What is your 6/7mo's routine?

[MeadowHay]

DD is 6 and a half months. Her routine is...um, loose, to say the least and I want to try and get her in bed earlier on a night as she clearly needs the sleep.

Atm a good day will go like this:
6.30am wake up, 9oz bottle over the course of an hour or so - she likes to drink a few oz, have a break, drink a few more oz, etc. Usually a nap of about 30 minutes follows this.
Solid breakfast around 8.30 or 9am - if she's being spoon fed porridge she will eat a fair amount but if we give her something to hold obviously she mostly just plays around with it . Few sips of water in a cup.
9oz bottle around 11.30 or 12pm but she usually drinks this in about 3 sittings over the course of an hour and a half or so.
Solid lunch around 12/12.30pm, she usually has 'proper' foods so she mostly just plays around with it, again with a few sips of water in a cup.
7oz bottle around 4pm, again with breaks throughout.
Solid tea around 6pm, usually what we are having she just plays around with but sometimes we spoon feed her puree depending on what we're having.
Get ready for bed after dinner, on a good night then she will sleep 7-8pm in pram/carseat/on me or DH and then dream-feed bottle at 8pm which is anywhere between 3 and 7oz (but usually the lower end), she usually wakes a little but is then in her cotbed for the night by 9pm.

But that's a good day. Last night she was awful in the evening and not asleep in her cot-bed til 10.15pm. She still woke at 5.45am the same as she did the day before when she had moslty been asleep since 7.30am that night, so that's nearly 3 hours less sleep, and consequently she's been sleeping on and off all morning and has missed having a solid breakfast (I won't wake her - she would be hysterical and cry for hours, she's a very difficult baby as it is). She also seems to be getting less and less interested in her milk as weaning goes on, but as we mostly are not spoon feeding her, she's really not eating much solids at all so I'm worried about that, and a few days I was more chill about her milk intake and she woke and had a bottle, between 4 and 7oz at like 3/4am, so she obivously didn't get enough in the day. I haven't put naps in cos they're completely erratic and I'm sure I can't do anything to change that (literally tried everything you could possibly think of, given up really, just have to follow her lead).

So, mums who have it all together much better than me , what is your 6/7mo's routine like?

Oh another think I was thinking of doing is offering some water in a cup or bottle every couple of hours or so in-between milk because I wonder about her maybe being thirsty hence the snacking on milk? I mean I wouldn't go between 12 and 4pm without a drink iyswim.

babies routines waver constantly when so young, every milestone disrupts the "plan".
Food before 1 is for fun!
Did you wean earlier than six months, to be trying three meals a day already seems very soon? Also no need at all for water, your child should only be having formula or breastmilk, thats probably not helping the disinterest in milk.

Don't worry, I do know that and am not expecting some routine down to the hour or anything, it's mainly just that she clearly needs more sleep at night but I don't know how I'd get the 4th bottle in to her if she's already in bed earlier so was wondering what other people do.

Didn't wean early really, shes been on solids 3 weeks ish? Maybe 4, I can't remember exactly. Also shes closer to 7 months now, 10 days or so. I thought with BLW you could give whatever you were having so didnt see a reason to start with less meals? I don't wake her if shes asleep at a meal time and about 80% of the time she has what we have and doesn't actually eat anyway really, just messes about and gums it a bit - which is fine, I'm just saying that she's not filling up on solids or anything. She only has a few sips of water with a meal, nowhere near enough to be filling her up! She gets constipation so GP and HV both agree she should be having some water. But its a tiny amount, nowhere near enough to fill her up, and shes had a similar amount for months and still drank all her milk eagerly then. Having said that, her disinterest in her milk started a few weeks before we began weaning, it's just slowly getting worse I think so it may not even be linked tbh, idk.

oh i see, clearer. Could be teething then, my LO goes off all food when teething.

8am - wake up, change nappy, 8oz bottle
845 - porridge
930/10 - nap. Location depends on what we're doing but thankfully he's finally started napping better in the cot bed ie longer than 20 minutes
12 - 8oz bottle
1ish - lunch. boiled egg, soup, yoghurt or an Ella's pouch if out
2ish - maybe a nap if in car or pram but depends on what we're doing with older DS
4 - 8oz bottle
5/530 - dinner. mash, haggis, fish cake, quiche are all winners
645 - 8oz bottle then bed at 7

The feeding times and bed/wake up are consistent but naps definitely vary. Probably because apart from DS1 nursery days he just has to fit in and go to DS1 classes etc.

