Newborn schedule?

WiseUsagi · April 2016

Does anyone have their baby on a set schedule? Certain family members have been chastising us for not having Peter (who will be 4 weeks on Thursday) on a schedule. We've just been feeding on demand and letting him sleep/play whenever he likes. He does go to bed at almost the same time each night and is pretty consistent about his middle of the night wake times but during the day it's a toss up. He doesn't have a set nap/eating schedule during the day.

I'm not even sure how to go about doing a schedule for a baby who eats on demand. He typically wants to eat every 2 hours but sometimes it's more often and occasionally he'll go 3 hours. Is a schedule really necessary at this young of an age? We also don't really have a bedtime routine yet either. I only bathe him a few times a week because he has excessively dry skin and his pediatrician advises less frequent bathing so we can't really do the bathe/read/eat routine each night.

I guess I feel like we're doing something wrong by not scheduling him because everyone seems to think we should have one by now and say that we'll regret it later if we don't get him into a routine early. One family member has even said they won't babysit until he's on a set schedule.

So are we doing something wrong here?

wildtot · April 2016

I can't say we have a set schedule yet. We do have pretty good ideas of when he'll wake and want to eat. LO poops when he feeds so we know to expect that. Right now it's a trial and error on figuring out LOs trends. My mom has often commented that we shouldn't be waking baby up to feed or change even if it's been 3 hours or more sleeping. We let him sleep 5 hours once and he woke up super hungry and harder to put him back to bed in the middle of the night. LO is 8 days old. If I breastfed he'll wake more often but due to severely injured nipples I am pumping. We can feed more with pumping and have long sleeping periods. We definitely want to have a better "schedule" by the time DH goes back to work in 5 week. We see the pediatrician today so hopefully we get better guidance on this.

redselig · April 2016

If you're doing something wrong, I'm there with you.

EBF and on demand. The only thing I'm trying to do at the moment is help him him distinguish night from day. When we wake up, I open all the blinds and sing good morning songs. I put him in his bouncer in front of the terrace window where there's plenty of sunlight. During the day we go for walks and sometimes we even venture into the city. We have a very loose format: wake, eat, play, sleep. When it's night time I make sure the room is dim and I don't talk to him as much as I do during the day. That's pretty much it.

WiseUsagi · April 2016

redselig said:

If you're doing something wrong, I'm there with you. EBF and on demand. The only thing I'm trying to do at the moment is help him him distinguish night from day. When we wake up, I open all the blinds and sing good morning songs. I put him in his bouncer in front of the terrace window where there's plenty of sunlight. During the day we go for walks and sometimes we even venture into the city. We have a very loose format: wake, eat, play, sleep. When it's night time I make sure the room is dim and I don't talk to him as much as I do during the day. That's pretty much it.

This pretty much sounds exactly like our day so I guess we're in the same boat!

amandac12581 · April 2016

WiseUsagi said:

redselig said:

If you're doing something wrong, I'm there with you. EBF and on demand. The only thing I'm trying to do at the moment is help him him distinguish night from day. When we wake up, I open all the blinds and sing good morning songs. I put him in his bouncer in front of the terrace window where there's plenty of sunlight. During the day we go for walks and sometimes we even venture into the city. We have a very loose format: wake, eat, play, sleep. When it's night time I make sure the room is dim and I don't talk to him as much as I do during the day. That's pretty much it.

This pretty much sounds exactly like our day so I guess we're in the same boat!

No schedule here either. The little guy is making the rules and he changes them daily. He does get super fussy and is very hard to soothe lately but once we get him calm he falls asleep. Today we battled it out from 10am until 2:30pm. No matter what we did he wasn't happy and he didn't always want the boob either. We're still trying to figure him out. He's 3 weeks old, we're hoping it's a growth spurt and it'll be over soon

momofmanyinthemitten · April 2016

It takes longer than a month for a baby to get on a schedule. We follow the EASY routine during the day and by 3 months, they are pretty well on our 7pm bedtime-6:30am wake for the day schedule.

BeatboxBaby · April 2016

We are following a schedule I guess you could say, but only cause LO hasn't gained back to her birth weight and she just simply wasn't eating enough or waking up enough times to eat on her own. So, currently we wake her every 2 hours during the day snd every 3 at night. I can't wait to be past this though.

mrsmtothek · April 2016

We're on a schedule. And by schedule, I mean I get my LO up every 2 hours to nurse even if he doesn't want to during the day. Make no mistake though--when I'm home by myself and have no one else to help console him when he wants to clusterfeed for 4 hours, he absolutely calls the shots haha. Same with how long he wants to sleep at night!

The main thing to note here is--do whats best for YOU. I can't tell you how much schtick I've gotten for being ON a schedule, so it seems no matter what you do you're effed in the eyes of others judging you haha. Don't worry mama. You're doing great!

Missingchampagne · April 2016

I wrote out a "feeding schedule" one day and by the following day I could hear my newborn laughing at it in my head. I feed him when he's hungry, it's dark at night and light during the daytime... We nap together once a day. There's really no set times for anything though! Each time I've tried, it's been a complete clusterfuck. I can't predict how much he will want to eat, or when he will wake up at night. If he is going to sleep for four hours instead of three at night... I am NOT going to be waking up to stop him

We will worry about schedules when he's a little older. Right now, we worry about cuddling and feeding.

linzoirv · April 2016

We don't have a daytime schedule per say, but I have started a nighttime routine. Usually, I try to get my son to bed by 10:30PM (Routine starts around 9PM: bottle, diaper change, sponge bath, and lullaby). He only wakes once during the night around 2:30 - 3AM and then will be up again around 6 - 7AM for the day. This works perfect since he starts daycare in 3 weeks and I will also be returning to work fulltime.

K&Elizabeth · April 2016

With DD, we started setting a "schedule" around 6 weeks. We started with a bedtime routine- bath, massage, eat, sleep. We tried to start it at the same time each night. After about 2 weeks of that, her say times became more predictable. Our schedule with her didn't get more rigid until she was 1 with set wake up, bedtime, and nap times. I think it's easy to start with sleep. Then the feelings sort of fall into place. You are doing absolutely nothing wrong!

loveymay · April 2016

My LO will be 4 weeks this Thursday too, and we are not on a schedule. I think hes too young for a schedule. He eats usually every 2.5-3 hours (I EFF), and he sleeps when he is tired. I do not ever wake a sleeping baby lol. He is fussy if he wakes up from a nap early. I dont have to wake him to eat though, even at night, he is pretty consistent. The only thing I do is dim the lights in the evenings, and only use a lamp in the MOTN to do diaper changes. I dont talk to him much in the MOTN other than gentle shh'ing if he is fussy. In the mornings, I open all the blinds and talk to him a lot, and during his awake periods I walk around showing him things around the house, do tummy time, and let him see/hear some of his toys that make music. I figure we will get on a schedule when he is a bit older and sleeping longer at night. Like PPsaid, LO calls the shots right now, haha!

mumidi · April 2016

No real schedule here. I wake him every 2 hours during the day to eat but besides that he mostly sleeps. We try and get a little play time in before his feeding but that doesn't always happen. He's currently two weeks and just passed his birth weight. I'll just be happy when he starts sleeping a bit longer at night. He usually sleeps one 3-4 hour stretch then up every 2 hours (which sucks big time at night). With my daughter there was no schedule until past 3 months and to be honest she started daycare at 3 months so it was only the weekends. Around 6 months we started 2-3-4. First nap 2 hours after waking, next nap 3 hours after waking, bedtime 4 hours after waking from last nap.

AmadorRose · April 2016

I don't think a schedule would really work with a newborn. They're growing and changing so fast that when they're cluster feeding or sleeping a lot, they NEED it and it would be cruel not to give them what they need. I plan to start morning and bedtime routines around 6 weeks to prepare for when I go back to work but not before. At nearly three weeks DD's wake/sleep cycle is regulating but if she wants to be awake and nursing all night then that's what we'll do for now. I'm just enjoying the relaxed days and baby snuggles.

sarahufl · April 2016

AmadorRose said:

I don't think a schedule would really work with a newborn. They're growing and changing so fast that when they're cluster feeding or sleeping a lot, they NEED it and it would be cruel not to give them what they need. I plan to start morning and bedtime routines around 6 weeks to prepare for when I go back to work but not before. At nearly three weeks DD's wake/sleep cycle is regulating but if she wants to be awake and nursing all night then that's what we'll do for now. I'm just enjoying the relaxed days and baby snuggles.

I was in bed till 10 am today snuggling DD.

No apologies from me. Pretty soon she will be too busy to snuggle. Three weeks old is too young for a schedule, IMO.

amaniupendo · April 2016

I'm super anti-schedule. I like having a flexible kid.

myla14 · April 2016

We have zero schedule. With LO1 I tried to track wake up times and so forth and with this one I'm not even looking at the clock. LO1 got a "bedtime" at around 8 weeks but didn't get on a predictable nap schedule til about 6 months and didn't sleep through the night til 22 months. So one of us sucks at schedules, either him or me:). Just trying not to stress this time.

rebelone · April 2016

We don't have a schedule. He eats an ounce here and there, but most of the time it's every 3 hours. During the day we keep him in the living room with the blinds / lights on (not like it makes much a difference, he sleeps a lot anyway). At night I lay him down about 10 pm in the crib and for the most part he'll sleep there, continuing to wake every 3 hours to eat. But then again Grayson is only 1w5d old.

loveymay · May 2016

So I take back what I said earlier here, LO is almost 7 weeks old and Im trying to put him on a wake/eat/play/sleep schedule, and trying to get in a morning nap, midday nap, and an afternoon nap, with a bedtime around 8-9. Today was the first day attempting this, it worked out pretty good. Im also trying to break him of wanting to be held allthe time. Yesterday he screamed every time I tried to put him down, and immediately stopped as soon as I picked him up. Also, Im trying to make sure he can go to sleep without needing to be rocked, and today I practiced putting him in his bassinet sleepy but not sleeping. So far so good, but man alive it is exhausting! I dont want to create bad habits with him, it feels like a super fine line between giving him the soothing he needs and letting him learn to self soothe as well (meaning Mommy gives him cuddles and love in a way that he can fall asleep on his own without needing to be rocked or held the entire time he sleeps). Im a FTM so this is all new to me.

JayeSkylar · May 2016

He more or less put himself on a schedule. He's up to 5-6 hours in between feedings and during the day he's either looking around, taking cat naps or cuddling with me. We usually do bedtime between his 8-10 feeding. Bf feeds, changes him, put him in his sleep sack, takes him to his room turns on the night light and places him in his crib. We do one MOTN feeding. And he's usually up for the day around 5-7. For a baby that is only 5 weeks old he's very independent. We just go with his flow

UnbreakableKimmySchmidt · May 2016

I may be wrong about this but I thought babies couldn't self soothe until 5 months-- which is when you can start sleep training....for some it can be as early as 4 months. Anyone else know anything about this?

JayeSkylar · May 2016

@UnbreakableKimmySchmidt they say that it doesn't hurt to start them on a schedule now that way they're use to it by that time. At least a bedtime and morning time. So with roo he's in his room by a certain time and at a certain time of morning he comes into our room. So hopefully by the time he is old enough he'll be in this routine set and it won't be so difficult

JadaBlue · May 2016

@UnbreakableKimmySchmidt I read many sleep books with my first and you're correct that sleep training isn't recommended for a few months. Most say do what it takes to get them to sleep during the first four months/don't worry too much about bad habits. But I think aiming for a loose schedule and sleep routine would not conflict with that if you kept your expectations reasonable and didn't leave your newborn LO to cry it out.

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