When do you establish a routine for baby?

djtippietoes · February 2014

Alexander will be 3 weeks old on Monday. Right now, aside from feeding, which we are doing every three hours, we don't have a routine at all. We just put him down when he falls asleep or when we're sleeping. When do we need to start establishing a routine - specifically for napping, but really for anything, I suppose?

ramfan05 · February 2014

bribbon said:

I would say that you can start working toward one. 1. Establish the difference between daytime, when you eat and sleep but also play, and we wear play clothes, and there's lots of light; and nighttime, when you eat but then go back to bed, it's dark, we wear PJs, and we don't play. 2. Establish the transition with a bedtime routine. Keep it the same every night. Eg: bath, put on PJs, dim lights, turn on soft music (we used the same CD every night as an auditory cue), nurse one last time, go to bed. ETA once you can clearly see a differentiation between day and night in LO's sleep habits, you can start working on consistent nap times. But if you have to let one slide, I would fudge on nap consistency rather than nighttime sleeping consistency. I don't mean cut back on naps to encourage nighttime sleep (this will backfire!!), but I do mean that routines don't just happen. Don't beat yourself up over a nap schedule just yet.

Everything she said! We did this with DS as well and it worked out well for us

I know after a few weeks of the craziness of having a newborn at home, I was ready to start getting into some sort of a routine for our family.

snowwhite1979 · February 2014

We started day one at home with DD. Not an intense schedule, but definitely routines in place. You can start now. I echo everything @bribbon has said. We found Baby Whisperer helpful for establishing routines: Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. We still follow the nighttime routine of bath, PJs, stories, and sleep and DD is five and has no problem with bedtime. Good luck!

versed · February 2014

We did the interval method with DS1 and still loosely follow it for him to this day. Lucie's list explains it well (quoted below):

***************************************

https://www.lucieslist.com/your-life/

Daytime Napping: Decoded

The need to nap (your baby, that is) is the #1 monkey-wrench that will be thrown into your daily life.

I'm a huge believer in respecting your baby's naptimes by anticipating when they will need to nap and providing a quiet, comfortable environment for it. If you do this, your baby will be repay the favor by being happy, well-rested and ready to go anywhere. It's a win-win.

I have a fairly easy method that I use to predict time naps with a fairly good amount of accuracy. It all boils down to one thing:

Respect Thy Intervals.

This is where the dreaded 'S' word is making its first appearance: SCHEDULES.

I believe in a loose 'schedule' of sorts. Here's a rough guide:

Newborns ~ weeks 0-6

In the first month of life, there is no schedule. Don't even try. It's just too chaotic. In my opinion, you should feed your baby on demand, which means "whenever they want it" - eek!, and let them sleep on demand, within the parameters of The Great Shift. You can try to implement a schedule during this time.... good luck with all that.

Mind you that your baby can sleep through a rock concert in the first month and barely take notice. In fact, you may be surprised that your baby is completely oblivious to a loud thunderstorm or a barking dog. This is because their hearing is not so good yet: they can only hear a limited range of frequencies. Enjoy it while you can, it won't last long....

1.5 - 3 Months

After the first 6 weeks have passed (or fairly soon thereafter), hopefully your baby will be sleeping a lot at night. If this is the case (and believe me, you WANT this to be the case), he will take about 3 naps during the day which can range from 45 minutes to 2 hours. Some will take 4 naps a day, but for most it's 3. This will remain the case until about 7 months of age when they drop down to 2 naps/day.

The Morning Interval: 45-60 minutes. Starting when she wakes up in the morning (the first wake-up after sunrise), she will only be awake for a short while before taking her morning nap, typically about 45 minutes to an hour. So, if your baby wakes up at 7am, you can expect her to go down again around 7:45 to 8am. Weird, huh? If you've been up a lot the night before, this is a great time for you to go back to sleep too. Stay in your jammies, hold off on the coffee and get some extra shut-eye. You will feel like a new person.

The Midday Interval: about 2.5 hours. She'll wake again in about a hour and a half and will be up for roughly 2.5 hours this time.

The Afternoon Interval: about 3 hours. After her mid-day nap, this will be her longest stretch of being awake: about 3 hours. This is when you can run errands and do things with your baby that take a longer amount of time: grocery shopping, going to the mall or having a playdate. Your baby will be most alert and playful during this afternoon stretch.

Bedtime: 2.5-3 hours. "Bedtime" will occur 2.5-3 hours after she woke up from her afternoon nap.