I feel like he should be on 3 bottles by now but I can't remember how I did it with DS1 so sticking to the 4 but would like to move the lunch forward to when DS1 would usually eat.

My LO is just over 61/2 months and I seriously don't have it together.

Much like you, I'm getting a little worried about his milk intake as he seems disinterested in his daytime feeds. I'll try to describe his routine but there is so much variation.

6.30am - wake up, feed, straight back to sleep
8.30am - wake up, change nappy, feed and up for the day
9ish - I have breakfast and might let him have a little bit of fruit if I have any and it doesn't need much prepping before he can have it (e.g. banana)
10ish - down for a nap
10.30ish - wakes up (after just half an hour -sigh), feed
10.45ish - play with him, he plays by himself a little, a do a miniscule amount of housework
12.30ish - sometimes he's tired, in which case I put down for a nap, if not I have lunch and give him a little finger food to occupy him.
1ish - nap time if this hasn;t already happened (usually wakes up again after half an hour -sigh)
1.30ish - golden time to get out of the house with minimal fussiness - we'll go to the supermarket, wrap up and go to the park (if not too cold) or visit friends/family).Return time varies on activity and we don't go out everyday.
2pm - actually leave the house after getting ready, nappy change, etc.
4pm - LO has usually fallen asleep in the car ride back. Cue him waking up from me trying to remove clothes layers. Feed. Playtime.
4.30 - Falls asleep.
5pm - Wakes up. Another feed if he didn't drink much from the last time. I attempt to get dinner on the go whilst he plays in his bouncer thingy.
6pm - DH arrives home and entertains LO.
6.30 - We eat at the table and LO has his food (some type of mashed up veg and/or potato)
7ish - some playtime
7.30ish - Bath time and quite time upstairs
8.30ish - feed and then put down in cot

*Cue lots of crying as he resists sleep and about several wakes in the night for feeds as he hasn't drunk enough milk in the day despite my best efforts.

As pp has said, the constant milestones are forever throwing our plans off. Our biggest battle at the moment is trying to reduce the night feeds so LO can sleep longer through the night. It's been grim.

My DD is 6.5 months. She had a tummy upset for two weeks around Christmas so we are a bit behind on weaning (only started last week). I'm combination feeding her as I'm beginning to transition from breastfeeding to formula. Times are pretty flexible (for example, DD currently asleep having a later afternoon nap than planned!) but the gaps between feeds are quite consistent.

6.30am: Wake up, breastfeed (both breasts), nappy change, get ready for the day

8.30am: Nap, 45mins to 1 hour

9.30am: Wake from nap, formula feed (6ozs ish), nappy change, play time, etc.

11.30am: Nap, could be 45 mins to 1.5 hours

12.30pm: Wake from nap, breastfeed and lunch (new to weaning to either a homemade puree or some finger food), nappy change, try to get out of the house for a bit

3.00pm: Nap, around an hour

4.00pm: Wake, breastfeed

6.45pm: Bedtime formula feed, 6ozs (ish), story

7.15pm: Bedtime (straight into cot-bed in her room)

10.00pm: Dream feed (breastfeed) on my way up to bed - I've found this has helped stop DD from waking at midnight as she had a tendency to do.

Sometimes there is another feed between 2am-3am, otherwise that's it until wake up the following morning.

OP sorry to hear you're having a tough time. Definitely don't have it any more together over here! My baby has never slept anywhere near that long at night, let alone regularly...want to swap?! 😂

I breastfeed my 6.5 month old on demand so timings aren't very regimented, and feeding is a lot more often at night 😴. A day goes pretty much like this...

Approx 6:30-8am wake up & feed
Play, attempt to eat some porridge / pureed fruit and finger foods, play.
Approx 9-10am - feed and approx 1 hour nap
Approx midday - play, get ready to go out.
Approx 2pm - feed & 1-2 hour nap
Play
Approx 5pm- feed & 30 minutes power nap
6pm - finger food and a pureed / mashed meal
6:30 - bath time and (Dad does this)
7pm - feed and bed
9PM - wakes up for a feed / comfort
1am - wakes up for a feed / comfort. Probably won't settle so comes into bed with me
5am - wakes up for a feed / comfort
6:30 - wakes up for a feed / comfort
If I'm lucky he'll go down for another hour!

