Establishing a routine

[CREH]

My DD is six months old next week. We have no routine, she naps (which are becoming very difficult - she won't sleep) and seems to want a bottle at different times each day. She has small 'meals' at the same time every day which I was hoping would help - we have started weining as she seemed ready.
My question is - how did you successfully establish a routine please?

Decide the routine that you want and then apply it. Obviously it's easier if it suits her natural rhythms, so maybe keep a diary for a few days of wake time/nap time/milk time/food time etc. and see what rough pattern forms, then work with that.

It will be easier if it's a general routine with flexibility, you don't want to tie yourself to a military style routine!

And you might need to work towards it slowly of its very different from how it is now.

It is still early for implementing a routine, even though it may not feel like it. It does take quite a while for things to fall into place, in spite of what some of the books would have you believe!

I'd start with bedtime - get a good bedtime routine in place and try and be fairly consistent with timings etc.

How long are her naps? At that age my baby was still taking short 45 minute naps so she would have 3 or 4 naps per day and I'd just move through a bottle, awake time, nap cycle as the day went on. With meals at the same time as us.

If she's able to take longer naps you could try the 2,3,4 routine. So first nap 2 hours after she wakes up in the morning. Second nap 3 hours after she wakes up from first nap. Bedtime 4 hours after she wakes up from second nap.

It's a bit of trial and error but you will get there. Good luck

We didn't set out particularly to establish a routine but DS seems to have fallen into one over the last few months - fuelled, mainly I think, by lockdown which means we are home most of the time. It sometimes goes out the window (like today...) but I generally look at the intervals so roughly 2 hours between food (some of that is milk, some of that is breakfast/lunch/dinner - DS is 9 months) and about 3.5 hours between naps. Normally the first nap is a bit sooner than that but I just wait for him to start getting grouchy. Bedtime is usually the same time each night to fit in with our schedule.

We did it roughly from 6 weeks. The main thing we focused on was bed time. We got the baby in bed and asleep at 7pm every night. We also tried to roughly feed him at the same time every day. I never really mastered napping tbh. I just let him find his own way He was never much of a napper tbh end he rarely slept for more than 45 mins. Only now at 22 months will he take a longer afternoon nap. At 6 months he'd get up at 6.40 and then be back asleep by 8,30/9am for 45 mins or so. He loved that name and it's the only one he'd reliably take. Lunch time was a bit of a moveable nap . Anytime between 11 and 1300 for an hour . He'd have one more short nap about 4/4.30 for 30 -45mins

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Remember that while a routine can be very helpful, a fixed schedule is often NOT. We all need a rhythm to our lives, but being ruled by the clock is miserable. I often see 'routine' used when people are actually talking about a schedule.

She's still tiny. Are you finding that not having a firm schedule is a problem? Whatever she's doing right now will all have changed in a couple of months. And then it'll change again. And again.

While having a reassuring bedtime routine is very helpful for many kids, I don't know how useful it really is for a baby? With my DD (9.5 years old now), who was most certainly a 'fussy' baby, I gave up all pretence of control and just rolled with it wherever possible. (And bought a good sling, so she could nap on me whenever she was tired - never had any luck putting her down to sleep.) Made me feel much better than trying to force a timetable on her and getting cross with her and myself when it failed!

There is this app called huckleberry which will predict their nap times for you. It's some kind of voodoo. Anyway I did that for a few days until the naps sort of lined up, then I used the average time they were starting as my cue to do a nap.

I've only ever really done naps, solid food and bedtime as routine things. Milk feeds just fit around everything those.

Thanks everyone, I need to stop reading online I think. I'm not back to work untill September so I'll stop stressing and just leave her be! Will start trying to get a bedtime in place as suggested! We did have one but the last month it seems to have been forgotten! Some great advice, I don't feel like I'm behind now! Thank you all again!

Oh yes absolutely no need for a routine unless you want to or you're having trouble getting her to nap etc :) DS1 had no routine until about 1 year old because I'm rubbish with routines and things! It did help him when I did that, so probably he could have done with it earlier. I think I started with DS2 a bit earlier, around 6 months, but really only for his nap times which was so that I could plan my own day around them. And I used to offer one meal a day as solid food at that age, so that was useful to have an idea of when it ought to be happening as well.