In that last hour before bedtime, she will probably be at her crankiest. This is a great time to have a warm bath, a boob (or a bottle) and some snuggle time before going down for bed. Keep stimulation to a minimum.

4-6 Months

As time goes by into months 4, 5 and 6, your baby will really start consolidating sleep at night. These daytime "awake" intervals will widen and nap durations will shrink. The morning interval will widen to 1.5 and then 2 hours. The midday and afternoon intervals will widen to about 3 hours each, and pretty soon.... he will drop the midday nap altogether ~ sometime around 7 months.

As a general rule of thumb, a baby this age will rarely be awake for more than 3 hours at a time.

Starting around 4-5 months, your baby will become more finicky about where he will/can sleep. If junior is a light sleeper, you may want to plan on being home during naptimes. If you need to do something that lasts longer than 3 hours, just be sure you can provide him a decent place for a nap, like riding in a quiet car or napping in a quiet room at a friend's house. You can bring your Pack N' Play along to ensure that you have a sure-fire sleeping spot. Some babies can and will sleep anywhere. If you are one of these moms... I hate you.

** Your baby's intervals will vary, this is just a rough guideline.

How To...

Starting around 6 weeks, start writing down when he goes down and when he eats. If you observe and document your baby's natural intervals, you will quickly learn and anticipate when he will naturally go to sleep and for how long. Look for patterns. Then, you simply reinforce this nap schedule by putting him down 'on time' -- and sometimes, by not letting him sleep too terribly long. Some people call this "the baby putting themself on a schedule", which is true... but you need to reinforce and uphold it.

You will now have the ability to (somewhat) predict and plan your day, all while knowing that baby is getting enough sleep. Yay - this is our goal!

This is the self-dubbed interval method: observe, record, reinforce.

**********************************

snowwhite1979 · February 2014

I didn't know your baby was early! As I understand it, that does make a difference. I'm trying to read Happiest Baby on the block, and he talks about how babies still need to feel they are in the womb (more or less) for the first few months of life. This may be a better resource for you, although if he talks routine I haven't gotten there yet.

I think if it's working for now, go with it. I'm sure other moms here will have more experience with early babies, and better advice.

ziggy903 · February 2014

ivedonethisb4 said:
I understand this...in theory but I'm a little confused because the NICU nurses stressed that LO needed to get her 3 hours of sleep between feedings so that she isn't expending too many calories.

We've only been home 2 nights but she's still on the hospital routine of eat, sleep repeat. She's awake some but not much. Am I doing things wrong by letting her continue to sleep and be awake when she's awake? She's also still not supposed to be born yet either.

Premature babies simply don't have the energy to do anything but sleep and eat. You don't want to keep them up and play with them just yet because it will wear them out and then they won't eat as well at their next feeding. A full term baby has the energy to play after a few weeks, a preemie or growth restricted baby may not.

Right now, we are on the same 3-hour feeding schedule as the nicu (unless he wakes up earlier and shows signs of hunger) and we try to have LO sleep as much as possible between feedings since he is premature and still growth restricted. We keep the bedroom dark and quiet at night, and the living room light and have the tv on for noise.

djtippietoes · February 2014

cgunarat said:
I know most of you mention changing into PJ's before bedtime. What do you dress your LO in during the day? DS changed daily, but we usually only wear sleep and plays.

Same here. He wears the same type of stuff to bed as during the day.

RedSoxGirl10 · February 2014

DS is also in pjs most of the time but we change him into a zip up swaddle at night. That being said my baby totally still has day and night mixed up despite my attempts to fix this, so currently he sleeps way better without the swaddle (during the day)

sprashley · February 2014

Concuring with PP here - since your LO was early, her age will be adjusted. I do suggest getting into a 'routine' (not necessarily a time schedule) ASAP. I disagreed with much of what was in the 'Babywise' book, but I did use the routine for both of my older two girls (3 1/2 and 5 1/2 now) when they were little one. It was nice to have a routine to know what to do.... eat, play, sleep, basically. Not too difficult!