I haven't slept in a block of more that 3.5 hours for months 🤪

Thanks everyone. You are all stars and all doing a fab job. And also wanted to say to the BF ladies you are doing a boss thing there too, I wish that BF had worked out for me but I should also count my blessings because FF is way easier. Also I do realise how lucky we are with her nighttime sleep, she goes through some rough patches of a few weeks at a time sometimes where the dummy needs to be replaced many many many many times - one night at 4am after so many wakings for it I got annyoed and counted how many times til she got up at 6.30 and it was 11 times just in those 2 and a half hours!!! But they are always phases of a week or two and then it goes less, and which as they are brief is nowhere near as bad as getting up to do lots of feeding. And she is slowly learning how to put her own dummy in - last night she did it herself on two occasions, DH and I were chuffed but still needed it replugging a further 5 times or so I reckon. I try not to count though as it just makes me feel more tired!

Also one thing that is standing out to me from this thread, and also a few other threads I've been on with people who have difficult babies in particular (if anyone has a crier btw, we have a support thread for parents of criers, we are a friendly, if exasperated bunch !), is that people find it easiest to go out and do things in the afternoons/after lunch. I've always found this with DD too - except almost all the many baby things on in my area are on in the mornings! Why is that?! I am lucky to live in an area where there is soo much to take your baby to, but I hardly get to any of them as they are almost all in the mornings and DD is usually a nightmare in the mornings so it just doesn't happen. I've only found two afternoon baby groups, Thursday round the corner, and Friday afternoons which I get a short bus ride to which are good. But there's so much stuff in the mornings!

Is there a reason she's not going straight to her cot when you put her down for the night? Does she need a dream feed? We stopped routinely feeding at night at about 5 months as he'd started to sleep though (that all changed at the bloody 8 month sleep regression) and it meant that he drank more during the day (if he needed a bottle during the night he can of course have one).

Yeah, I get what you mean, we have thought about it, but we've only recently moved from 5 bottles to 4 so I think we should wait a few weeks of this routine before we try and change things again iyswim. Especially as it's been working fairly well so far. Some nights she drinks like 7oz at that feed though so I'm sure if she didn't have it she would definitely wake in the night for it! And other nights only like 3oz ish. But there's no pattern to when she will drink loads of it and when she won't. And we are really selfishly keen to reduce any likelihood of night bottles, because whilst it's not a big deal to get up and give her a bottle, you're always up for at least an hour because it takes that long to settle her back to sleep even though she drinks her milk in like 5 mins. How much milk were you giving around this age, if you rememeber? She already drinks 3 8- 9oz bottles and then as I say the 4th one is anywhere between 3 and 7oz. The formula packet said 4 9oz bottles being the guideline for babies of this age once weaning, I know that's just a guideline but obviously she drinks less than that already with very little intake of solids. She's around the 50th centile for weight atm.

I’ve probably waffled on about DD enough in our criers thread but:

Get up no later than 7. I’ll bring her in bed with me/ keep putting her down till then. She’s usually made it into my bed by then so we feed from like 6am onwards anyway (she basically attaches herself to me for ages)

About 7.30/8- I’ll do breakfast. Today it was baby porridge. Been doing kiwi/ banana/ toast sometimes too as finger food.

She’ll need a nap by 9.30. So she’ll usually feed to sleep/ pram depending on what our plans our. She needs about 45 mins- 1 hr in the morning depending on how she slept.

The baby groups I go to are usually at different times so today I had one at 12 which means she still hasn’t had lunch just a BF as she got tired after. But I have been aiming for a 12pm lunch. Which is usually a purée or whatever’s in the fridge.

Afternoon nap. Again, depends on what we’re doing but she can’t really stay awake more than 3 hours so will get a nap in there somewhere.

Dinner- been aiming for 5pm. I try to feed her in between meals and then she’ll have water in her sippy cup.

6.30- bath if she is having one.

Bed by 7.30.

Been getting bigger chunks of sleep now which is great.

Our routine isn’t too strict. I find she does okay as long as she gets 2-3 hours sleep in the day.