New Baby Routine - What? When? How did it work for you?

It does not matter what you decide to do your baby won’t have read the book and may have different ideas. Later on I liked some aspects of the baby whisperer but not very thing. If I remember rightly it was Eat (milk), Activity, Sleep and then you time. If you have a bf baby though you will probably need to feed more often than this.

I read baby whisperer and did my best to implement the EASY routine with my newborn at around a month whilst breastfeeding. Helped me know when to predict the next feed (every 3 hours) and also disassociate boob and sleep. My LO never really napped for more than 45 mins at a time no matter what I tried to do to resettle him so usually worked out as eat, activity (sometimes 1/2 hour, sometimes 2 hours depending on wake window, sleep in crib or pram (45 mins) and then sleep or snuggle in sling until next feed. Some days though everything goes completely off and you just have to take baby's lead if all they want is feeding. At around 4/5 months I transitioned to 4 hourly feeds which suddenly felt like I really had time if I needed to be away for any amount of time.

From my experience and understanding a baby isn't ready for a routine until around 8 weeks old (before this she the advice is just to basically follow their lead / survive!)

Once my baby hit 8 weeks I started trying to get him to have the same number of naps a day at the same time roughly and also introduced a lovely bedtime routine which included reading the exact same story each evening to make him associate that particular book with sleep.

From there the bedtime routine has more or less stayed the same, he's now down from 3 naps per day to 2 (10 months old) and has 3 meals of solids per day (we started with 1 at 5 months and built up gradually from there).

I'm breastfeeding and it's very much on demand so not much routine there besides feeding to sleep (which a lot of people advise against but it works for us).

He has a morning routine that basically involves skin to skin (so important imo!) cuddles, a breastfeed and the 2 of us getting ready!

He has baths on mon, weds and fri evenings and a hair wash once a week. Some nappy free time daily if possible to let his skin breathe.

That's about it really! Lots of baby groups thrown into the mix too

My 2 main tips are be prepared for routines to go out the window sometimes (teething, poorly etc) and also don't be afraid to do what works best for YOUR BABY & YOU! You know your baby best and if following your gut instinct involves politely nodding and smiling along to a relative and then going away and ignoring the advice completely then you go for it and never feel guilty!

Good luck, you'll do great.

My DD is six weeks so we're very much in survival mode! But she's starting to show some signs of a pattern, so to a certain extent she sets the routine. Though as PP have said, it can all go out the window – you can be all ready for the baby to sleep when they suddenly do an almighty poo and upset themselves. Or they're napping but have to be woken up to be weighed by the health visitor. Or it's growth spurt cluster feed day!

We started out just trying to set her circadian rhythms, so curtains open and lights on and normal voices and activities when DP's work alarm goes off at 6am; lights dimmed and whispers and no playing after 9pm; some outside time and fresh air each day, ideally.

So: Get up, grobag off and new nappy, outfit on. Then a "routine" of feeds and nappies and cuddles or screams (depends on the day) until she chooses to nap or I spot the tiredness signals or it's been 45-60 mins since she woke up. Sometimes we feed to sleep, sometimes we rock; EASY hasn't really worked - one eye on the clock so she doesn't get overtired is all that works for me.

First awake window I try to breastfeed her with the vitamin D drops. Second I stick her in the bouncer so I can shower. Then a long sling nap so I can do chores (wash all her stuff endlessly). Lunch happens, somehow? Early afternoon sling nap in which I try to leave the house and do something - coffee with antenatal class people, a walk, whatever. Late afternoon it generally all descends into cluster feeding/cranky overtired baby witching hour madness, DP comes home, and we tag team trying to calm her, feed ourselves, I feed her, etc. At some point around 9/10pm she generally conks out naturally and sleeps for 3 hours, so I do too. Three times a week we manage a bath.

Sometimes I read her a story as I feed her to sleep in the evenings but that's for my benefit! Plan to introduce a bedtime routine around 10-12 weeks or when it seems her pattern has stabilised. Just in time for the 4 month sleep regression!

Sorry for the essay my main conversation is with a tiny baby.

I used Gina Ford for my first and the Little Ones routines with my current 4 month old. Started bedtime routine around 8 weeks with the first but much earlier with second as he just fell into line with the eldest - by 5 weeks I was doing bath at 6, massage, bottle and into bed by 6.45. Currently he wakes between 6.30 and 7, I feed him then he plays. Nap around 9-9.30. Feed on waking. Lunch nap 12-1.30 ish. Feed on waking. Afternoon nap waking no later than 5pm - length depends on how lunchtime nap went. Feed at 5. Bath at 6. Feed at 6.30, into bed at 6.45. Dream feed at 10.30 ish.

We don’t feed to sleep. I find a dummy helpful in self settling. Aim to put down awake - always manage this at night but not for naps. Do whatever it takes to ensure naps happen and he doesn’t get overtired.

We never worried about a routine until ds was ready for it. I could have massively stressed about bedtime and strict routines when ds was tint but he is now 11 months and ended up finding his own bedtime (about 6.30pm) and has weaned his own bottles beautifully. As pp said, you can read as many books as you want, your baby wont have done.

What you can do is start some cues so that when baby is older they recognise certain things mean different things. So for instance, ds has always loved a bath so we always did this in the evening and ow it's his before bed routine. We also did a bit of massage after bath but hes so wriggly now that went by the wayside! Ds has his special song that I made up and another lullaby that I've always sung him to sleep and it calms him now too.

What I did do (much to the amusement of friends) was download an app (thi k it was called my awesome baby) so I could log feeds and sleeps which then helped put together a visual picture of the routine ds had gotten himself into. So I knew when he was about 4 months old he would want to feed roughly 7 times 2 hours apart in the day, for example, and when he was likely to nap.

Highly suggest looking into the fourth trimester and going with the flow. Baby will show you the way.