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Routine? Advice needed!

4 replies

LicketySplitt · 05/07/2018 13:14

asking for some mum advice? Did you get your little ones into a routine and if so at what age? And crucially, How??!! I'm struggling to find my seven week olds rhythm as it's quite changeable and I feel like I should have some semblance of a routine for him but I've got no idea how to begin and how to do it!! The internet and books are a minefield. He will feed every three ish hours and that's all I got! 😳 Xx

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
FATEdestiny · 05/07/2018 14:08

At 7 weeks old it's more of a 'rhythm' you are looking for, which will develop into a routine.

For example, babies at this age don't need very long awake (half an hour or so, maybe up to 45 minutes). In that small window of time, there are various things that have to happen. Feed, wind, check nappy, bit of a cuddle or floor time, feed again to see if more is wanted, wind again, getting baby to sleep, baby asleep.

So then think about how long these take you - if you add it up it means that very little of baby's awake time is 'free time', you're likely to be busy the whole of baby's short awake time doing things like feeding, winding, nappy changing and so on.

So you can therefore get yourself a "flow" of predictability to your day. For example:

  • baby wakes
  • give a feed
  • wind
  • put baby on floor and check nappy. Leave baby there to kick around (with nappy off maybe) until first cry. This might only be 5-15 minutes.
  • Re-offer more milk if wanted and wind again if needed
  • Straight into getting baby back to sleep. So into swaddle or bouncy chair, or whatever you do. Give dummy. Settling to sleep can take a while, this all needs to fit into baby's 30-45m awake time.
  • Asleep (eventually!)

And then baby wakes... and it starts allover again... and again... and again.

Your day then develops into repeating cycles of sleep, feed, play, (feed again if needed)...sleep, feed, play, (feed again if needed)...sleep, feed, play, (feed again if needed)... repeated from when you get up to when up go to bed.

Over time, you'll soon realise that these things start happening at predictable times. This comes from baby, not you. But you'll be able up predict. For example baby woke up at 7am so I know I'll need to be getting her to sleep again at 7.45 (or whatever). The cycle lengths will change as baby grows, but the basic predictability of the cycles stays the same.

Havetothink · 05/07/2018 17:42

No routine, at that age it all revolved around feeding times.

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 05/07/2018 20:26

A real routine? Honestly...with my breastfed baby, about 7 months old. I had a rough “rhythm” around 4 months but it was constantly thrown out the window for one reason or another. I know people say it and we never belief it until it happens to us, but babies grow up so quickly. Mine is 11months now and I would love to go back to 7weeks old, and relish in doing nothing but feeding and letting her lay on me. Relax

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Memenew · 07/07/2018 21:18

I have my 9 week old in a pretty good routine which I started at 6 weeks. Baby is bottle fed so that makes it easier but my friend followed the same routine successfully while breast feeding. I would recommed you start by writing down what your baby currently does as you will start to see a pattern. Then you can start to tweak it to ensure the routine fits both you and baby. For example, I wake baby at 10.30pm to feed her so that I get a better nights sleep. I also wake her at 7am every morning for a feed. This ensures she has more feeds during the day time and therefore sleeps better at night. On the recommendation of a friend I read the Gina Ford contented baby book. I dont think its possible to follow this strict routine exactly. I take a very flexible approach to nap times and never leave baby to cry and have still achieved sleeping from 7pm to 7am with feeds at 10.30pm and 4am. Having said that, I have friends who didn't follow a routine at all and thier babies have been doing similar by 12 weeks. I'm a first time mum and felt a bit out of my depth so I found it really helpful to start thinking about a routine early on x

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