Recommended sleep programs?

[EmmaJR1]

Hi

What do you think of the Gina Ford Sleep Guide? I think it's interesting but a little preachy and goes against almost everything else I've read...
any recommendations or hints and tips for setting good sleep habits? I'm a FTM who loves organisation and a routine with a 17 day old son so I'm looking to start good habits early...

I know I'm dreaming but any help would be appreciated!

I think with these strict guides you just end up being anxious about whether you're sticking with it as well as being anxious about the sleep generally. I'd just do a simple bedtime routine and maybe a nap one too. It's the cues to sleep that are most important for long term sleep, rather than regimented timings I think

What does Gina Ford recommend as a routine for a 2 week old?

EmmaJR1

At 17 days old baby should be asleep pretty much all the time. So baby wakes, feed, wind, cuddle and straight back to sleep.

Dummy is a good idea to encourage independant sleep. But if you are bottle feeding from birth you may not need one, it's much easier to get newborn into a milk-coma with a never ending oversupply of milk.

I'm a big fan of Gina Ford and my three excellent sleepers are a good advert for her books.

But I wouldn't start at 17 days old!! I think I started with dc3 at around 4 weeks but that was mainly just trying to shift feeds and naps into a bit more of routine.

It's very 1990's approach. You'd be better off reading something like the baby whisperer and establishing more natural rhythms over a period of months.

I read Gina Ford and used it as a guide for some kind of routine for my twins although it was when they were either 10 or 12 weeks old (can't remember). The main thing I took away from it was 3 naps a day. She does go for quite little amounts of daytime sleep and my babies took way longer morning and lunchtime naps than she suggests. If they hadn't they would have been so grumpy. My DD loves a routine i can tell she thrives on it, she also loves her sleep and always has. Son not so much and to be honest going down the routine route for him probably wasn't the best thing to do but was the only way to preserve my sanity with 2!
Anyway I'd see what happens over next few weeks and maybe your child will develop a "pattern" along similar lines...I was always a bit surprised the book had routines starting at 2 weeks!

Update - he's 7 weeks now and is asleep for the night by 830.he goes until 1am and has a bottle, wakes again at 4-430 and then gets up at 630am.
He is doing this annoying thing of crying from 6pm until he has his bottle ready for bed but apparently that's common at this age according to my HV???

Why don't you feed at 6pm and then again at bedtime?

Because he feeds every 3 hours (sometimes 2.5 hours) during the day so he would have only had a bottle just prior to 6 most days. And feeding doesn't stop the grizzlies- I've tried!

Crying at this age will mostly be tired or hungry. So if you are certain it's not hunger, he needs a nap.

Worth bearing in mind that feeding and sleep needs will be in a constant state of change in these early months. You cannot assume that just because something worked/didn't last week that it will/won't work next week.