FOUR month old baby & ROUTINE

[ShimmyYay]

Any tips / advice is welcome …

I’m struggling to get my four month old into w routine. Every single day seems to be completely different from the day before. Sometimes she wakes at 5 sometimes at 6 , on an odd occasion at 7! The nap times during the day don’t seem to fall at set times either not feeds to be fair as sometimes she’ll take a full bottle and sometimes half.

Anyway I feel like I’m not really doing much great parenting as my baby has little routine bar for the evening routine being bath at 6 and bed at 7.

Please help.

😣

Lower your expectations.
Bin the books.

Hi OP

I have a 4 month old exactly and I'm a FTM. Our only routine is when I start putting her down at night. She leads the way in everything else.

She wakes up between 6am and 7am. I feed her and then she we play on her mat gb m and do some tummy time. This doesn't last long because my DD just wants to be carried everywhere on a shoulder facing out so she can see what's going on. Around 9ish she gets put into her bug crib in her nursery for her first nap which is between 20 and 30 min. She then gets another feed when she wakes and we play again for another couple of hours. Around midday I'll give her another feed and then she has her third big nap which is in an ergobaby carrier and that nap is anything between 2-3 hours. Wake up around half 2 and same again. Feed and play. She had a cat nap at half 5 for 15 min. Wake up, feed and then we go for a quick swim (I live abroad). Bath around 6.45 and then I feed her and read her a story at the same time. She's usually down by half 7. We bedshare and she sleeps in a Sleepyhead between my husband and I. I nurse to sleep, put her down into her Sleepyhead and then we use a baby monitor so we get some adult time downstairs.

All of these times are completely flexible. We just go by her sleepy cues. Some days it's earlier, some days it's later. Some days she'll need 4 naps, others she'll have 2. Sometimes she'll sweep through the night. Other times she's wanting a feed or two. I just go with the flow and don't worry about it. I know it's not well thought of to nurse to sleep or bedshare in certain cultures but it's the norm in mine so I'm going to keep doing it as my baby and I are both happy with the closeness and cuddles

Gina Ford is really not considered best practice any more OP, in my opinion (and that of the NHS) feeding and interacting on a strict schedule can be very damaging for little ones.

I didnt have a set routine at this age, only a little bedtime routine as such, the only thing I found help me was figuring out her wake window. If she went past that she would be so upset and harder to get to sleep for naps.

She is 7 months now and she has a routine that happened to fall into place itself, although this can be slightly different each day depending what time she wakes up.
Generally our days start around 6.30/7am
I know her wake window before she needs a nap so I always try to wind her down from playing and pop her in her cot (if were home) 15 mins before her wake window finishes for her to fall asleep.

I'm a FTM and its all new to me but I agree with others I wouldnt worry too much about a strict routine just yet.
You may find that she will eventually fall into her own routine, my lo did and I just went along with it, although it can change at any time, especially when teething, growth spurts etc come along! X

Or rather worry about a routine just yet,
Wasn't meant to out the word strict in it 😁

The only routine I had with my little one was bath, milk and bed around the same time each night.
Everything else was lead by her. My mam said that each day you don't eat the same things, the same amount, at the exact same time and it's true! Sometimes we want a smaller meal and other times a large meal, or a snack!
Take no notice of your mother and Gina Ford! Do what you think is best

My (nearly) 4 month old is in some sort of routine, she doesn’t like to nap as much during the day, will have around 4 naps all ranging from 45mins - 1 hour, all now taken in her cot as she likes her own space.
Typically her bedtime routine starts at 5:30pm where she will have a play, bath and massage, then a bottle and usually down by 6:30.
She will sleep through and wake up in between 5-7am there isn’t a set time for wake up just yet! The last two nights she has been waking up at 6/6:30am and start the day at 7. I haven’t forcefully tried to get her bedtime later I’ve gone off how she acts and wake windows, sometimes she will go to bed at 7pm if her last nap was a bit later than normal.
But typically I’ve noticed half 6 is what suits her best at the moment.

I always found that the naps were predictable when you thought about it in terms of exertion rather than the time on the clock.

So for example, if we’d been out for a walk in the morning he’d need a nap earlier than if we’d been in the house as his wee brain was tired. He’d also need to nap a bit longer.

I watched for tiredness cues after doing some interesting reading online and it was astonishingly helpful. I just watched him closely for a few days and learned the signs that he was getting sleepy and the best point at which to stop and put him to sleep. So for example, he’d go from smiling about 90% of the time to smiling 50% of the time, then he’d do these little head drops. Once he started yawning it was too late - he’d be overtired and it’d be hard work to settle him.

Eventually the timings became more predictable too because I became more adept at planning my day to fire him out at the best times.

Of course the best laid plans and all that It didn’t work all the time but life was so much easier.