i feel like i keep asking the same question but .....

We are trying to get int a routine for Ben. He is now 15 weeks old and we still dont have a set routine. He was in hospital till 7 weeks and we have just been enjoying him since and havent thought about routine, but i think we need to as everything seems different everyday. How did you establish a routine? i want his bed time 7 - 7.30 but if his bottle aint due till 8.30 what do you do? bring it early or not. Do i need to get the feeds on more of a routine in the day? We are still waking in the night at various times, sometimes he feeds sometimes he dosent. I think if the day was a better routine then night would be.

I know i keep asking these questions but i am confused over routines and i just cant seem to establish one. Here is what me and Glen thought
what do u think:
7 am wake and feed
8.30 am nap

10 am feed
11 am nap

1pm feed
nap?

4 pm feed
nap?

7 pm bath book feed and bed

how does this look, please tell me if it is rediculas - sp

thanks Jodie and Ben

I was exactly like you...

and drove myself batty from day one thinking about a routine and was mortified when baba didn't wake and sleep when the Gina Ford book said he should. Luckily the ladies on here gave me some fab advice and bought me to my senses! (I chucked the book out by the way and laugh now when I think back!!).

As soon as I stopped stressing it all kind of fell into place. During the daytime, I never forced baba into a routine. Instead, I was guided by when he was hungry and when he was tired. As his Mom you will know what's best for Ben and honestly, it will come naturally and you'll recognise the signs.

For night time, we introduced a routine from 9 weeks and our little one has always (touch wood) settled easily to sleep in his cot, on his own without fuss. By routine, I mean that we simply follow the same process every night: bath, story, bottle, bed.

Keeping to a strict time isn't important. The trick is following the process. We've had holidays away from home and again, provided we follow the process little one goes down in the travel cot and sleeps through no problems.

My overall advice is try not to get to hung up on the routine thing. Your baby is still very young and trust me, they grow up soooooo fast, its best to try and enjoy every moment. Also, try not to stress about whether he is sleeping through the night or not. If I had £1 for everytime somebody asked me that question when he wasn't sleeping through i'd be flippin rich. Ben will do it when he's good and ready. If he's waking in the night it means he needs something, either a feed or just a love and cuddle from his Mommy

Hang in there, you will look back and wonder what you were worried about.

Silver and nearly 10 month old baba (time sure does fly!)

Hi jodie

Know you've had answers already but just thought I'd add what we do. Sam is almost 6 months now and at first I was a bit panicky about our lack of routine and tried different methods but eventually chilled out and we seemed to just find one, it's very flexible but I think that is a good thing for us. Even now Sam has different nap times each day but I just figure sometimes he's more tired than others. As long as he has his feeds around evry 3 hours it seems ok, the last 2 feeds are closer tho at about 5.30 and 7.30 as from being little Sam has demand cluster fed at night and slept thru from around 8 weeks so he seems to know what he's doing, like he stocks up for the night!

So glad that Ben is doing so well now x x x

Thankyou for all your quick replies. I was only set on setting a routine cos i thought that everyone had one and that he would suffer without one. I can relax now and carry on enjoying Ben. I will try and sort a bedtime one and see what happens in the day naturally. Thank you

Jodie nad Ben

Hi jodie

With my little boy we had no routine for ages. I breastfed him too until six months and this didnt exactly help as he had a 3am feed without fail.

I have found though that he has pretty much set his own routine - with a little encouragement.

This wil probs make the ladies laugh but the one thing I didnt know about and I wish I had was the twelve hour rule! If he wakes at 7 his day should end at 7 type of thing. This for us was always disrupted by my DS having a nap after 5pm! We did have somewhat of a routine set at 15 weeks which consisted of 3 hours on, nap, 3 hours on, nap 3 hours on, nap 3 hours - sleep then 3am feed but this was set by my son.

Our routine now is 6.30 wake 7pm bed with 2 day time naps and he also set this himself. He has been doing this from about 7/8 months.

Good luck and definitely ENJOY him! I cant believe my baby is one in less than a month. It really does go by so quick.

XX

Hey

We havent really set megan into a routine, she has fallen into bits of one herself,
We did try but it was too stressful doing things at certain times and worrying about going out etc.

The only thing we have kept is megans 9 o clock bottle, and bath about 8 o clock.

She has kept the going to sleep after her morning bottle which is about 8am for an hour.

Megan doesnt really go to sleep anymore in the day unless she is out in her pushchair.

If that routine is going to work for you go for it, just dont get too stressed out with it

Nat and Megan xxx

Hmmm....

I think routines are a good idea but Ben is still so young so i'm not sre that you can really expect him to follow the routine that you would like, I do think the bath and bed time are a great idea to follow each day and if you do it at a similar time each night then that would be a good start but if he needs a bottle an hour after then there isnt a lot you can do but give it to him, Scarlett was never too great at a routine in the early days, she was a grazer feeder (still is) liked little and often with her bottles so wouldn't normally go much longer than 2 hours between each bottle, so impossible to have a routine, to be honest i never pushed a routine onto scarlett but she did just slip into it herself, bedtime used to be around 8-8.30 but the older she got the earlier the bedtime got, now it is anything between 6.30 and 7.....hmm maybe i am wrong, maybe you can train them into a routine, some of the other girls may have a better idea????

Sorry not much help!

Donna and Scarlett 17 months and 26 week bean.
xxxxxx

Hi hun

tbh we didn't bother setting a routine for siri, she just sort of fell into one by herself at around 4 or 5 months. i suddenly realised she was asking to go to bed at around the same time each day - for naps and bedtime...
i know it's not ideal to not know when you need to do things, but it has certainly worked the best for us.
no crying for hours or anything like that.
we also let her decide when she wants to feed, she knows how much she needs and when she needs it.

sorry i've not been much help there, but just wanted to say don't wory too much about it, he will settle down

hugs
elizabeth & siri
xxxx