Routine

Livvyloo87 · November 2015

How does anyone have a routine or even start to set one? My EBF 8 week rules the house and when she sleeps and eats changes each day. We are totally fine with being flexible but I was curious with how others start the process?

She currently goes to bed for the night between 10-12 and I'm keen for tips to bring this forward eventually. No matter if we give a bath, feed, swaddle, nursery rhymes etc at 6-8 she will be wide awake until 10-12 when she may it may not decide to sleep.

cmlsu · November 2015

Do you track your feedings? I did and saw a pattern (she ate at 10 pm, 3 am and 7am). I then reinforced this pattern and moved the bedtime up by 15 minute increments 3 days at a time. Now she's consistently sleeping from 730 ish to 700 ish. She's 11 weeks and I started at 4.
I did use a modified CIO method, but I know that's not for everyone. I would suggest making sure she feeds a lot during the day and focus on establishing and reinforcing the night pattern. As long as LO is taking in enough calories during the day, they're fine to sleep longer stretches at night. Is also much easier mentally to know what to expect in the middle of the night.
Good luck!

sokomo · November 2015

@Livvyloo87 I have no advice, just wanted to commiserate. My baby is a little over two months (also EBF) and definitely does not have a set schedule. I hear people talking about having a 7 p.m. "bedtime" for their babies who are just a few weeks old and it's just totally confusing to me. I try to get her to go to sleep at the same time each day - sometimes in works, but most of the time it doesn't. She sleeps when she's tired and that's it. It really feels like I have no control

BrandiLaw87 · November 2015

@sokomo me too. Mine is 8 weeks, EBF and goes to bed usually between 10-12 (like OP). I don't mind most of the time, but there are some nights I just want the time alone with DH. When I try to put her to bed, she won't sleep. It's like she knows I'm not in the room with her, which she probably does because she can't smell me lol.

meggipi5 · November 2015

LO usually has a wake time of 90 minutes. SO, whenever her early evening nap ends, bedtime is around 90 minutes later, between 8 and 9-ish. I am starting to try a routine before she falls asleep.

We do bath with sister at 7-ish or I wipe her face, neck and hands with a warm washcloth, then jammies, diaper change, and swaddle. When she's at the 90 minute mark, I go to her room, play white noise, and bounce her until she's asleep. If she takes a long time, I'll come down and watch something on my computer while bouncing her.

I put her down asleep at night, I try the drowsy but awake thing for daytime naps.

ElleMF728 · November 2015

We sleep and feed on demand but I definitely try to tweak his natural schedule occasionally to make my life a bit easier. I would recommend writing down sleep and eat times for a few days to figure out what your baby's natural routine seems to be. It would be a lot easier to work with what you've got and slowly move towards something more desirable than to just throw LO and yourself into something completely foreign.

Even with a semi schedule we are flexible. It works for DS2 but DS1 was all over the place for months despite my desperate attempts to get him on some sort of predicable routine.

Livvyloo87 · November 2015

I'm the same! I don't understand how people can say LOs bedtime is x! It makes it so hard each night - I spend hours trying to get her to sleep it seems like it is all I do.

jwebbbber45678 · November 2015

My baby pretty much goes to bed at 8 every night. We do bath at 7 with a massage and then I breastfeed him until he falls asleep. Sometimes he gets cranky and needs to be rocked to sleep. It just happened that he gets very tired around this time and always falls asleep. What I can't control is how long he sleeps for and how often he wakes to eat. Some nights it's six hours in a row, one feed, then three more hours. Just when I think hooray this is a great routine, he starts walking up every two hours to eat and cry! And he seems to always be rather wide awake and up for the day between 5:30-6:00am regardless of how he slept at night.

Kayciejoe56 · November 2015

I'm a FTM so I have no previous experience to base this off... but lo is 9 weeks, and we have no real routine. Honestly, this has been working well for us, since I have no expectations for the day. I feed on demand, and put ds down when he seems tired. I try to keep him up for a little while at night, as I would love for bedtime to be around 10, so it's closer to when I go to bed, but some nights he just needs to go to sleep at 8.

I just try to remind myself that he is still so little. Everyone talks about 3 months being a big change in sleep patterns, so I'm just kind of holding out a few more weeks. Then I'll worry about maybe gradually trying to shift to a schedule. I keep reminding DH (when I put lo in bed, to just get a little more sleep) that we are still in survival mode, getting sleep however we can! Right now I am just enjoying the flexibility of being able to go about my day, and go where I want. I can feed on demand, in the car or wherever, and let lo nap in the ergo or stroller.

nicolelynn915 · November 2015

I can't say I put LO on schedule. She has developed it on her own but it is becoming much more predictable... Well for now anyways. Our routine goes kinda like this: day starts between 5 and 7 am, but usually around 6. It's diaper change, play, and then eat around 7. She's never ready to eat right away. Then nap anytime between 7:30 and 8 until 9-9:30. Then she's awake and wants to eat again. Plays and then nap around 10:30-11 until noonish and eat around 12:30 and then naps from about 1/1:30 until 2:30/3 and then eats and plays until 4:30-5 and then eats again and then naps for about 30ish min and then awake eats around 6:30/7 and then it's either bath or changing into pjs and play with less stimulation and then into her swaddle around 8 eat and then rocked to sleep. And then wakes up around 3 or 4 am. It seems like she has been doing this pretty consistently the past few days. We don't do the stay awake 2 hours before bedtime because by that time of the night she just can't stay awake that long and if we try to force it it's not good for anyone. I just follow her cues, everything is baby led but it sure makes it easier to predict what she wants or why she is crying. Sometimes naps are longer or shorter but this is just a general ballpark but she seems to consistently eat and sleep around the same time the length of nap just tends to vary.

jen83mn · November 2015

If you're trying to push bedtime back, I would recommend doing it gradually like pp suggested. So if baby usually wants to go to bed at 11, try putting her to bed 15-30 minutes earlier and do this until she has it down. Then push it back another 15-30 minutes until she has that down, etc. If you try too drastic of a change, baby will fight it.

My boy is almost 12 weeks and while we don't have a schedule based on exact times, he follows a general pattern throughout the day. Sleep every 1-1/2 hours after waking up, and eats every 2-3 hours during the day, every 2 hours during the evening, and whenever he wakes at night (most nights he sleeps through the night, but sometimes he wakes once to feed). He goes to bed between 8:30-9:30, so I always try to feed him at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.

This baby-led schedule works for us and he's happy, so I'm happy! When I go back to work on Monday, he goes to grandma's, so I don't need to worry about him being on a set schedule at daycare.

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