The other thing I would suggest is to read Weissbluth's book 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child'. Between the routine/sleep book/HBOTB/Baby411 it really helped me be a much more confident FTM and STM. Especially as I'm kind of an independent type and don't like to ask for help, but would rather learn on my own from professionals. Hoping the same holds true for TTM, too!!

djtippietoes · February 2014

ivedonethisb4 said:

I understand this...in theory but I'm a little confused because the NICU nurses stressed that LO needed to get her 3 hours of sleep between feedings so that she isn't expending too many calories. We've only been home 2 nights but she's still on the hospital routine of eat, sleep repeat. She's awake some but not much. Am I doing things wrong by letting her continue to sleep and be awake when she's awake? She's also still not supposed to be born yet either.
Premature babies simply don't have the energy to do anything but sleep and eat. You don't want to keep them up and play with them just yet because it will wear them out and then they won't eat as well at their next feeding. A full term baby has the energy to play after a few weeks, a preemie or growth restricted baby may not.
thanks...this is what I thought..this post just made me question myself. I'm letting her take the lead. Sometimes she'll want to stay awake for a little bit after eating but usually within 20 mins she's asleep again. She was also growth restricted too and still only 4lbs, 5 oz at 38 wks gestational, 4wks outside.

That's interesting because there are certain times when he doesn't eat as well and I wonder if it is from being awake too much. However, he is alert a lot of the time and won't necessarily sleep when he's not eating. Even if we lay him down, if he's up, he'll flail around and move his arms and stuff.

I sometimes forget that he was early and growth restricted.

emm57 · February 2014

I understand this...in theory but I'm a little confused because the NICU nurses stressed that LO needed to get her 3 hours of sleep between feedings so that she isn't expending too many calories. We've only been home 2 nights but she's still on the hospital routine of eat, sleep repeat. She's awake some but not much. Am I doing things wrong by letting her continue to sleep and be awake when she's awake? She's also still not supposed to be born yet either.
Premature babies simply don't have the energy to do anything but sleep and eat. You don't want to keep them up and play with them just yet because it will wear them out and then they won't eat as well at their next feeding. A full term baby has the energy to play after a few weeks, a preemie or growth restricted baby may not. Right now, we are on the same 3-hour feeding schedule as the nicu (unless he wakes up earlier and shows signs of hunger) and we try to have LO sleep as much as possible between feedings since he is premature and still growth restricted. We keep the bedroom dark and quiet at night, and the living room light and have the tv on for noise.

@ivedonethisb4 I completely agree with @Ziggy903. With Ds1, who was a 32weeker, I went by his adjusted age when trying to implement schedules and routines (he's 20 months now, but still follow his adjusted age of 18months bc some things he's meeting at actual age and others he's not and that's okay.) So I wouldn't worry about all the extra sleep right now. They need it to keep developing and catching up on weight. With DS1 I started following the eat, play, sleep/ eat sleep routine when he was about 1 month adjusted because that was when I noticed he was gaining more weight and having longer wakeful periods. You'll know when LO is ready, just keep following keep following her cues.

ziggy903 · February 2014

@djtippietoes do you swaddle him? A nice tight swaddle will usually get LO to sleep- sometimes we lay him down and he's alert, but at least he's not moving too much and burning too many calories.
I feel like we see our own babies so much, it's easy to forget that this isn't how big a normal baby is!

inluv4life2 · February 2014

With DD I started charting her sleeping patterns at about 6 weeks. I made a little excel chart with the time across the top in 15 min increments and just colored them in when she slept. I noticed a pattern emerging and would start putting her down just before I expected her to be sleepy. I followed her lead and it worked really well for us. She was STTN (6 hours) by 8 weeks.

I also read the 90 minute sleep cycle book and it made sooo much sense. It's written by a sleep expert doctor and uses our brain's batural awake rhythm to predict sleepiness and help babies get into a routine.

I'm mobile and can't link for some reason. But here's a screen shot of the book. Less than $10 on amazon. I've given this to everyone of my mom friends and they all said it was a huge help.

Breeze1107 · February 2014

I still have an inside baby and maybe this will be answered when she gets here, but I have a question...I keep reading about differentiating days and nights. Does it make sense to have a "daytime" nap area to sleep (pack and play in living room) and a "nighttime" sleep area (crib in bedroom)?

inluv4life2 · February 2014

cgunarat said:
@inluv4life2 - were you able to get your baby down for each 90 minute cycle? I am trying to soothe before the 90 minute window is up but I can't seem to get DS down and miss it. The book says to start the 90 minutes from when they first stir. I'm wondering if I'm not getting this down correctly.

Yes, but I didn't start until she was 6 weeks or so (pediatrician recommended the book at the 4 week check). I should have said this in my previous post, sorry! Until then they really just do little cat naps.

Sounds like you are doing it right. Hang in there!

inluv4life2 · February 2014

We'll see if this method works for LO2!

Want a personalized experience?

When do you establish a routine for baby?

Re: When do you establish a routine for baby?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards