How to get a baby into a routine?

[Rachel1210]

Hi there
I’m looking to start putting my baby into a routine - he’s 14 weeks old. But I find it hard as he’s still quite unpredictable especially with his sleep. For example I put him down for a morning nap - sometimes he’ll sleep for 30mins other times he’ll sleep for 2 hours! This then has a knock on effect for his feeding. Do you just persevere and if he wakes after 30mins try and resettle him and if he’s sleeping too long - wake him? I’d ideallt like him to sleep an hour in the morning, 2 hours at lunch, then another hour in the afternoon (4 hours total) - id also like to get him feeding every 3 hours as he’s currently a snack feeder!

Sorry but what you want and what your baby needs are often different things. Could you imagine if you were hungry or thirsty and you could have a cup of tea for an hour because you had one two hours ago.

Maybe look at the EASY routine but the thing you want to control I don’t think can be controlled and will just make you both miserable.

I would highly recommend the EASY routine if you want a bit of structure as it’s still baby led.

My third baby is now 10 months. First baby had a strict routine. For me this was stressful as I felt like a short sleep ‘messed’ up the day etc and would spend far too much time worrying about what needed to happen when, stretching feeds etc.

DS2 had to fit in with DS1 so it either worked or it didn’t when it came to sleep!

DS3 I have had a bit of a gap so other two are at school. This time I have been mainly baby led using EASY as a guide. 10 months in and he has found his own routine which is almost identical to DS1’s enforced routine but without all the stress. He naps far better than the other two but that might just be him. If he has a short nap he copes fine as will just sleep when he’s tired rather than when I decide he has to.

The sleeps and feeds will all fall into place eventually. DS3 sometimes had 2 short naps between feeds in the early days. The longer naps only came regularly from 6 months onwards.

I think 14 weeks is too early to get baby into a solid routine, naps are all over the place and you can’t do much about it at this age. My little girl started getting into a routine at around 5 months. I spent about two months trying and was stressed constantly as she wasn’t so what the books said, I soon learnt my lesson! Maybe wait until around the 4/5 month mark and try then.

14 weeks is pretty early for a set routine and different length naps are fairly normal.

I've been using an app called Huckleberry as the free version includes a nap time predictor which has been really helpful in terms of being able to plan out my day.

Are you breastfeeding? It is fairly normal also for them to have lots of little feeds rather than a set one which keeps them going for X hours. There are benefits to this but if you'd prefer it to be bit more set then you can sort of encourage it at this age. It is never going to be as easy as it would with bottle feeding though, and ideally it is recommended to feed on demand even with a bottle fed baby these days.

The free "sweet spot" on the huckleberry app works well for me too. For my 16 week old the way I'm trying some sort of a routine is through using the sweet spot. I still have to rock her to sleep in rocking chair or go out in sling... but I start doing this 5-10 mins before the sweet spot and she's normally always asleep then by the time it suggests. After a few days the sweet spots have started to be at similar times. For the midday nap which is usually the longest nap I have to be there to help settle her back to sleep between sleep stages. My hope is that by getting naps regular even whilst she's being rocked to sleep then eventually this will become her routine.

We had a loose routine around naps at about 4 months but it wasn’t till weaning at 6 months that a routine really emerged. Spacing the naps, meals and feeds gives a natural structure to the day. Before that you should just be led by baby imo.