4 week old. What are your rountines?

[Lotsofqueries]

Generally goes to sleep around 10pm to 2-3am, then wakes again 5-6am and sometimes back off, sometimes not. But during the day she's all over. Half hour here and there. Feeds here and there. Is it too early to try and get her into routine?

Yes!!!

Yes.

The routine I'd advise with a 4wo is 'go with the flow and do what they need'. Their needs will have changed so much already by 12wo.

Way too early!!!! Start thinking about it in 3 months' time, she's barely out the womb!

As others have said just manage each hour as they come and slowly in the coming weeks you will see some kind of pattern developing.

Brace yourself, I'm going to go against the flow...

By four or five weeks old DD had a routine, it was definitely HER routine, not ours, and we flexed around it. But understanding it allowed me to get stuff done around her sleeping and feeding needs.

The only thing that we did which may have contributed was that we FF her (though at this stage I was still failing to mixed-feed). So she wasn't eating the 'little and often' of BF babies, instead (slowly) taking 3-4oz every 3 hours or so.

Like your DD we got night time sleep in two batches (3 hours, feed, and then 4 hours) - we were very lucky in that respect. And she slept during the day for 30 mins every two hours (so 1.5 hours awake, 30 mins asleep).

So it wasn't a routine that we'd applied (she was and is too cynical to fall for our tricks to try to change it), but it was a routine. It lasted until she was about three months old, then she started to sleep (usually) from 10pm to 7am. She didn't drop the short naps every 1.5hours until she was six months old.

We've been lucky sleep-wise, nothing we've done has accounted for this, it's purely her nature.

Wow notthe that would be amazing for me!!

I have a four week old and it's really random - no routine what so ever. When I put down in the day even if very asleep he still cries within 5-10 mins to be picked up and then sleeps in my arms fine.

Therefore my routine is to get through the day/night with my baby and toddler alive and me somewhat sane?! Xx

I can only admit it online Chosen, it makes people want to punch me in the face IRL, so I keep my gob shut 😳

It's pure luck. Nothing that we're doing. And she is challenging in other ways (she is moody as all living hell).

My ds had a routine at 4 weeks - he had a different one at 6weeks, 10 weeks and 4 mouths! All set by him just a general pattern that sort of emerged that we work around to get things done.

No. Both of mine had some sort of approximate routine by that age.

The routine needs to flex around the baby - and it can't be a schedule but certainly some babies can have a routine at that age. From the sounds of how nights are going yours sounds like she might be able to have one.

In my opinion there is a huge advantage in making feeding the first part of each cycle, followed by all the nappy changes, cuddles etc.

If you do that now, you are less likely to be in a position where feeding is the only way to get a baby back to sleep. The other advantage is if she's just had a big feed and is upset, you know it won't be hunger.

I started a bedtime routine at 8 weeks with both of my girls. The rest fell into place naturally.