Routines?

[moose234]

Hey, any ideas how to get my little one in a routine she is nearly 11 weeks old and has no routine at all, naps are at different times of the day everyday and no bedtime routine and doesn't go down till 9.30? Help!

Sorry to say but the best thing is to let her find her own routine. Everything will change in three weeks.

Very normal. Go with her rhythm for now and a pattern will gradually begin to emerge. It all changes all the time at this age anyway so no point really.

I waited 13 long weeks for DS to fall into some kind of routine..he never did! So I loosely followed Gina Ford's routine for feeding times. Naps didn't follow her routine for ages (6 months plus) but knowing when the next bottle was due made me feel so much more in control. You could also try The Baby Whisperer routine - feed every 3hrs then stretch to 4 hourly. Good luck!

I felt the same about DS around 11 weeks but left it a few more to see. From 12 weeks we introduced a proper bedtime routine of bath, story, milk and asleep by 7. By about 14 weeks there was a definite pattern to his days. I decided at 15 weeks to stretch his feeds to every 4 hours from 3 and upped the ounces to 7.

Now at 17 weeks I'm almost ready to tackle daytime naps but we are in the middle of 4 month sleep regression so possibly best to go with the flow until that passes.

I found doing one part at a time eg feeds or bedtime or naps that it's easier. If you try do it all at once you've no idea what part isn't working for baby. I know for example that DS needs more than one morning nap right now even though most books would say he only needs one. Don't kill yourself just yet trying to get them into a routine, at 11 weeks it's more encouraging them into their own one.

Mine is 16 weeks and only has a very loose routine TBH. All I could do at that stage was try to differentiate between day and night.

Forget routines for about a year. Save yourself the stress. Having said that going for a walk straight after breakfast helps. Gets the fresh air and natural light in first thing.

My baby is also 11 weeks and at first I was all set to start slowly introducing a bed time routine around the 12 week mark, but she's been sleeping through for 7/8 hours a night most nights since she was about 8 or 9 weeks old - the time changes, so it can be like 7 hours from 9pm, or it can be 8hrs from 11pm but it's rarely later. We have no routine at all other than a very vague thing that I know she always goes down for bed between 9 and 11.30pm-ish and almost always sleeps through til 6/7/8am although if she's fed less one day she sometimes needs a feed around 4am then will sleep again til about 9. So bearing that in mind, and knowing we are so lucky that she basically sleeps through, I don't see any reason to mess about it with it and try and introduce a 'routine'. And I'm not sure there is any evidence that a routine of any sort will improve your baby's overall sleep. I think a lot it is just luck. Like we didn't 'do' anything to have her sleep through, she just did it.

Oh also my LO is now exclusively formula fed and I notice she sleeps a lot more in the daytime now than when she was BFing, but there has been no impact on her nighttime sleep at all. On days when she sleeps a lot in the day time she sometimes goes to sleep towards the later end of her spectrum but she still happily sleeps relatively the same number of hours as on days when she doesn't sleep much. So I don't know if limiting naps or anything will make any difference as it definitely doesn't for my baby.

Let her find her own pattern in the day and go around her but start a bedtime routine at night with her.
Just start doing the same things at the same time each night. Simple things like a bath, getting changed and having a story and they fall into knowing that is bedtime when you put them to bed after that. It might take a few weeks. I wouldn't panic about a daytime routine they get that when they have routine in the night time.

I got DD into a routine very early on, it saved everyone's sanity, helped me feel more in control of things, and DH and I got evenings to ourselves. I'm a big advocate of them, but I like my life to be quite structured, so I didn't find it hard to implement. It was also handy having her in a well-established routine in advance of me going back to work.
It's not for everyone - I did the Gina Ford routines and formula-fed DD. She fed well, slept well and was generally very content. I don't think I would have enjoyed the time as much as I did if I hadn't done it that way.

If you’re feeding on demand it’s quite difficult but if you get feeds (3 or 4hrs apart to start with) in a routine then its fairly easy to work out where naps and bedtime need to go.

I wouldn’t worry yet. It also depends on the baby... some babies can be forced into a routine (usually doesn’t last though) but some babies will have absolutely none of it and will just cause more anxiety for you. I really would just not worry until about a year or so. Growth spurts and developmental leaps take place often so they need to be awake when they need to be awake