I want to start an 8 o'clock bedtime and start a feeding schedule as well. What is the best way to do this? I tried the past two nights to put him down at 8 and he woke up about every 30 minutes until about midnight or later. Yesterday I even woke him from his afternoon nap at 5ish and kept him awake and still no luck. He usually goes down for a nap b/w 1 & 2. Has anyone had any luck with starting a similar schedule?
Re: Getting on a schedule
ditto, but good luck with that.
having the routine is one thing, but from what I hear, you can't expect them to adhere to anything close to a routine until close to three months.
I do think some routine things are really good for YOUR sanity though.
It's too early for us, for sure! We have a general schedule (i.e. I try to feed more during the day and we get a longer stretch of sleep between feedings at night) but outside of that and doing baths at about the same time every other night, I don't think it's realistic to try to get him to adapt to anything more structured yet.
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Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I really like the EASY routine outlined by The Baby Whisperer. Following that routine has us on a 3 hour "schedule" where he goes to bed at 8, "Dreamfeeds" at 11, wakes at 3ish to be fed, and then at 7 am. So essentially from 7 am to 11 pm, he eats every 3 hours, approximate, I just watch for his hunger cues. Some activity (bath, tummy time, etc) after eating, and then sleep for 1-1.5 hours.
It works great for us. :-)
We still don't have a schedule, but we do have a routine.
I think we started to regularly put Wes in his crib for the night at 8 pm sometime around 6 weeks.
I have to say that it's not always perfect, and we've had some rough nights here and there, but for the most part now he can be placed in his crib awake and he will put himself to sleep on his own. (He does still wake up once or twice in the night to feed, fwiw).