keep baby in a "routine"?

Does anyone keep their infant or try to keep them on a feeding or sleeping routine? My lovely MIL went on to tell me it's stupid to even try to have them on a routine because she didn't do it & her kids turned out fine but it's just going to be me being "mom and dad" up until LO will be 5-6 months old because DH is deployed and even then I'll still be a stay at home mom. It was just frustrating. She listens to all these "tips and facts" that other moms tell her that we need to do or why would you buy that?  but doesn't listen to what I want to do and I'm almost at the end of my pregnancy they live 20 ish hours away and even from there she's driving me up the wall. It seems what I tell her goes in one ear right out the other, because I'm a FTM so I don't know what I'm doing.