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May 2012 Moms
goldie11883
member
Help me with a day/night structure for my 9 week old!
goldie11883
member
My LO is 9 weeks and we're still struggling with getting her on a basic schedule. Sometimes she'll decide to go down at 8-10pm and sleep until 2-4am others nights she'll go down at 12am and sleep until 6am. During the day is also tough, she'll take a good 4-5hr nap in the morning but I never know what she's going to do in the afternoon. It's never the same no matter what we do.
So I was wondering if any of you moms have their LOs on a schedule yet and what your typical day looks like. Any suggestions or tips would be great!
TIA!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Help me with a day/night structure for my 9 week old!
We still struggle with getting LO to sleep sometimes, even when we know she's tired, during the day, but we have her on a routine so we hope in time it will click for her. Our night-time routine is the best part of the day for us because it goes so smoothly. Here's how it goes:
Depending on DD's last nap of the day, we start her routine around 6pm. First I BF her, or DH gives her a pumped bottle. Wait about 10 min for burps and poops to happen, then DH gives her a bath. She gets lotioned-up and the topped off with the boob or bottle before bed. This way she's asleep by 7:30pm. Usually wakes up twice in the night to eat, and awake for the day around 7:30am.
During the day we follow Eat, Activity, Sleep routine and she still eats about every 2 hours, although her nap now is going extra long so it varies of course.
We've been doing this routine since LO was 7 weeks old and I think she's getting the hang of it.
My DS used to go down for the night at different times too like when we went to bed. At around 6 weeks I started a bedtime routine and began it about 7pm so he is in bed for the night by 8pm or a little after. It consists of bath, swaddle, nurse, and in the crib. The daytime doesn't have a schedule really but I follow his cues for eating, playtime, and naptime. I do this mostly because I am BFing and I feed on demand. I make sure as much as possible that when he falls asleep for a nap I take him upstairs to his crib.
What I would do is wake your LO if her nap in the morning is exceeding 3 hours and then play, feed, or whatever is next. This way once she has eaten and played, she will probably be ready for another nap in the afternoon. Once that nap is over repeat with the eating and playing until it's bedtime.
I would try starting with a bedtime routine first. I personally think that's a good place to start.
Is a bedtime schedule necessary at this point? We follow DD's cues for eating/sleeping... She has sort of started her own schedule... but it's all her own and nothing is forced on her. I could be out to lunch on it... IMO waking her unnecessarily wouldn't be good for her. If she is tired, she needs to sleep. If she is awake, she needs to be awake. If she is hungry, she needs to eat. When she is older she will have a bedtime... but, she's only two months old now.
We are not big on schedules, so we worked out a basic flexible routine and it seems to be doing well. We are gradually trying to get her to go to bed earlier, though. We don't have any kind of real routine and this is NOT rigid. It helps to keep our bouncing off the walls baby unwound at night time. At this early age, all we're trying to establish is that day time is for play and night time is for relaxing and resting.
We do a bath at night (I shower, then hubby brings her to me and I hold her and sing to her while he washes her in my arms or vice versa. I warm up the bathroom first and it helps). Then she gets tried off and is usually drowsy, so we wrap her in another blanket and give her her paci to doze for a little bit. Her bottle is warming in the meantime. She gets lotion, diaper, shirt, sleep sack unswaddled, then fed, burped, swaddled, and dessert. We sing to her throughout and try to stick to the same nighttime songs.
She loves to be entertained and will keep herself up indefinitely, so we turn on her mobile (no lights, sound off) and her cloud b turtle. She's cosleeping, so we usually sit for about 30 minutes to make sure she is really out and doesn't wake herself up (paci falling out, etc.). If she does wake up and it all wound up, we ignore her (unless shes crying obviously!). Lights stay off and the room is quiet for those 30 min until she's in dreamland. She wakes up usually after 5 hours for a feed, we skip the burp and change and then she sleeps for another 5 - usually. We do do a "dreamfeed" before we go to sleep around 2-3am. (this is horrible, I know, we've been watching the Olympics :x) She is hungry at this time so I know if we waited a bit longer, she would wake up crying for her early morning breakfast.
Don't feel the need to stick to any crazy schedule, babies are babies. We wouldn't even do this if she would sleep when she was tired, but if there's ANYTHING there to stimulate her she will not fall asleep. IMO the only consistent thing they really need is attention and love! Everything else falls into place.