How did you start a routine with yr babies???

[blossom2]

DD2 is almost one month old (and is beautiful) and we've had no routine - sleeps and feeds when she wants. Nights are crazy and i'm exhausted from lack of sleep. i also have a 3.5yr old. DD2 is also breastfed.

i want to start DD2 on some kind of routine and quite like Tracey Hogg's easy. I'm the kind of person that needs structure and need to feel like i need to have some kind of control.

how did you start your baby on a routine and who did you use????

DS is 3 months old now and getting into a routine. We used a bit of Tracey's book and also tried to allow DS to dictate a routine that suited all of us.

We tried to introduce things slowly so as not to confuse him and experiment a lot, so for eg if he's happy going to bed at 8pm, the next night we'll try 7.45pm, then 7.30pm. And we write everything down in a journal so we can look back and work out what kind of routine he likes and what he hates.

Think you generally just let it develop. You start getting a better idea around 3 months. I know this probably sounds like a long time away but you'll get there in no time. A month is still very young. We always did bath, feed then bed though. Good luck.

it took me 2-3 months to get into a rountine so youre still early days atm... i agree with pab

Although I wasn't convinced to start with, I'm now trying to follow the Gina Ford routine for my DS who is 4 months old (been trying to do this for about 4-5 weeks now). I have a DD who is at school so it was difficult to find a routine when we were constantly in and out of the car to drop her/pick her up. Now she's on holiday, we're really getting into our stride. I also use Marc Weissbluth who is a sleep specialist and says a baby upto about 4 months old shouldn't be awake more than 2 hours at a time.

My DS is still having a night feed, so our day (sort of) goes - 7.00am feed, (or whenever he wakes up as I don't believe in waking a sleeping baby), nap once he has been up for about one and a half hours roughly as he can't stay awake for two hours, feed at 11.00am (used to be 10.30am when he couldn't wait this long), nap at 12.00pm (or a bit earlier if this is more than two hours since he woke from his first nap). He then might have another nap if this is short. Gina Ford says two hours but he's only ever slept than long about twice!

He has another feed at 2.30pm, another nap which is usually quite short and sometimes is as late as 5.00pm. He then has a small feed before his bath at 6.15pm and has a final feed and bed for 7.00pm. He wakes anywhere between 1.00am and 4.00am for a feed as again, I don't wake him at 10.00pm as Gina Ford suggests.

The bedtime routine was the first thing I really worked on as I was determined not to have a young baby up late into the evening especially as I also had to get my DD to bed. DS has been 'going to bed' at 7.00pm since he was about 4-5 weeks old.

Sorry this is a bit long but I can remember thinking I wish I knew exactly what other people did when my DS was tiny so I could see which bits worked for us.

Good luck. I know it feels really hard at the moment but truly, truly it will seem a short period of time when you look back. Try and get through the first 6-8 weeks and it all starts to get easier.

We started with tea-bath-bed and the rest followed from there. I always woke my DSs before they slept more than about 2.5 hours so that I could cram in plenty of feeds during the day and so that they were encouraged to have longer sleeps at night. I woke them for 10pm feeds after a 7pm bedtime but it took a week or two for this to lead to them dropping a night feed. They both slept through from this feed until 7am when they were about 7-8 weeks. And then I started feeling a whole lot better good luck!

I start on the 4 year old at 6.30 ish. (as she is the worlds slowest girl at bedtime)
Wind down,maybe a bath and supper, teeth story and bed.
DD 2 (5 months) goes along with us at all times it's had to always be this way really as dp works away alot so.
DD2 has a last bottle at about 7.15-7.30 and usually goes to sleep in my arms while i sit on the floor at dd1's bed side and read her a story, then dd1 fiddles with my hair for ten minutes to get her to sleep.
I then out dd2 in cot unless she's still stirring in which case she goes sound while i watch Coronation Street.
She used to sleep through but has been waking for a bottle for the past week at any time during the night!!

During the day she usually has about 3 catnaps, never sleeps long!!

DS (now 9 months) developed his own routine at around 3 months of b/feed/sleep/play. The sleeps slowly became 3 catnaps of half an hour each (on my knee with the b/feeding cushion) at exactly 3 hour intervals.

It's all over the place now though becasue of various developmental milestones and the dreaded TEETHING! Though he's decided just to have a long nap late morning now.

Dear Blossom
I read the GF book whilst pregnant. I believe babies thrive on routine- well not all babies, but lots of them like routine, and more importantly alot of parents like routine, because it gives them a bit of structure rather than just wandering around in the dark, not knowing what to try next.

When we came home, ds having been in hospital for over a week, he was very much a nighttime baby- asleep all day, had to force him to bf, awake all night.
Sat there thinking, god I can't cope with this !
Talked to my mum about it.

After 6 days, suddenly completely flipped over into being a day baby.

And he just fell into the GF routine of eating, sleep etc. He did it himself, within 24 hrs.

I did not stick to the GF regime rigidly, but it was my basis.

Lots of people think her regime is too strict, yet most midwives suggest atleast 4 hourly and regular sleep, so what's the difference.

By two weeks old he was almost a perfect GF baby, without any pushing at all.
In bed my 7pm. One feed about 10.30pm, another 2.30 am. Woke at 6.30 am.
Brilliant.

Continued like this until 13 weeks, when he slept through the night and has NEVER, EVER not slept through the night since !!!

When ds, 3 mths old, I found the EASY Tracy Hogg thing on tv. Obviously I did not folow it , but I thought it was brilliant.

Hope that helps.
What plans do you have ?

I find the routine thing a bit tricky. On the one hand, a routine helps your baby be settled and babies do like routines. But on the other hand, I think your baby can get more unsettled whenever you wander from his fixed routine.

We follow a routine but sometimes like to say forget the routine, lets all go down the pub, and we'd like DS to be happy about that and not think "No!! I must have a bath - its 6.45 - where am I, this is not my routine - ah!!!!"

Another example, we've got into the routine of always putting DS (3 months old) in his cot in his nursery for his daytime naps. He likes this because he knows when its naptime and he's comfortable in his surroundings. But he now never sleeps anywhere put his cot and gets a bit shirty if he's tired and we're out. If he had less of a routine maybe he'd be more easy come easy go and would be able to sleep anywhere.

We did EASY from very early just so I had a clue what I was doing! We didn't do proper bedtimes until about 3 months but he had already got the idea of night and day by then. He was a very easy baby providing we followed the routine. Agree with pablopatito in that it went a bit wrong if we tried to change things at all. He still likes his nap in bed however to me this is a small price to pay for ds sleeping 7 til 7 consistantly from 12 weeks old (still sleeps perfectly now at 18 months)

Thats a tricky one pablo - I thinks it comes down to how adaptable your child is - some love the routine and as soon as they are out of it, hate it.

Some don't like a change of routine, and then the next day, when things are back in routine again, they are fine...as if the non routine never happened !

Some aren't bothered. Some parents I know, couldn't wait to get their kids into a routine, but child was having none of it...and even though parents themselves wanted a routine, they gave up in the end and just went with the flow !!

I'm sorry, thats not much help, is it ?

I'm sure I wrote this somewhere else recently. But Hogg, says to observe the baby for a few days and to work out their natural rythms... so if they're hungry at 1pm, then plan a feed for 1 pm. Then do the playing and then sleep etc.

I feel this really works, as then you're working with your baby and not against her. I used this for several months and had a bfed baby that was very content and slept thru!!