Baby led vs routine?

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Hi,

Looking for advice from parents on what they have found successful with their babies, I have an 8 week old and so far have been very baby led, he eats whenever he wants (EBF and putting on weight well and eats generally every couple of hours) and naps when he wants. He is starting to show a pattern in naps and goes down for night time sleep at 10ish but is up every 2 hours for a feed.

However I've read that it's good to start a routine from about now? Should I be stricter with trying to feed him at the same time every day and wake him up / put him down for naps st the same time?

Let me know what you found effective as a FTM I'm clueless

I was very baby led, just because I'm not someone who really follows routines myself, and that worked very well for us. A close friend of mine thrives on routine and was much happier being in a fairly strict routine. I don't think either of us were a better/worse parent and 3yrs later our children are best friends and have both seemed to turn out okay.

I would just do what feels best to you.

@PyjamasForever I'm not a routine person either so have enjoyed being babyled so far! As long as it's no difference to him and I'm not making a rod for my own back later on then I'll continue

DC2 is 6 weeks and I've found it too early for any real routine (without forcing it and I don't want to go all Gina Ford on the baby). The main thing I stick to is awake times, so trying to ensure they're only awake between 45-90 minutes and then put them down for their next nap. Also noisy in the day and very quiet/dark at night. We're still also on 2 hourly wake ups through the night but I'm hoping it will start to extend soon.

We do have a noisy daytime and quiet dark nightime so that's one routine I've managed to do! Have read online he should be sleeping 5-6 hours in one go at night now which is definitely not what were doing with such a boob monster!

I've tried all baby lead and all parent lead, so with number 3 I'm doing a bit of both. Sleep is more lead by me, eating/milk by baby

At that age I was still very much led by DS. I remember a pattern emerging around the 3 month mark where he'd want to go to sleep between 7-8pm each night, and his night wakings started to become more predictable. That led to a bedtime routine, and then feeds settled to every 2.5-3 hours during the day (bottle fed) so our routine came from that. Watch out though, as soon as you get settled and feel like you know what you're doing they go and change it all anyway!

I started a routine-ish about 6/7 weeks. Dd had already settled quite well into 3/4hourly feeding pattern, so i kept that going, and did bed time at 8pm each night, and 8am proper wake up and start the day.

Stop reading about 'should sleep for'

It's largely made up and isn't helpful when your child hasn't read the information to know this.

Keep doing what you are doing if it feels like it works for you

I've never imposed a routine on Ds who is now 2.4, but it's largely emerged anyway and changed frequently as he's developed. Sleeping 5-6 hours didn't really occur til after he was night weaned mind you

My baby is a bit older. I haven't bothered with a routine. I know some people like them but its not really me.
Rather than a routine I have a loose pattern to our days - usually activity out and about during day with naps at varying times when he seems sleepy. Quieter time in evening and then hopefully a night with some sleep!
Don't listen to what people say you should do if you are happy.

I think it's cruel to restrict milk for an ebf baby which you would by only feeding them at certain times. Imagine being hungry and thirsty and being made to wait for milk. You should feed on demand as can't overfeed a bf baby but I'm sure you can underfeed one.

I definitely wouldn't try and impose a routine on breastfeeding, babies feed differently depending on growth spurts, sleep, teething etc. It's better to look for sleeping and feeding cues. If you want, you can create more structure to your days by doing some things daily or in a certain order, like going for a walk every morning.

Do what works for you, not what you think you ‘should’ be doing. You know you and your baby best.
I followed a strict routine from day 1 as I love routine, it worked really well for both me and my DD but it’s not for everyone.

I would say wait until at least 12 weeks to implement any routine. I always had a bedtime routine but that was to try and communicate the difference between day and night and I didn’t bring that to earlier until 4 months. I didn’t have much of a feed and nap routine until 6 months when I noticed DD had naturally fallen into one.

Dd was EBF and we never had a routine. I just fed when hungry/tired/sad/needed comfort (ie all the time ) and she slept when she was tired. She sort of gradually put herself into a routine by the time she was weaning and went from there. Never had any issues at all.

Mine is 14 months and doesnt sleep for 5 hour blocks!!

My DD is 13 weeks and totally baby led, my attempts to implement a routine so far have been a dismal failure as she naps whenever the hell she wants (which isn't often!) and still feeds very regularly (also ebf). I do have a bedtime routine going which I think helps with settling although bedtime is still variable. I have an occasional worry that she should be in more of a routine but she is healthy and happy and hcps have told me not to stress about it so trying to relax and go with the flow

I was completly baby led - still am to be honest and DS is nearly 18 months. There is plenty of structure and routine in terms of the order in which we do things but not in terms of timings - I work three days a week so then it’s all pretty much the same but on the days where I’m off DS wakes up when he wants, naps when he’s tired, eats when he’s hungry etc. I found that a baby’s needs are constantly changing as they grow and develop, there didn’t seem to be time to build up a ‘routine’. I imagine once you’ve got it cracked suddenly they need less bottles/feeds or shorter naps or they drop a nap, or they get ill or are teething and then you’re back to square one. Also, unless you spend all day at home every single day, I don’t understand how people keep up with certain timings for naps and feeding.

