At what age and how do you implement a routine?

[Bubblesbubblesmybubbles]

DC1 never had a routine except with solid food times until about 18m. Napped when tired and had milk when hungry (until weaned). DC2 is 4 weeks and I'd like a routine this time to make life easier, what age is right to do that? At the moment we feed when hungry. Also how do we go about going from feeding on demand to on a schedule?

Is there a good book/website with example schedules as they get older?

Don’t bother, they don’t like rules! Enjoy your baby, it all goes so fast. The only routine we’ve ever had is bedtime.. milk, bath, books and cuddles to sleep

DD was a terrible napper until 4 months when I started a routine for her which helped a huge amount (my GP recommended establishing the routine).

I had to clear my diary and dedicate a fortnight to getting the routine firmly up and running but once itwas very well established I was able to break it without problems so we weren't tied to home for nap times or even bedtimes or anything like that.

The times for the routine weren't exactly fixed to specific times on the clock. It was more a case of wake up, 1.5 hours later down for nap, then nap at lunchtime, nap late afternoon and then bedtime 7:30-8ish.

DD went from being a complete daytime nap refuser to actually doing those three naps a day. I couldn't believe it!

I found she got into her own routine but we helped it along with some simple nudges.

At 3 months we started a bedtime routine and a fixed get up at 7am. The bedtime got earlier naturally and it has been 7pm since about 5 months. I think the fixed get up has contributed to her being such a good sleeper (but accept that's mainly luck).

She was a predictable 4 hourly feeder from quite early, so bottle times became a fixed point in the day. Now at 11 months meal times provide a fixed point.

As for naps, we just followed sleepy cues until about 6 months when we started to nudge her into more predictable nap times. She then went quite quickly from 4 to 3, then to 2 naps from about 9 months. She always naps in the cot, so they dictate when we can go out.

Sorry, that was quite a long post!

Hi! My baby is 11 weeks old and he's sort of fallen into his own routine. Daytime naps/feeding are on demand at the moment, but I do bath/bottle/bed (and actually put him to bed) around 6 or 7pm. The only feed I manipulate is one at 4pm to set him up for a feed around bedtime. I think it works well because we sort of keep him to his own timings/routine rather than imposing one on him.

I think a daytime routine will appear as he gets older.

From 6 weeks DD2 routine started. It wasn’t intentional but DD1 started school nursery so we had to get up at a 7, leave the house at 8.30, she would nap on the way back, I had to leave the house at 11.30 to collect from nursery so at 10.30 I had to wake DD2 to start feeding her. Then at 8 weeks we bathed them together at 6 at night. Nothing else was fixed. Maybe try fixing a couple of points in a day.

@Oly4 I'm not meaning for a while yet but friends whose babies had set nap and feed times seemed to be happier than our first DC and sleep better. Also knowing what time they want a bottle does make life easier. If its not for 3 months thats fine, I just think it will help us

@INeedNewShoes how did you decide upon the routine? Glad it worked for you!

@Ihaveoflate thank you for the ideas! DC1 never got into a routine and remains a grazer on food now and not a great sleeper. Fingers crossed for this time. Cot naps will be our only downfall as (when things finally open up) they may have to be wherever we are to accomodate DC1 too. But I'm sure that can work

@Letsallscreamatthesistene DC1 we thought a routine would appear and it never did, even now hungry and sleepy times are unpredictable at 2yrs. Setting up one feed to line up timing to sounds great thank you

@Lockdownseperation yes that seems to be the common theme in all the posts, I'll give that a go in a few weeks, thank you

I would wait and see a bit, DS fell into a natural routine, and so we just followed that on and carried it on.

DS is 13 weeks. We feed on demand. He learnt day/night by about 5 weeks - as in he slept between feeds.

He has settled into a routine on his own (from about 11 weeks). He feeds every 3-3.5 hours and is fairly predictable. Has 5 bottles a day and none at night. We have a ‘routine’ at night where we do his final bottle then bath then bed.

I find if I dictate feed times (want to go out, have an early night etc) he fusses and is a pain so learnt pretty quickly to follow his lead!

Have a look at the Nanny Louenna app. It has so much info on there

We started a bedtime routine around 12 weeks as DS was getting hysterical in the evenings and we finally realised that he was just tired and ready to go to bed properly at 7pm!

We had a loose feeding schedule but nothing strict and he was fed on demand when needed. He was probably around 8 months (when I moved from combi feeding to just formula and he was getting established on solids) when we implemented a milk routine.

@Keyboard91 unfortunately we do have to get out of the house at set times under normal circumstances as DC1 has places to be

@Letsallscreamatthesistene thank you will look at it

Thank you all for your replies