Routines - Who has them, what are they and did things get easier?

[LuckySalem]

My DD is becoming a complete nightmare (she's awake now cos she's been asleep all afternoon and wouldn't wake up) I've spoken to the HV who says she needs a routine. I always thought you couldn't get routines with someone this young (4 months on weds) but she is adament it will stop her from being so wingey and up at gone midnight.

Should I start one and if so what should be included? Also how do you start a routine? How do you persuade a wide awake girl to go to sleep at 7pm?

Any ideas will be grateley appreciated.
Cheers

Ds had a routine at about six weeks - we were told to feed him every three hours as he wasn't putting on much weight, and it kind of went from there. His routine at 4 months was something like -

7am - wake up and bottle
10am - another bottle
11.30/12pm - sleep for an hour or so
1pm - bottle
3pm - nap
4pm - bottle
7/8pm - bottle and bed
12/1am - wake for a dream feed bottle

He is now almost 14 mths, slept through from 6 months, and has breakfast, lunch, tea, a bedtime drink, and one nap before lunch. It seems to have worked quite well - I was never one for routines, found the ones in books too prescriptive, but I think you have to find one that works for you.

In your situation, I would try to regularise feeds and set a nap time - even if she doesn't sleep, resting may help and she will soon get used to napping at a particular time. When she starts staying awake for longer in the daytime, it will make bedtime easier. Establish a winding down type of bedtime routine as well - maybe bath, feed, stories or quiet play, and then to bed. Hth!

(ps it does get easier )

good luck... we 'got' a routine when ds1 was about 21mo and we thought it best to start to organise stuff
dc2 & 3 have always had to fit in to whatever 'routine' was happening - our main one is bedtime with the old chestnut of bath, bed, story and milk, lights off/down, I ignore you baby [mn on laptop ] till you are bored enough to sleep.
At six months or so we started to fit in how each lo's sleep times and general pattern for meal times would fit into a more 'human' pattern iyswim, so breakfast lunch, nap after lunch and then evening meal would fit generally into loose time-slots. They all liked to boob-binge for the whole evenning and there was no way that they or i wanted to alter that - cos then they would sleep beautifully, albeit from probably around 9:30-10ish, til a reasonable hour in the morning.
we set up stuff like night sleep is in the cot, daytime sleep is in the pram [pushed down the garden, road or town as fitted in with what needed to be done]. I do honestly wonder how much you can 'dictate' to a 4 month old, but possibly as we mentioned on another thread here tonight that hv has read the book - but not had three kids like some of us...LOL!!

I think there are two ways to get a baby into a routine. One is to pick a routine like TeenyTinyTorva outlined and try to move her towards. The other is to spend a few days noting down when she currently sleeps, eats etc and then see whether there is any kind of pattern within the chaos! Feeding tends to be the most regular thing and is probably the one that would be hardest to change. So you could let the feeds dictate the routine and then work out what nap times might work.

I let DS1 dictate the day until he was about 12m and vowed that I wouldn't let the same happen with DS2. As it was DS2was fairly easy to nudge towards a regular routine (once we had worked out what might suit him) and he then slept through the night (bliss!)

I did start one from a few weeks old - for my own sanity really. Just decided what my core hours of sleep that I needed were (midnight-6am) and concentrated on getting dds sleep routine centered round that - very basic bath, lights dim, feed, lights out, no talking, at the same time each night. Bizarrly it did work for us (but we were prob lucky!0 As she settled and slept through for that period we bought her bedtime more and more forward.

Good luck in whatever you try!

If you start a routine based around when you get her up; when you take her out in the buggy (she will prob sleep while you're out) and when you do bath and change into pjs (a small thing but IMO it helps!) out of day clothes you may find that things fall into place.

To aim for a 7pm bedtime if that's not her natural sleep time may be unrealistic esp if bfs are still rather random.

I would get her up at roughly the same time every day and go out for a walk twice a day at the same times whatever the weather. I may seem a bit sad to be trudging the streets in the rain but it does help to give structure to the day!

As for the evenings - is there a time by which she is always asleep?

Do the bath/feed/cuddle/bed thing so that this bit of the routine finishes about 15-30 mins before this time (even if it's midnight!) and then bring it forward by 15-30 mins every other night or two until you get to what you consider is a decent bedtime.

Lots of babies that age don't go to bed at 7pm. More usual is between 8-11pm so if you can slowly bring the bedtime forward by half an hour every few days wihtin 1-2 weeks you may be lucky and be on a 8-9pm bedtime.

Good luck and don't feel you have to be rigid - see what evolves as you put a pattern into YOUR day. Hopefully she'll develop a pattern with you.

Ok so i've set up a routine based on when she gets up and when I would like her to go to bed and have fit things in inbetween. I'm aware that things may change if she falls asleep in between or something but can someone tell me if i've missed something or if I should be allowing more time or less time for things.

