ADVICE - What's a typical day like with a newborn?

[usernameannonymous]

Hi everyone,
I'm expecting my first little one soon and wondered if anyone could give a rough guide of what their day consists of, like a timetable, so when they go down for naps, when the have a feed, when you usually change their nappy.
Of course I know that there isn't any 'schedule' when you have a baby, and things don't necessarily happen at specific times, I just wanted a rough idea of what your day consists of.
I'm doing lots of research to prepare myself too but it would be nice to hear someone's real life experience.
Thank you in advance

DS is 5 months now but when we brought him home it was pretty much change nappy, feed, sleep. On repeat 24/7.

There was literally no timetable, no schedule, nothing. They aren’t capable of that when they’re newborns. They don’t even know the difference between night and day. So for us, it was like this weird, continuous twilight with the baby waking to breastfeed every 60-90 mins day and night, streams of visitors, gifts, DH making endless cups of tea and plates of toast for me, nappies, washing, cuddling. Just a huge blur for the first few weeks. The exhaustion was brutal but it was also the happiest time of my life and I look back on it very fondly.

@IWantT0BreakFree what a lovely way to describe it! Am currently 30 weeks on first child and was dreading the exhaustion but it's reassuring to hear you describe it as the happiest time - thank you!

It's been a while but my ebf babies fed every 3hrs and dropped feeds just like formula fed babies. I made sure they were fed till they passed out my tickling back if their necks and toes and changing mid feed. Which were all recommended by bf trained me. I also fed and changed in the dark at night time. We had established a loose routine by 4wks old

My newborn seemed to settle into a night schedule of his own accord. He's pretty regular and wakes (roughly) at 11, 2, 5 and then 8. Days are completely erratic, theres no schedule. Im not breast feeding due to him and me being poorly at his birth. In the early days its just feed, nappy, lull back to sleep, repeat. All the time. My son is 5 weeks old now and is just beginning to 'see' things and have an awake period after every feed where I can show him bright pictures, etc. Its very limited though.

Ive found this stage brutal. Theres been many tears (from me and him), but its getting a bit better now.

Also, research purple crying. The first time it happened to us it was a massive shock.

Without giving timings the day generally goes feed/change/sleep repeat! Ideally in between these times you'll grab something to eat and a shower. Just be prepared to go with the flow and camp out on the sofa for the first few weeks. Set yourself up in the morning with all the things you'll need for the day - a water bottle, some snacks, the TV remote, phone charger, nappy changing things, muslins and change of clothes for the baby. Then you can camp out in the lounge and you don't need to move if baby falls asleep on you.

I can't remember much to be honest because I was delirious with lack of sleep 😂 The days and nights just merged into one. It's a bit like when you've had a drunken night and you get random flashbacks every now and then, but most of it is a blur. Saying that, every experience is different x

It is exhausting and you wonder when youll ever sleep for more than 2 hours in a row.
However..... enjoy it because if you have another baby it's much much worse!! Up at 6am trying to entertain a toddler when you've had no sleep. Grim.

Hey! Congratulations!

I have a 7 week & 5 day old baby.
She really is the best baby and I feel ever so lucky being a first time mum that she is my first baby.

I'm what some would call a routine freak when it comes to day to day life. I live by lists etc but honestly with a newborn baby you really can't have routine. The first few weeks of life, your schedule/sleeping pattern etc is all over the place and I pretty much spent the majority of my time trying to get my baby to understand day and night. Happy to say we finally mastered it from about 6 weeks!

We're still not in a routine to be honest. The only thing that stays the same every day is her bed time schedule. She goes to bed at 11/12 and sleeps through until 6/7. But, as for the day time, routine is non existent and I just feed her when she wants and let her sleep when she wants.

My little girl is bottle fed and I do find that wether your breast feeding or bottle feeding - it makes a difference to routine and time schedules etc. I change my little ones nappy every 3 hours no matter what but obviously more frequently if I can tell she's done a poop. Hope that helps! Feel free to message me too if you have any questions or want any advice. I'm no expert but I'll help when/if I can

Also - my best piece of advice would be, cherish every single moment! When people tell you it goes so fast - it really does! I can't get over the fact she's nearly 8 weeks alreadyfeels like yesterday she was born. Don't stress about routine to begin with and just enjoy your little baby x

Feed, sleep, nappy changes, naps that happen on you - repeat x 10000000. There is no schedule and they have no concept of night or day when first born and hate being put down. It's a huge shock to the system, tough but you get through it.

