Did/does your breastfed baby have a routine?

[ArcticNinja]

My DS is 3 months old, EBF and is still completely predictably unpredictable. The one thing I can count on is that he'll feed hourly. Other than that, we've no routine. His naps during the day are erratic. Some days he won't nap, others he'll cat nap at random times.

We bath and put him to bed at the same time each night. If we're lucky he might sleep for 3 hours, and then he's up pretty much every hour.

Everything I read tells me that he should be going longer between feeds, napping at set times and sleeping longer through the night. Is this formula-fed-baby centric? Am I just doing a terrible job!? I'm close to losing it honestly. I'm EXHAUSTED!

Have you tried actively getting him to sleep after an appropriate wake window (90min?) either on you as a contact nap on in the sling or pram? That seemed to work fairly well for us although DD was formula fed. We roughly did nap, feed, play and then repeat after 90 min all day. Some people feed before sleep instead.

How long does he feed for?

Is he actually hungry every hour? I would try a dummy if he’s just comfort sucking/needing it to go to sleep.

My DS started going 2/2.5 hrs between feeds which still didn’t feel long enough!

I think it depends on the baby. You could try getting into a routine to see if it helps but my DD was like yours and is 7 months now, she's only just put herself onto a routine.

With the 45min waking..is she cold/hot?

We tried routines before but it never worked and was stressful for all involved.

My son who's 17 months has had a routine since he was 6 weeks x

First baby no. Second baby yes necessary because of working round school runs. Second baby was more relaxed and less colicky so it was easier but I feel I should have had a nap routine with DD1 and a lot of her issues were probably caused by over tiredness and stimulation at the wrong times.

At three months DD2 had a nap during each schoolrun and over lunchtime. Fed before and after naps and had activities, café with a friend of mine, playmat or walks inbetween. A few random on demand feeds too.

I wasn’t in to routines until I went back to work.

I did what I wanted to/needed to do and DD just slotted in and slept and fed when she wanted to around that. It was lovely. Others in my groups were frantically planning their days around naps and leaving events that the babies were perfectly happy at to go and enforce a nap. Bonkers.

I’m firmly in the camp of going with the flow.

As long as the baby sleeps on the go you can still follow a rough routine and not need to plan you life around it. It can just mean rocking the baby in the pram with a dummy or trying for a contact nap when they are ready for a sleep. I don’t think mine took a single nap in the cot until at least 9 months but I still aimed for regular naps when out and about, often on the way to a class and she even slept in the pram in a noisy
pub while I had lunch with friends.

Oh god my three month ebf dc had no routine I just followed her lead. Over time it became apparent her bedtime was 8pm. She chose this not me. She’s now 9 months and has a routine two naps a day, and breakfast lunch and dinner. I do meals at similar times around her naps. She naps at the same time each day roughly, but this was all her and not me!! So I could boast to the world that my dc has a wonderful routine thanks to me, but in fact it’s thanks to her and I just followed her lead. What I’m trying to say is that baby will form a routine in their own time when they are ready - and life does become much easier

My baby is 6 months, ebf and still no routine! We follow wake windows and I will rock/shush/pat if we are at the end of a wake window until he’s asleep. I follow his cues for feeding, but also offer every 2 hours if he’s not showing cues just incase I’ve missed them (he’s a grazer and feeds for short periods regularly). I had read that by now babies should be on 7-9 feeds per day but we are always 10-12 (including night feeds as we are still not out of the 4 month sleep regression!).