Hi I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding my 7 week old, I don't have any family close by and i really don't know what I'm meant to be doing as there is such conflicting advice and people I meet seem to be either in the - 'rountine from one week' or 'never bothered with a rountine' camp. I would like to be somewhere inbetween and I have been relying a bit on him getting himself into his own rountine as he gets older but this doesn't seem to be happening and I'm having lots of self doubt about whats the best thing to do.
There basically doesn't seem to be much of a rountine at all at the moment - my husband gets home from work and wants to play with him so he gives him a bath and then he tries to give a bottle of breastmilk which sometimes he takes sometimes he doesn't (then I breastfeed). We used to try and do this about 7ish but it has been pushed back to 8pm. We then put him in the moses basket (in the lounge with us - as the guidelines say he should be in the same room as us for all sleeps) he usually falls asleep whilst breastfeeding and then I put him in the basket but he wakes up usually withint the hour and then I feed and try and get him to sleep all evening. The maximum consceutive hrs he has slept are 3 and there doesn't seem to be much rountine - eg. last night was a bad night and he woke up every hour. It feels at the moment everytime I put him down in his basket he wakes up.
What should I be doing - I try to take him out everyday so he becomes aware of day/night. I feed on demand and sometimes even now I'm feeding hourly. He sleeps inthe day but usually not more than 3-4 hours total.
I don't know what I doing and how much rountine I should be installing. My husband doesn't think you should impose any rountine on the baby yet - but then he isn't getting up to feed him all night. He also doesn't think we should put him in the bedroom to go to sleep at night (after bath/feed) and should take him to bed when we go (as the guidelines seem to insinuate). I also get really annoyed as he would play with him all evening given half a chance and bounces him round the room instead of trying to settle him - I seem to spend all evening saying 'don't stimulate him too much'
I bought the more stricter rountine books but I don't understand how you make a baby breast feed to rountine - do you just ignore him when he cries for food and is putting his hand in his mouth until it gets to the alloted time?
I'm keen to hear peoples experiences and if you have got a rountine how you got there. Sorry for the long message.