the reason my DS is a really bad sleeper, still, at the age of nearly 7. Leaving him to cry (as per advice from a book) from a young age created this problem ... IMHO ... He went to sleep crying and woke up crying .... he now struggles to go to sleep and gets up the minute his eyes open in the morning (even if he has only had 9 hours sleep and is absolutely KNACKERED).
By the time DD arrived, I had chucked out all books, listened to her needs, responded to her cries, followed no routine at all. By the time she was 4 months we realised that she actually never really cried (not for longer than a minute) as her needs were met immediately. She (aged 2.8) has always been happy and content. Never cries herself to sleep and will lie happily in her bed for ages until someone comes.

The difference? IMO ... DS always felt abandoned, DD always knows someone will come.

Take my advice, chuck the book. Enjoy your baby.

we use cc to an extent. if ds cries when we put him down we don't just leave him there until he falls asleep, we go in give him a cuddle and settle him then put him back down, so he doesn't feel abandoned and knows someone will go to see why he is crying, but also doesn't think if he cries we will go in and cuddle him until he falls asleep iyswim.

I completely agree with ghosty. There is a lot of research to back up what she says about babies that have their needs met almost immediately (i.e. go to them when they cry) becoming more settled, secure children & adults. They know that if they need something or someone, they will get it so ultimately become less demanding. Dr. Sears is a big fan of this 'attachment parenting' . Of course, there is research to prove otherwise too.

I wasn't interested in DS fitting into a routine - he slowly found his own and settled into it pretty well. It was hard for me at times because for months he seemed so unpredictable, but we both learnt and I am so glad I have never let him cry it out. That said, you have to do what works for you and I know many people who swear by controlled crying &, once they dealt with the crying, seemed to have a much easier life than I did!

Whatever you do you will have good days and bad days - he simply doesn't have the frontal lobe activity in his brain to understand at four weeks old.

So do whatever works, safe in the knowledge that he won't get into a "bad routine" and you will not be "making a rod for your own back".

Look out for looking away, rubbing eyes, moving little fists around - rather than thinking "well he had a sleep at this time yesterday".

For the first 4 months I went 'with the flow' as there seemed to be no routine to anything she did. At 5 months I started being able to spot a bit of a routine, so just encouraged the one she had developed herself - far easier.

I could never see the point of waking a sleeping baby - just make the most of the peace and quiet!

Hi all, Mamaaaargh, I have borrowed the Sears book from library and it all sounds idyllic in principal. The truth is that when you are grilling sausages, helping your 8yr old with her geography homework whilst your 6wk old ds is dangling off your left breast at the same time - the beauty and simplicity of attachment parenting seems to go out the window! I always answer ds's cries right away and it would jangle every nerve in my body to let him cry for too long so I will go with the flow for now and enjoy my little cherub. Does anyone else have a babe who 'cluster feeds' in the evening? Does this seem to have any bearing on any colic/discomfort later on perhaps????

Mine is usually more hungry in the evening, so her early evening feed is slightly bigger, especially if she didn't finish her bottle at the previous meal. I started following RW's advice, and then ditched the bits that didn't suit - dd doesn't want to take long naps during the day, she likes short naps, and there is no way I can ignore her if she is awake. Also, she needs to feed closer together some times and further apart at others. I don't relegate her to her room during the day: asleep or awake, she is usually wherever I am (except in the bathroom, lol), so she knows that she is not alone. I usually have the radio on, whether she is asleep or awake, 'cos I just can't do the creeping around because the baby is asleep thing. I have to admit that some sort of routine is essential to my sanity (spot the control freak) but being rigid about it does not work for me. I read the other book out of curiosity, but didn't feel inclined to try it out.

I did attachment parenting and demand feeding with my first child until she was a few months old, when I finally cracked and got her into a routine having got fed up of no sleep and snack feeds all evening. I used a mix of controlled crying and gradual withdrawal to get her used to going to sleep alone, and she has gone to bed happily at seven ever since.
This time round (DS 3 weeks old) I'm using a routine. We're not following it rigidly but my god it works. Particularly the advice to try and space feeds. With my DD I'd stick her on the boob whenever she cried and cos she never really had big feeds she'd always suck. With DS he has good feeds and when he cries I know that it must be something else thats the problem. He doesn't comfort suck either which is a comfort to me as when I leave him to go back to work he needs to be comforted by cuddles alone.
I'm using a certain book this time - the new version seems a lot more gentle than the old version, and it works for me and my LO, as well as giving me time for my DD.

I think it is great to read books (if you have the time!), but I treated mine a bit like the instruction manual that was not enclosed with baby when we received him!! I got very stressed feeling he should be sleeping when he wasn't etc etc. Once you read a few books you realise there is no absolute answer and a lot of them use the same principles, the 2 hour awake thing makes things so much easier and knowing that babies sleep cycles tend to be about 45 mins helped me as well. I think all these little bits of info help, but not everything will apply to your baby and as I read in the NCT sleep book, it is not worth trying to force your baby into a routine until about 8-12 weeks. It says around the time of the 8 week check your baby will be smiling and responding to you and it starts to appear as if there is someone home!!
Enjoy your baby, I regularly threw books out of the window, in the bin ( and the retrived them a few days later!!
XXX

I do attachment parenting and it's the best things for us. Dd is 4 (5 in Feb), ds 3 next week and 28 weeks with anoher boy. Never did routines, fed on demand, co-slept, respond to their needs right away and they are very confident and content children. We tend to eat around the same time each day but only because that's when we're hungry, other than that there aren't any real rountines that we follow. I just let them sleep when they wanted to as babies and didn't force anything, they cry for a reason and even if that reason is needing a cuddle that's fine for me. The only way young babies can show us what they want/need is by crying so I always respond quickly so they know I'm there and always will get to them when they need me.

Can I just say, if a "routine" works or not has as much to do with the individual child...it's not jsut down to teh parent...I mean, I have 3 ds's and they are all pretty different, 2 more alike then the other, who is a routinely person and needs it, therefore I provide it, if that makes sense...must say ms must have read a certain ladies book before I did and must have found it a good idea, even though it's not my idea, lol...other 2 don't seem to have read that book...wehat I mean is, that a rottine will maybe suit some Baby's whereas others might need longer and need a more relaxed aproach, with ys, who doesn't think much of routines, lol, I am slowly but surely getting somewhere as in daily rythm, but then, it was the same with es....but now, that one is brill goes to bed when told, gets up when told...saying that he is 10 now, lol!

in answer to yor colic there is evidence to suggest that if babies are not give time to properly digest a feed, that it can cause a build up of gas and acid and give babies colic. But nobody realy knows for sure. It is recommended that babies are given 3 hours to digest a full feed if breast fed, and 3 1/2 hours if bottle. A lot of babies clusterfeed in the eveing and the only way to really get them out of that, is to just encourage them to take more during the day, you cant force them, but you can give them a good 15 min break mid feed then try them again, if you see what i mean.xxx

happy bebe, actually a "full" breastfeed, whatever that may be, lol....is digested much much faster then 3 hours...probably more like 1-2 hours...hence my huge problem with the routine of a certain person, forinstance....spouting myths like that in a book....just terrible