Routine for 9 week old

[fustratedflo]

My daughter is 9 weeks & 3 days old. I'm just interested to know what routine you have/had your baby in at this age? She is formula fed.

Reason I am asking is because, we have a night time routine for her - bed at about 11pm and she sleeps through until 6/7am, which is amazing! But, during the day we just let her do whatever really. We feed every 3/4 hours and she naps as and when but I'm not sure if I should be putting her into more of a routine during the day? She's been getting a bit grumpy around 3/4pm and I'm thinking it could be because I'm not putting her down for proper naps? We've never had this before to be honest. She's a very alert 9 week old and she's quite a nosey baby, likes to be awake to see what's going on etc. So yeah, just after a bit of advice to see what you all do with your little ones

My DD is 12 weeks. She doesn't have a routine in terms of strict timings, but there's definitely a pattern that's the same each day. We have a 21 month old DS too so to a certain extent the day revolves around him and she just has to fit in!

She is bottle fed on demand - roughly every 3 hours during the day and she likes to tank up for the night around 7-8pm. I settle her for a nap when I see tired cues but she usually manages about 1.5 hours of awake time between each nap. The Huckleberry app is great for tracking sleep and seeing patterns.

She'll nap anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours, and the one around 4pm is the hardest to settle her for and usually quite short.

I don't think you can force a baby this young into a strict routine, but you can recognise their cues and do things in the same order each day, so that they start to understand what's coming next. I always nappy change after a feed for example, but that won't work for everyone.

@PeacefulInTheDeep thank you

We didn’t have any sort of nap or feed routine until around 6 months, even at 11 months I try to be flexible with the routine as what they need does change so much day to day. I think the best thing when they’re so little is to just be a responsive as you can to their cues that they’re tired or hungry, rather than trying to force too much of a structure.

Having said that, we did introduce a bedtime routine from about 4 months on (bath, book, feed, cuddle) to help her to learn that it was time for bed. Although she didn’t really sleep through until 9 months so can’t really say that it worked that well!

My daughter is 13 weeks and 2 days old and she was pretty much the same as your little one at that age. She'd go to bed around 11pm and wake up at 7 or 8am for a bottle then go back to sleep until about 11am. She'd have about 3 45minute naps during the day.We gave her about 5-6 oz every 3-4 hours. We did notice around 7pm that she would get cranky, but was difficult to put down for a quick nap and just used to fight it. Now she sleeps at 11pm and sleeps through until about 11/12pm most days (sometimes it's around 10ish in the morning, depends on her mood😂).

However her feeding routine has changed. She's wanting 6oz every 2 and a half maybe 3 hours, which I'm certain is to make up for the long gap between feeds during her night sleep. I'm pretty much just going along with her routine at the moment, letting her tell me when she's hungry (no more than 4 hours) and letting her/putting her down for a nap when I feel she's getting tired. She falls asleep on her own most of the time after a quick cuddle. We still have plenty of opportunity for play and such during the day.
I'm preparing myself for shit hitting the fan soon, because her sleep routine seems too good to be true at the moment. 😂

But letting her do her own thing in regards to routine has worked for me and my partner and I'm hoping she sticks to this until it's time to put her in a bit more of a stricter routine.
Hope all goes well with you and yours 😁