Cheers all

6/7am - Wake up & Feed
7-9am - Get dressed, Play on mat on floor and adults have breakfast
9am - Feed
9-11am - Quick nap/Quiet time
11/11.30 - Baby rice/Bottle
12pm - Activities (Including baby club and swimming)
3pm - Feed and Adults have lunch
3-6/7 - Afternoon Nap
6/7 - Bath, Cream and book
7/8 Bed
THEN DEPENDING WHAT TIME I GO TO BED - Dream Feed.

sounds like a good plan - and defo a good start at it. If you do it for a couple of days you'll soon find out if she actually thinks that lunch is at 1pm or a shorter or longer morning nap is in order

Think it's good to have some sort of routine otherwise you can end up with overtired and hungry dcs. If I was out of sync I found they were sometimes too tired to eat etc, didn't have a good feed/lunch and it cocked up the day. Yours sounds like a good routine, although mine would never have lasted to 8 oclock in the evening, if it was much after 6.30 they would be overtired and would take longer to settle.

Thanks Giggle

We attempted it kind of today and she is currently in bed SLEEPING!! THe first time before 11pm since she was born.

wooo-hooo. Here's to a good night's zzz's then
Whatever you decide on, write it up, two copies. Stick one to the kitchen cupboard so even the most oblivious relative or tired parent can follow it easily. Stick the other to the baby's changing bag [yep sounds mad] but whenever you get brave enough and start leaving the baby with someone for a bit, it's all there in idiot-proof timetable. Again - worked for us

Oh quick question.

If DD wakes in the night, how am I meant to settle her again, do I pick her up? Do I ignore her.

I always thought she woke up needing a bottle but everytime i've offered it to her she only drinks about 2oz and fell asleep with it in her mouth.
Dya think a dummy would stop the need to wake up at that time eventually, IYKWIM

btw - found an old neglected changing bag in a cupboard the other day, with DS2's daily routine stuck to the inside of the front flap

oooh dunno, mine were a bit of a different deal cos they were bf, and all refused to have any teat or dummy near their mouth. If she obviously doesn't want the drink (have you tried replacing it with water so you can figure this out?) then I'd be tempted to go to her, pat her on the back, talk quietly but reassuringly and try out whether she settles again without being picked up. We did this with our boys [but not girl - she was always hungry] and it worked, but they were a bit older than your lo, more like 6-7mo.

Right ok, i'll try your thing.
DD used to take dummy's but now she spits them out so i'm not sure if it would work anyway.

I've made my lists and one is on the fridge (although DP ignored it this morning) and the other is still on the pad it was written on, must move it.

We settled into a routine when DS was about 6 months old - he's 9mo now. A good tip I was given which works really well for us) is this:

~First nap 2 hours after waking up for the day
~Second nap 3 hours after waking up from 1st one
~Bedtime 4 hours after waking up from 2nd nap.

My DS has gradually learned to fall asleep on his own, which has helped - I can bung him in his cot/pushchair, and 9 times out of 10, he will fall asleep within 5 minutes, with minimal fuss

Bedtime consists of bath/wash, clena nappy & dressed, story, milk and put into the cot, either awake or asleep. If he doesn't fall asleep during his feed, he is usually sleepy enough to drift off on his own after I leave the room.

Well it seems to be working slightly as DD slept from 9:45 till 5:00 and then after a bottle and a bit of wingeing went back to sleep till 8:30! I feel human!

Well it seems to be working slightly as DD slept from 9:45 till 5:00 and then after a bottle and a bit of wingeing went back to sleep till 8:30! I feel human!

good news!! Welcome to the planet LS

It didn't work last night! She was up at 11, then 3 then 6! [sleepy] lol

Although tonight she's gone to bed at 8:30 so i'm going to bed now and gonna give her a bottle when I get upstairs! Fingers crossed she'll sleep till morning.

good luck

She woke at 4 amused herself till 6 (very noisily) then wanted up at 6, so I fed her and got her back to sleep around 7 till 10!! Looks as though were gonna have a good night then a bad at the mo.

Well tonight she's gone to sleep at 9 (it's getting later slowly) so i'll see what happens.

I will admit this routine thingie has her getting herself to sleep now, instead of me having to rock her constantly!!

I just need to get her out of her swaddling phase now or she'll be getting "tucked in" by her husband! lol

Do you try and get her up at the same time each morning? I think that's a really good starting point for a routine, so choose a time closest to when she 'normally' wakes up (or just choose a time when YOU want her to get up ) and either stretch her out until chosen time or wake up at chosen time.

I found with dd2, at 4 months she could only really stay up for about 2 hours after each waking so it kinda went like this:

7.00 Get up
9.00-ish Nap then whatever time she woke up I always put her down about 2 hours after that. I know at 6 months she was def. still having 3 shortish naps per day which then went down to 2 then 1 nice long one.

At least if you get up at the same time each day then you have a chance at slotting everything together into some semblance of a routine.

Oops, sorry, this turned out to be a bit long-winded but it really worked for me to use the 2-hour from waking timing instead of setting exact times for naps.

Has this been any help at all I wonder

Yeh we're normally up at 6 although since i've been putting her to bed earlier it's getting later which is just strange. lol

So last night she went to sleep around 9, woke up at 1 then 5:30. Looks like i'm going to have a good night, then a crap night. I think that's going to be our routine.