Help with starting a schedule

vlcoley

My daughter is almost 4 months old and up until now she has lead her scheule on a day-to-day basis.  She is EBF and fed on demand so every day is different...sometimes she wakes up and eats and starts her day at 5 am, other times she sleeps a little later and eats and starts her day at 6:30 am.  Sometimes she eats every 2 hours, other times she will go 3.5 hours between feedings.  This is all been fine because I have been home.  But I am slowly starting back to work and will be full time starting after Labor Day.  So my daughter will be spending time in daycare and with my mom during the week.  A somewhat consistent schedule would be nice....wake at 6 am, feed, eat every 3 hours, bed at 8 pm, etc.  Where do I start?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Lesleyjking

I was doing on demand and it was a disaster. Around 3 months I started LO on the baby whisperer. Its awesome and flexible enough to suit a baby that is not textbook-meaning my LO does not wake up the same time every day, and sometimes her naps are longer/shorter than others.

Essentially you feed a full serving every 4 hours starting at 4 months-so I FF now, so thats 6 to 8 oz.

The routine is: Wake-eat-play and back to sleep after being up for 1.5 to 2 hrs (read babies cues on being tired) then let them sleep 2 hours- then start all over ie: wake-eat-pay and back to sleep after being up 1.5 to 2 hrs. Unless K has had a choppy  nap day, her last nap is around 5 and only 45 min. I also feed her right when I put her to bed at 7 (regardless if she has even ate 1 hr prior)--because I like to "top her off" for bedtime. I then dreamfeed aroun 10/10:30 and she sleeps till 6/7 am

stemms8810

My DS is breastfed and I feed him on demand.  I don't pay attention the clock very much when nursing him.  At daycare he has settled into eating 4-5oz every 2-2.5 hours, sometimes longer if he takes a long nap.  I think your LO will do the same.  Even if she is feeding on demand when you nurse her, she will probably settle into somewhat of a feeding schedule at daycare.

She may start to get used to starting her day at a certain time when you have to wake her to go to work.  After some time, she will get used to it.

With a routine I started with bedtime.  I read his cues on what time of evening he starts to get tired.  I figured out he needs to go to bed between 7 and 8pm.  So I started bath every other night, pj's, swaddle, nurse, and lay down.  He sleeps until 3 or 4am, nurses and then sleeps again until 5:30 or 6am.  At that time I am up and getting ready for work anyway.

Next I added in a scheduled naptime at 1pm to start and will do the same with a morning one soon.  Right now the morning nap is whenever.  I did 1pm because that's when they take afternoon naps at daycare so I thought I shouldn't change that.

Honestly, if you are nursing you can't really put her on a schedule for that.  I don't expect to so I am going with the flow on that.

starswinger

I started to write down times when LO eat, played, slept, and realized that he started to fall into is own routine. It was recommended in these forums to use the EASY method (eat-activity-sleep-yourself) and LO does this pattern over and over all day long. I read his cues for when he gets tired and his naps vary in length, so I feed him when he wakes up, then we play for awhile, then when he starts rubbing his eyes, I put him down. He wakes up at the same time every day now and usually goes to sleep roughly the same time.

[Deleted User]

DS is falling into a bit more of a schedule now that I work PT and he's in daycare. Usually to bed between 8:00 and 9:00, up around 7:00 (with a LOT of waking in between, mind you). I try to feed him right before we head to daycare and I think he eats every 2-3 hrs there. It took him a couple days to get used to the bottle but now he takes it fine. When he's home with me he's fed on demand and naps every couple of hours. Personally going with his flow works best for me. 

vicky7139

I have been doing babywise since the beginning.  The schedule that we work off (which for BW babies is standard for this age) is 8:00 Am 12:00 noon, 4:00 PM, and 8:00 PM.  She gets a 1.5 to 2 hour nap BEFORE every feeding.  Obviously the first feeding is her start of the day, and then she will go down around 09:30/10:00, and then again around 2:00/2:30 and then again around 6:00/6:30.  The final feeding she gets and then goes straight into her bedtime routine. I have just started to introduce rice cereal so in a few days, she will be up to 2 servings a day.  

 So at 8:00 AM she wil get 5-7 ounces and 1 tablespoon of cereal. (During these feedings she doesn't take as much since she is getting the cereal.) Then the same at 12:00.  Then for the final two feedings, she gets 7 ounces each right now.  

 At her four month appointment she weighed 13 pds 1 oz.  She can roll in both directions and rolls around like crazy and is working really hard on sitting up.  She has been formula food for  a couple of weeks now, and everything has gone well. 

I highly reccomend this method, as it is conducive to great sleep habits as well.  Very similar to the EASY method that someone had mentioned previously. Good luck!!