Routine?

amandoza23 · April 2014

If I have one more person recommend babywise I might lose it.

My LO will be 8 weeks old on Wednesday and so far I've let her try to make her own schedule. I nurse on demand, let her sleep when she's tired, etc. Things have been crazy since her 6 week growth spurt. She wakes up from a nap around 5-6 and won't go back to sleep until 2-3 in the morning. From what I've been reading it's a sign of her being overtired and us missing sleep cues. She doesn't seem to have much of a routine during the day either. I don't want to have a strict to the minute schedule, but I would like help on how to guide her into having more of a pattern so we can all sleep better. So my question is, is there a book or website that has tips on how to recognize sleep cues/help guide her in establishing a baby-led routine? Or is it better to just let her figure it out on her own?

I am not at all interested in CIO or not feeding her when she's hungry. Thank you!!

neverblushed · April 2014

I have to confess that, although I read a ton of parenting books when my kids were babies, I didn't really strictly follow any "method" with them. I was the Hermione Granger of parenting books. I was determined I was going to do this parenting thing right and not make mistakes! One thing I had to learn the hard way was that there's really no right or wrong, and that you really have to make your own way with this parenting thing.

I think there's probably a middle ground between "strict schedule" and "baby calls all the shots" that would suit you and your baby's needs, especially in this earliest stage in your journey together.

When my babies were small, I found it was helpful to sort of think in terms of cycles: wake up, activity, eat, sleep, repeat. How long the components of this cycle took, and how long each cycle took was sort of negotiable. Sometimes "eat" was actually also the activity, especially at night. I found that my babies were good for about 60 to 90 minutes of waking time at a stretch when they were small. I also tried not to feed the baby within 90 minutes of the last feeding, unless no other means of comforting a crying baby worked. But I wasn't super rigid about it; I just tried to use common sense and remember that nursing wasn't the only way to comfort a crying baby. If the baby had been awake for about 60 minutes, I knew it was time to start getting ready for nursing and some sleep.

Hang in there!

Emerald27 · April 2014

Best book for helping new parents understand normal infant sleep patterns (and so have normal expectations for sleep) is called Sweet Dreams:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0737304944?pc_redir=1398651016&robot_redir=1

It's a very positive, gentle book that aims to help parents understand why babies sleep the way they do, and it does not encourage sleep training.

It is very common for young babies to have trouble with the late evening and early hours of the morning. Is she fussy while awake or happy?

Mom's prolactin levels are lowest at that time of day, so she will probably need to nurse more often to get the milk she needs. Nursing frequently at night will also help her to establish good sleep patterns for later in infancy, because it helps her to regulate her melatonin levels, which are responsible for helping her establish her circadian rhythm. Nighttime milk has higher levels of tryptophan (melatonin), and baby doesn't produce that well herself for the first couple months.

You can also help her start to recognize night as a time for sleep by keeping the house dark and quiet.

Best of luck!

Emerald27 · April 2014

Also, tell anyone who recommends babywise that it kills babies! The AAP has condemned it and affirms that it causes failure to thrive. It's a service to other moms to alert them to the danger of babywise.

vvvvvfee · April 2014

have you read the no-cry sleep solution? the author has a lot info on her website, too. here's an article where she discusses signs of tiredness. she is an advocate for keeping sleep logs so you can try to figure out patterns or what works/doesn't work for your LO.

you could try to institute a consistent bedtime routine- like bath, then nurse, then singing, always in the same order. also make sure the room is completely dark and that your LO gets as much sunlight as possible during the day, to try to make sure her circadian rhythms are straightened out.

i definitely sympathize with you! my DS had a period of several weeks as a newborn where we could not get him to sleep until 2 or 3 AM. it was truly grueling. of course, we were too sleep-deprived to do the sleep logs or much of anything else.

he did get his schedule straightened out a little more by the time he was 3 months, though- he was still waking overnight several times to nurse, but he was at least sleeping during most of the nighttime period.

TiffanyBerry · April 2014

I took one useful thing from babywise - the nurse, play, sleep pattern has value. But my daughter would be hungry again before she slept, and I always fed on demand, so it was more nurse, play, nurse, sleep; repeat throughout the day.

My daughter also didn't/doesn't give clear sleep signs. Never had. She does that "blank stare, then shake your head, then be WIDE AWAKE for hours" thing that you might have seen college students who partied too late the night before do in class. Only she'd take approximately two seconds for the whole thing, and then any chance to nap her was long gone. Eye rub? Yawn? Tired eyes? Not at all. Well, maybe occasionally now that she's nearly four years old.

The book "The 90-Minute Baby Sleep Solution" (or something close to that) was helpful for me, because it got me thinking about her sleep *less* in terms of sleep signs and more in terms of sleep cycles. If she wasn't going to give me external sleep cues, then I had to make a guess as to her rest/active cycle and start trying to nap her by that. So, after she'd be up for three hours, I'd swaddle her and try to put her down for a nap (usually by nursing first, then bouncing her if she hadn't fallen asleep nursing). (I think we started this when she was older than yours - closer to four months, but the first three months were hell, and I wish I had done this sooner.)

It's far more "to the clock" that I wanted to be, at least as far as napping goes. But it was the only thing that worked. Otherwise, she'd stay awake for 7-8hrs at a time, cranky and tired, but not able to sleep either. (She also had silent reflux - you might check on that if you have *any* suspicions something else is up.) It worked extremely well for us through her entire napping career (until she was 3), and if I was half an hour late (into the next rest/active cycle) for a nap, it wouldn't happen until the start of the next rest/active cycle beyond that.

(The theory is that rest/active cycles are ~90 minutes long. They are certainly that long for adults; it's surprisingly universal. But they can often be shorter, like 60 minutes, for babies. So, I spent a lot of time writing down when she did what, and she - even from really young - did a 90 minute cycle sort of thing. So I "charted" out her normal patterns (as patterned as they could be) and then put a little more structure into that.)

blu-eyedwife · April 2014

I didn't do schedules, but I am a huge fan of routine. Right now it sounds like you have a routine, but not a very good one if your daughter is consistently waking between 5 and 6, and then up till 2 or 3. Here are my thoughts:

1) It's all well and good to let the baby eat when she's hungry and sleep when she's tired, but babies are not very in touch with their needs when it comes to sleep. They really need you to help recognize when they should be sleeping, and help them to get there at this age. For me, this really did involve "watching the clock" to an extent. Because you'll note that most of the pps talk about their children being awake from 60-90 minutes. Never happened with my kid. I let him go that long at first and we'd miss the window. For us it was 45 minutes. On the dot. As in, at 45 minutes, I had better be swaddling/swaying/rocking. I know people say watch cues, don't watch the clock, but like @Tiffanyberry's daughter, mine didn't have great cues.

2) Bedtime routine really helped us out in the evenings. We started it around 4-6 weeks. My son usually woke between 5 and 6pm, like your daughter. At that point, I would nurse him. DH would get home from work and give him a bath, pajamas, story, and feed him again, and put him to sleep. We did this every night. Heck, we still do it - except now it's dinner instead of nursing, and he doesn't get fed again before bed. Having the routine helps them develop sleep associations and cues that help the body relax and go to sleep.

flcl · May 2014

@amandoza23: thanks for posting this... I had the same questions for my LO regarding schedules vs routines. Just wanted to say thanks and GL!!

Edited: posted too early!

Routine?

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