Routine...advice??

[upallnight2015]

There may be a thread or section already for this, apologies if wrong area. But my DS is 8 weeks this week.
I am a bit stuck as to routines... should I create one for him or just. keep going with his cues? So far he mostly seems to nurse (BF) every three hours during the day, has various naps and awake times in between. We aim for bed about 9 sometimes a bit earlier or later, depending on his mood. He is stretching it out to 4 hours between feeds at night, though sometimes cluster feeds.
I have seen friends who have strict routines and very content babies.
But I don't seem to have it in me to deny him food till the exact hour, or leave him crying, trying to make him have a nap, if he's not tired, but. just because that's his routine?
Am I going to end up with chaotic days, and him not able to settle for other people (childminders etc) in futureif I don't try harder for a routine or should I go on as I am?
He is a very happy baby, and I'm very happy as a Mum. I'm just checking what other people tended to do? Thanks.

Congratulations on your baby!

I'd say 9 weeks is still very early to try and put a routine in place. We didn't really have a routine as such until we weaned at 6 months.

I am quite a haphazard person and I don't deal well with routine myself anyway, so we're still a bit freeform at 18+ months, sorry, but DD is a happy soul, and that makes me happy. I also did not go back to work, so have all my time with her. This has probably made me more relaxed about a lot of thing to be honest.

Right now though, I'd just go with baby's cues. Google "fourth trimester" and it is a very interesting read. You sound like you're doing a grand job already!

It sounds like you have a pattern that's as useful as a routine.

The idea of a set routine stressed me out more than the potential chaos of being totally baby led, so I worked with DD's natural rhythm. For example, by8 weeks I knew the best chance I had to get showered and dressed was after her "morning" feed (7/8ish), then I'd feed her again at 9.30/10 ish, and we'd go out. The is feed her again when we stopped for lunch this was me taking advantage of her pattern, rather than imposing a routine.

Anyway, I think of what you're doing it working, stick with it. Be mindful that she's getting enough sleep and enough in the day as that seems to be the key to good nights. As she gets older she'll fall into 2 naps and then one, and that's more the time to be a bit a bit more rigid IMO.

Don't worry about childminders and nurseries etc. They'll workaround whatever is normal for you.

Your baby's pattern will become your routine eventually! They will most likely have a predictable time they can go between feeds and naps eventually, but this will change every month or so and be interrupted by growth spurts, illness etc, so aim for a ballpark time rather than looking at the clock! Now at 7 months if say I have a pretty solid routine with DS, up at the same time, bed at the same time and naps and feeds around the same time each day. But it's all evolved from him. The most stressful days I ever had when he was younger were the ones where I thought 'right, I want to go to here at 11am so I'll try and get a nap in at 9am' etc etc, and got myself worked up that he wasn't going to my plan! It's very natural to start to crave some kind of pattern after weeks of newborn madness though. I had a back injury after birth which meant I couldn't hold DS in bed so every morning DH would take him downstairs around about 7am and it was light, and we'd sing etc, and around 8 weeks started bathing at 7 and a feed, into grobag and down to sleep (still in the living room at first) at 8, this eventually became bedtime and so everything else, naps etc started to slot in between.

As PP say I just waited til a pattern emerged and went with that. people comment how calm dd is so it works for us.

My 8 week old is still all over the place. She looks for milk roughly every 3 hours but she's not in a nap routine yet (dd1 had set her own by this age) and still sleeps a lot.
I know she'll start to establish her own routine/pattern when she's ready.
I tend to follow what she does for a few days and familiarise myself with her pattern and then try and pre empt feeds and naps based on knowing her cues.
Strict routines are very restrictive and mean you can't do much and baby isn't very adaptable.

I didn't start a routine as such with my daughter till she was 6 months & I was going back to work so needed to get her up at a specific time in the morning. Even then I didn't have exact times for things. I don't think being baby led & not having a routinenmakes for chaos I think some people (& some children) operate better with them. Personally I'm more of a baby led parent & that works just fine for me & my family right now