I found routine started emerging on its own at about 3 months. I was totally baby-led for the first year, but DD had her own rhythm by 12 weeks. Once that had emerged, it was helpful to have repeating patterns so that she knew what to expect next, but before then her feeding was really quite erratic, which I didn’t find surprising as she had lots of little growth spurts and was still getting the knack of feeding efficiently.

At 3yo she’s extremely keen on routine. We’ve never forced it on her, it just developed.

However, can I suggest throwing away/burning wherever you read about how long babies “should” sleep for? You just end up hating yourself if your baby doesn’t do what the book says, you feel like a failure. I had to keep reminding myself that they have a lot going on, so even once they are capable of sleeping a long stretch without a feed, it doesn’t mean they won’t get freaked out by an unusual noise, or getting uncomfortable - DD used to wake up because she needed a wriggle but couldn’t roll over to a new position. Imagine how uncomfortable you’d be stuck on your back all night if you couldn’t move!

When the experts mean ‘routine’ at 8-12 weeks they often mean a set series of actions you perform everyday to signal bedtime / night. You don’t have to reduce or change feeds but you could keep the room dark at night when you do feed / change and not play with / engage the baby so they go straight to sleep. Do it often enough and they’ll automatically realise the difference between day and night

@bumploading it sounds like you've been doing really well so far and seems odd that you're seeming to consider going against your instincts due to something you read (?where/?credentials of the author/?evidence base).

As a health visitor, I often direct parents to BASIS

www.basisonline.org.uk/how-babies-sleep/

• their an infant sleep research unit based at Durham University (so no commercial interest) and have studied thousands of mothers and babies/families.

Also, later this month, this book is coming out by Dr Amy Brown (Professor in Public Health @ Swansea University) helping parents understand what to look for/how to assess the quality of info they find about parenting:

www.pinterandmartin.com/informed-is-best

We have a routine.
Bedtime:7-7:0pm. Give a bottle until she falls asleep. If it changes then we get night wakings whereas she sleeps through otherwise. We started trying to put her down at six for a few days, then half past, and finally settled on where we are now.
Wakes up: 6:30-9 depends how many naps she had the day before and if we stayed at home or not. Gets a bottle straight away.
Then every 2-3 hours I try to get her to nap, and depending on length between naps she either gets the bottle before or after the nap.
However, I can also tell when she needs to sleep, and when she's about to need a bottle or if she's fine going a bit longer without so it's partially baby-led.
My baby is 16 weeks and we've had this routine, adjusting for age, since she was about 8 weeks old and I'd had enough of not knowing when I could go to sleep and for how long so researched how to introduce set times for things at about 2am after the fifth waking up that night 😂. I got very lucky though, not all babies settle into routines so well and it's very much trial and error and perseverance to establish a good routine. Baby won't just go down easily for a long time, but now once mine is in her cot she knows it's time to sleep and sometimes settles herself off whilst I'm sorting the bottle.

Sounds like what you're doing is working well for you, so I wouldn't worry about "should" Is there something in particular you want to change/fix? If not, just keep doing what works!

In terms of routine, the one thing I would think about is bedtime, just because having a nice bedtime routine makes it (in my opinion) a lovely snuggly time of day. Doesn't have to be strict, just the same things in the same order at (roughly!) the same time each day.

Thabks for all your replies everyone. Seems like babyled works for most people and is working for us so will continue with it! I'll stop reading so much online as I appreciate every baby is different! But would like him to start sleeping a but longer stretches at night soon so I'll start with a bedtime routine and making it cosier before bed and see if that helps him settle down for longer

Bit of both! You've already noticed your baby's patterns so work with them but be prepared for them to change!

My main thing with all my kids was bath and bed routine. Bath or wash, pjs, feed and cuddle with low lights and try to settle to sleep. They didn't always settle but if I had to bring them out of the room again we always stuck with low lights and low stimulation. Eventually the get the difference between day and night!

I've got a 15 week old who was difficult in the evenings - took me way too long to notice it was because he wouldn't nap in the day. Since week 12 I've kept more of an eye on it - he kind of found his own morning nap around 10-11ish and I've been cosleeping for an evening nap around 4. Sometimes he'll do 30mins, occasionally two hours! We've also implemented a very basic bedtime routine - nappy change, sleep suit, bedtime story from daddy in low light and then feed to sleep.

He's suddenly stopped needing to always feed to sleep during the day now, which seems to have let him take a nap easier when out and about.