Babies: 0 - 3 Months
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Do you have a routine, esp. bedtime?
I've heard talk of the EASY routine, babywise, etc. and am wondering if any routines actually work for a 5 week old. What routines do you all use?
During the day I pretty much feed on demand and let him sleep when he falls asleep. Essentially, we have no routine. Could this be why it is so hard to get him to go to sleep at a decent hour at night? It literally takes HOURS of rocking/feeding/patting. Could a routine help my husband and I have any time alone before we are both to exhausted to do anything? Ahhh!!
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Re: Do you have a routine, esp. bedtime?
We have been following the Babywise, Eat Awake Sleep, since my DD was about 3-4weeks old. In the evening (b/t 9-10pm) we do bath, lotion, feed, swaddle and she is down for the night! She has been sleeping through the night (8.5-10hr) since about week 7 or 8. Once she is up in the morning we start the EAS. We are very flexible but she usually eats every 2.5-3.5hrs during the day. If she is sleeping at the 3.5hr mark, I wake her up.
Like I said, we are flexible with it. Sometimes she is too sleepy to stay awake after she eats and sometimes she doesn't nap before her next feeding. The routine has definately worked for us though! GL
I follow DS's cues. We're beginning to see a routine naturally.
He's up around 7 and goes down for a short nap (30-45 min) between 8 and 9. He's up and playing/feeding until 10 or 11 and goes down for another short nap. He's up until 1 or 2 and takes another short nap, or a long nap and drops the evening nap. It depends. If he takes an evening nap it's usually around 5.
He starts to get fussy between 6 and 7 (depending on the evening nap), so we start our bedtime routine. He gets a bath 2-3 times per week; otherwise it's pajamas, sometimes part of a story and nursing. He'll either nurse to sleep or he wants the baby milkshake. He sleeps for 3-4 hours for the first stretch.
He's up every 2-3 hours at night. I keep praying for longer stretches of sleep but I think his hunger keeps waking him up. He's 13 lbs 9 oz at 9 weeks! Last night he went to sleep at 8 and was up at 12, 2:30, 5:30 and 7.
Our daytime routine kind of naturally evolved. He wakes from a nap, eats, does tummy time, then we play for a bit before he starts showing signs of being tired, then I put him down for a nap.
We started a nighttime routine around 3 weeks because we were having a nightmare putting him to sleep. It was taking hours of him crying the entire time. Now DH gets home from work between 5:30 and 6:00 and he's in charge of bedtime. He bathes the baby, clothes/swaddles him, feeds him a bottle, reads him a bedtime story, and puts him to sleep. It used to take about 2 hours, but now it takes an hour or less.
its really a matter of your personality. We have no routine and didnt with my first. She ended up making somewhat of a routine but changes daily. Only consistent thing is her bedtime is right around 9. she made it, not us
she sleeps from 9 to 2-4 depending on night...
We do bath, bottle (hubby reads to her while I feed her), and then bed. I usually just have to rock her for a few minutes after her last bottle and she is out. We usually start at 7:30pm.
During the day, I feed her every 3 hours (I ff) and just let her nap when she wants to. I found that if I don't feed her every 3 hours, then she wakes up hungry at night.
7lbs 13oz 20 inches long