It's a definite blur; days and nights aren't really differentiated. There's a lot of feeding, a lot of napping, a lot of changing. In the nicest possible way, the thing I was least prepared for was how boring it was.

It is all lovely, every day. Super to reflect on happy memories from the distance of several decades. Enjoy.

You’ll be fine it’s not so bad, unless I was lucky. We had lots of free time during the day while he slept,all up at 6am dh went to work,I took little one upstairs,put him in a chair whilst I made beds got washed dressed played a while together then took him out in his Pram shopping,met up with other mums, then home for the afternoon.
The worst bit came after a few weeks, he had terrible colic,and screamed for 6pm until 10pm then out like a light until 2am for a feed.Hop everything goes well for you.just relax and enjoy,it passes in a flash.

Hi, I have a 5 week old, and yeah really no routine yet. Change, feed, sleep, repeat. However I've been so befuddled through lack of sleep I couldn't keep track of when she last got changed, fed etc, so hubby downloaded an app that helps track times and and stuff. It's actually been quite helpful. Say she feeds every 90 mins or so, you can kind of use it to plan ahead a little. If baby cooperates! And if you can remember to record things!! Good luck!!

@mynameiscalypso YES! Im glad im not the only one who finds it dull

... and dont forget winding them, that takes so much time!!

We were in a routine by 2 weeks really.

Breastfeed every 3-4hrs. Nappy change. Sleep. Watch boxsets. My dd never clusterfed.

We had visitors round most days after she was born. We introduced dummy and bottle at 3 weeks as feeding was established so my dp gave 1 bottle of expressed milk a day

Get yourself up and out when you feel ready to, good practice getting baby dressed and in the pushchair etc.

I used to walk to tesco every day which was about 2 miles to get a bit of exercise.

I got a little whiteboard to write down every time I fed mini man. Feed on demand and change nappy after every feed. Wind once halfway through bottle (if bottle feeding) and after. Breastfed babies don't need winding from what I've been told. In the first few weeks they do exactly nothing other than sleep, eat and poop. After a few weeks/month you can put them on a play gym and let them look at things. You really can't go wrong 😊

Congrats on your impending little love ❤️

It's a wonderful sleepy stressful blur. I cried all the time for the first two weeks thanks to hormones (mostly because everything was so lovely). In terms of schedule:

• very new babies should be offered a feed every hour during the day
• they shouldn't really be awake more than 1 - 1.5 hours at a stretch
• 10 - 12 nappy changes a day

So if you put those things together, you're going to be pretty busy. Now is an excellent time to put your feet up and have someone else batch-cook for you. Newborns usually sleep a lot, but unfortunately not for very long at one time.

Google the 4th trimester if you're unfamiliar with the term. There's a lot more to it, but basically, babies don't officially have a circadian rhythm much before 12 weeks. That said, my dc started having a longer sleep at night pretty early on.

Make sure your partner takes a lot of photos with you in!

The Wonder Weeks app is pretty useful for working out what is going on with your baby's behaviour and development. Babies are constantly changing and learning new things. My dc was fascinated by the Baby Shapes books when just a couple of days old. Babies just hours old can mimic your facial expressions. Have fun!

I couldn't give you a timetable because it doesn't really work like that. When we were still in hospital baby would wake up, I'd change him, then feed him (which took a while because it generally does, also we had to faff about with top ups) and he'd fall asleep. If I felt reasonably awake and happy I'd hold him for a while, otherwise I'd put him down in the cot and hope he stayed asleep. Then I'd have roughly an hour or two, occasionally up to 3, to eat, sleep, relax, talk to visitors, have a shower etc - pick one or two of those - and then it would start all over again. Sometimes there would be a little peiod in between feeding and sleeping where he'd be awake and alert which I loved because he would just stare at things and I found that really interesting. I do see how crazy that sounds written down :o I think it's probably something that makes sense when the baby is here.

