New baby routines

[loolapell]

My daughter is 29 days old today. I breastfed her for the first 2 weeks but have moved on to formula because she wasn't gaining weight despite feeding ALL of the time. She seems happy enough with the formula but I have no pattern or routine established with her and I am concerned. Sometimes she will drink 4oz and then fall asleep for half an hour, sometimes sleep for 2 hours. Sometimes she will drink 4 oz and then another 2 oz, sometimes she falls asleep mid bottle and doesn't drink it. Sometimes it takes her 2 hours to finish a bottle. I am currently sleeping on the couch so that my husband can get his sleep - he is back to work and works shifts etc - so I am exhausted because I don't seem to get longer than an hours rest. I know it's early days I am just a bit worried.

This is completely normal - newborns have no routine!! Keep feeding on demand, you are doing fine.

It's totally normal. She will settle into a routine over time.

In the meantime - nap whenever she does, and agree some chunks of time when your husband is off work and can look after her for a few hours. You really need three hours of sleep at a time to get the full adult sleep cycle, so he needs to step up and make sure you're getting at least one three hour nap in each 24 hour period to protect your health.

Thank you, just struggling with it all a bit this week.

Of course. It's all very new, and you're still full of hormones and not getting enough sleep. Do try and get husband/mum/whoever to let you have a proper nap, you'll feel much better for it.

Ah thank you for being kind. I think I probably had unrealistic expectations of the time frame and was expecting more settle patterns by this point. Of course the lack of sleep is awful, but at least if there was any sort of pattern to it, I would be able to work around sleeping/eating etc. I have had plenty of people say to me that their babies were in routines within days of hospital discharge!! Then I worry that I am doing something wrong! It's not like I ever thought it would be easy, but I think I underestimated my emotional state at this point too. Anyway, thanks again!

All babies are different. Hand on heart my baby really didn't settle into a predictable routine until he dropped his third nap at 6 months. I promise you your baby will do it in her own time, you aren't doing anything wrong

Your husband needs to let you get some sleep, shift work or not.

There are things you can do to give life more structure. You need to embrace the unpredictability for now, it's just part of having a newborn. But no reason it to have some degree of structure and order, even now.

You could make baby's awake time a predictable routine of things you do. For example:

Wake
Give bottle feed
Wind
Lay between your legs, check nappy, give baby a little floor play time. Stop once baby gets grumpy.
Offer rest of bottle, if wanted.
Wind/cuddle to sleep
Sleep

... Then leave baby to sleep and as soon as she wakes, start again. Repeat from morning until you go to bed.

Go with the flow! My second is 11 weeks and I'm really just winging it!!!