GF- anyone sort of followed routine from week one?

[SANA]

Most of the GF messaages in the other threads refer to the babies going into some form of routine after a couple of weeks/mths anyone followed it from week one?? when i last spoke to mw she tole me to forget about any sort of routine for the first 6wks??

I did! My maternity nurse put me onto a routine straight away! She used gf so i did! GF is both good and bad. good because you have something to follow and being a new parent seems less dauting. Bad as if you follow it strictly you end up becoming a slave to the routine!

hi there

we decided to do go by "wife swap" rules for our DS and give him the first 2 weeks to live by his rules. In fact we lasted 6 days before opening GF!

So you can say that we started it when he was 1 week old. All I would say was that although we were trying to stick to her times for sleeps and feeds it wasn't until about week 10 when DS suddenly decided to become a "gina baby". Up until then he'd do bits of it but never all and I always felt like it was something we were aiming towards rather than achieving.

I liked GF for the same reason as Yingers - as a clueless new parent having something to follow can be reassuring. I agree with a lot of her thinking and have to say that our DS has always slept very well and slept through from about 10 weeks old. I don't think you need to follow it strictly for it to be helpful but maybe if we had he would have been in it earlier?

HTH
Lesle xxx

I'd agree. I tried from day one with 2nd son .... but from experience with the first, knew a routine was important to me. It did help, but doing everything she says and feeling like a failure if the baby doesn't follow it is no help to anyone!

I'd advise anyone to try the rouine, but not beat themselves up about not "hitting" it!

I had 2 women I met who did it from day one and they both had real problems with their breastfeeding supply. Your milk supply can take 6 weeks to settle. One ended up introducing bottles when she didn't want to as her son wasn't gaining weight. The other after her son had dropped to the 2nd percentile in weight and she was determined not to formula feed ended up doing some nightmare routine of feeding and expressing to build up the supply. I don't know when GF suggests that expressed bottle evening last thing but another friends baby had real nipple/teat confusion over that in the early days. Saying that I know one person for whom it worked well. I went for my friend, who is a mother, of 4's advice, "if they cry, feed them" and I had never had a supply problem. My nct ante-natal group used to joke that my son was the most contented baby and I was the only one who hadn't bought the book.

i reckon the real benefit to doing it from day 1 is to the parent who either is doing it for the first time or is someone that needs a routine to survive. babies that fall in GF i bet would get there of there own accord in their own good time, but of course there are babies for whom it just does not work- of course these babies are not going to cited in the book! does that make sense?

I agree with madgirl that it's good if you're the sort of person who likes a routine. My standard advice to people who ask if I'd recommend GF is that it depends on what sort of person the parent is, not the baby. I am the sort of person who needs to know what's going on and who likes having some order in my life so for me it was really helpful. The fact that my DS liked it too is kind of immaterial as I don't know how he would have got on doing something different. People say that it suits different babies but I disagree and think that babies don't know any different and will go with what's going on around them so the most important thing is to decide whether it will work for you or not.

now, as for whether or not to take advice from midwives...that's a different matter altogether!

I followed the routine from day 2 in terms of timing of feeds and sleeps but didn't go down the black-out blinds and not leaving the house route.

For various reasons i was not prepared to spend the first 6 weeks in chaos (just not my personality) and at a time when most people are into baby-led parenting GF gave me a boost that i wasn't "weird" to want to avoid this approach. Should add that DD was bottle-fed from the start so I didn't have any of the usual bf issues.

TBH DD wasn't a true "gina baby"-I was confident enough in my own parenting and had enough experience of babies to adapt things to suit me.

Its good to know that it can b done from day one, i am sort of obessed with having a routine, not always nice for those who live with me but thats the way I operate and will find that very difficult to change, it just helps me to feel in control and when I know that soemthing has to b done by a certain time I wont get stressed up about it. I have read GF alot of it makes common sense although I cant imagine that the mws will be supportive or my mum but its something I will hav a go at & if it doesnt work then I wont beat myslef up about it

I followed GF routines from 10 days old and the only thing I regret is not following from the beginning. A friend of mine followed GF advice to increase milk production (to be done before the 3w old growht spurt and went through it with out any problem). I followed DS lead, to feed him everytime he wanted or every three hours (which ever was shortest). And the 3rd week spurt just killed me. I think that if I have followed her advice from day one I would have been able to breastfeed for longer. But as everybody says, it depends on what do you feel is the right thing to do.

Sana
If you feel better having a rioutine to follow, then definately go for it.
I have done GF with both my babies, and in the first few weeks followed her advice to feed AT LEAST every 3 hours. Sometimes my babies wanted more, so they got extra feeds. I found that this allowed us to move easily into the 2 week routine, but again, being flexible

Did it from day 1 and had no problems since!!

Don't follow it to the letter though - just rough feeding times and general guide for amount of daytime sleep.

I did it from day 1 with ds1 and he fell straight into it with no problems. I bf him for a year. With ds2, I tried it, but found his own routine was different. He is also bf (now 4 months old). I found that it was easier for me to be much more AP with him and I do not put him for sleeps in the day in his darkened room, but wear him in a sling instead. I think with first babies it is much easier to follow as you can turn your life around to it. With second babies, you have to make the baby fit in with your first. I also need routine in life, but have found that I have mellowed much more with the seond baby.

Message withdrawn

did u all follow the expressing times as well and from how many weeks?

With DD1 I followed to the letter VERY ealry on and I beat myself up when it went wrong and it spoiled my intitial experiences. However with DD2 I have used it as a basis for my own structure. I still get her up every day 7.30 at the latest and she is asleep by 7pm and is only 11 weeks. I feed at the times she says but if she is hungry I adjust feeds to allow for this. I didn;lt have a clue being a mum first time, GF was my saviour and the initial heartache was worth it. I now have experience to add to this and I'm much happier second time. GF still is my basis but I don;t beat myself up when it goes wrong.

No - now please note that the below worked for me, and may not work for you, and is against usual advice but what I did was start expressing at about 2 weeks and express after the 7am feed (babies only had one breast so I would express the other) I would then let dh use that milk for the 10pm feed and not express then. I found this wokred really well for me.