Once we got home it was pretty much the same, but many of the sleep periods I'd just hold him the whole time because I could comfortably sit at my computer or on the sofa and do this whole watching TV or playing a game or surfing the Internet. The other differences were that I was now trying to sleep in a bed with a giant other human in it, which was unexpectedly annoying, and that once home of course I was responsible for things like making my own food, cleaning and washing. DH did a lot of those things but was also doing the baby shifts, not the feeding but nappies and soothing and some of the fun alert awake let's see what we can get him to react to now times. So we tended to sleep in shifts as well. Sometimes he would take him totally away and only bring him back for the feed part of the cycle, so that I could get an extra hour or so of sleep and didn't have to wake up too much for the feed and could drift into the next 3 hour block.

But the fact these 2 hour gaps are the only opportunity you get to sleep means that becomes a big priority for the activity you do during them, and once you've added in other basic needs like eating and going to the toilet and showering there isn't much time for anything else. I don't mind relegating my sleep into little chunks throughout the day and it seems to work fine for me, but some people find that really tough.

As the baby wakes up a bit more and their awake periods get longer, you can settle into a sort of routine with them and start to differentiate night and day etc which helps a lot too. But it really is go with the flow, everything else on hold until then.

I have a 14-week old and we don't have an official routine. Thinking I had to have dc down for a nap at a particular time would just stress me out more if it didn't happen. In general though, dc sleeps from 8-7 with 2 -3 wake ups, and I put them down for a nap after they've been awake for 1.5/2 hours, or sooner if they look tired. I feed whenever dc is hungry (you will learn your dc's hunger cues pretty quickly).

If I had other dc to care for, or was back at work, or lockdown wasn't happening and I could get out more often, then I might need to be more regimented, but for now I'm quite enjoying being able to just roll with it.

This is heresy, but I found Gina Ford very useful. I didn't actually do any of it, or even read the whole thing, I just liked the vague idea of an answer being available, even if the bit I think was entitled "troubleshooting" made me think I had brought home a printer.
My first baby was a bit dozy when he first came home, then settled into a routine he stayed in for nearly two years, so he obviously read it. Awake at 8, asleep at 11-1, then short sleep 2-3ish (dropped that at some point), and down for the night at 7. It was enjoyable and quite easy, I felt like a fraud after all the horror stories.

Sorry when i said "down for the night" I didn't mean sleeping through, that took nearly a year. Also, the first six weeks are just continuous wake/feed/sleep, it's great for catching up on boxsets as newborns sleep through everything.

I found an app very useful to log feeding/changing/sleep (I still log everything at 8 months!). It not only helps to remind you when you last did something when you've lost all concept of time but can help to identify any patterns your baby falls into.

The other thing I'd say is you don't have to be with the baby the whole time. I batch cooked loads in advance and we didn't eat any of it because I loved spending half an hour in the kitchen cooking something while DH looked after the baby. It was my me-time.

Ooh, see, I would advise against logging stuff at first. Maybe sleep, because sleep/wake times can be tricky to keep track of but the happily awake span is quite a useful thing to bear in mind IME. And nappies it can be useful if you want to have an idea of how many wet/dirty nappies they are having in a day, especially if you're sharing this with a partner, but I wouldn't recommend tracking feeds. It doesn't help to obsess over the exact amount of ml they have had and it makes even less sense to worry about the amount of minutes you've breastfed for off which breast, which is what all the apps want to measure, I assume just because the first one did and they all followed suit, but that's not useful information to anybody and will only give you completely meaningless data to stress over. Minutes don't correlate to mls taken, and it's perfectly fine just to feed off whichever boob feels more full at any given moment. Usually that means alternating, but it doesn't matter hugely if you don't or if you skip one or you forget which one you've fed from last. It all evens out over the course of the day.

That said I did love the huckleberry app this time, especially when they are a bit older. I would just caution against logging feeds. And if the sleep logging is stressful, then don't worry about doing that either, especially overnight.