Getting into a routine?

Question

For those of you that have morning, nap, and/or night time routines and schedules with your babies, how do you do it and actually stick with it? I’ve never had a routine or a set wake up/bed time in my life but I am trying to change that and get my baby and I on a schedule but it’s so hard to stick with it. some nights she goes to bed at 8 pm and some nights she’s up until 4 am. she just feeds when she’s hungry and never at a set time and just naps whenever she wants

Answer

I don’t know if you can truly set times for much of anything at this age but you can start patterns. Our son we usually have down for bed between 9-12pm, it all depends on his feeds that day. But we do diaper, bottle, swaddle, lights then rock . He’s become pretty accustomed to that routine for bed. That’s all we have in place for him now, and I’ve been attempting to get him to nap in his room but so far the longest nap we’ve had is 30min in the crib🤦🏻‍♀️

Answer

A routine is different from a schedule.
With a routine, you do things in a certain order, but not necessarily at a set time. A schedule would be based on a specific time basis. A strict schedule at this age would be difficult for most.
Right now, the only ‘schedule’ I have is a set time for our bedtime routine. From 7pm to 8pm I help her wind down. I turn off the lights & play the same lullabies in the same order. First I feed & burp her, then I give her a clean with a wet microfibre cloth, put a fresh diaper, baby massage, fresh outfit, and place her sleep sack. Then I will give her a small snack feed to doze off. 
This routine helps her know it’s bed time, even if the time fluctuates a bit.

Answer

We don’t keep her on a feeding routine, but she does have a bedtime routine. She gets her reflux medicine at 8pm, then I feed her a little bit (not enough to completely fill her up), then she gets a bath, then I finish feeding her and rock her to sleep. She’s usually asleep by 9-10, and then she wakes every three hours to be fed. She wakes up for the day between 7-9am. I just follow her lead for the rest of the day. I don’t limit feedings or naps (unless she tries to nap after 6:30pm. Then I keep her awake).

Answer

With my first she naturally fell into a routine at 11 weeks old, where she ate 6 times a day, took four naps, and woke once at night to eat. The times varied a little but was overall pretty constant. With my second, he’s now 12.5 weeks old (born early 2 weeks) and still nowhere near a set schedule. He still eats every 2 hours during the day and wakes 2-3 times a night to eat. Every baby is so different, but I think most babies will eventually fall into a schedule on their own when they’re ready. At this point, after all, you’re not really training or scheduling the child, they’re training you to follow their schedule. A little more time and things will undoubtedly fall into place

Answer

I let him set a schedule and just started enforcing it. He always naps about an hour and a half after waking in the morning which means he naps around 10-1130. He usually is up from like 330-6 and takes a quick nap again before we do bedtime routine at 845 - bath, massage, pajamas and feed. Try to be asleep by 930. This isnt always the case but just trying to set him up for routine. In between those times in the day he’ll catnap but usually not much more than an hour tops. We get up around 8am.

Getting into a routine?

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