Getting Your Baby To Settle – Pt 2 Routine

Routines are how humans thrive, we are all creatures of habit. We have the luxury of a man made clock to tell us when to eat and sleep, so why don’t we use it to tell our newborns when to eat and sleep.

Routine. This is a big one for me, I give bubs a good four weeks to settle in and learn how the world works, then after that he’s on my clock! Set a routine, be strict, educate others who care for your little one and stick to it. I learnt my successful routine from a book called Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford, which was recommended to me by a friend 8 years ago, thankyou Tania! It worked from day 1 with Master 7, with Little Miss 4 I tried demand feeding but couldn’t sustain it, I then had an unhappy unsettled baby, once I got her on the routine we were both much happier. With Mr Chilled 1, same thing, started off demand feeding, hungry and tired a lot, my Husband kept saying ‘put him on the routine we used with the others’, I kept saying ‘no this is how it’s meant to be cave women didn’t have routines’. Week 2 on the routine, week 5 sleeping all night! Routines work, don’t be scared of implementing a routine.

Simple Routine. What worked for me were feeds every 3-4 hrs for example 3am, 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, and 11pm easy to remember 3-7-11-3-7-11. The time starts at the beginning of the feed, not the end. Soon bubs will learn the routine and his tummy will be hungry at these set feeding times. It will mean trying to hold them out for 3-4 hours you can distract them with play or a bath in the early days while establishing the routine.

It wont take long, stick at it, make sure everyone who has anything to do with bubs knows your routine that way it will be a success. After a few weeks you can drop the 3am feed, then eventually dropping the 11pm feed, next thing you know everyone in the house is sleeping all night!

Eat Play Sleep. With a new born after a feed, put them in their day spot, see Getting Your Baby To Settle Pt 1. Let them sit there watching the world for no more than an hour. With an older baby (6 months plus) 2 hours is long enough. Then it’s off to bed. Even if they don’t look tired they are and if you don’t put them to bed, they go in to over tired mode and you have one tired cranky kid on your hands.

Should I Wake The Baby To Feed Him? If it has been 3-4 hrs hell yes wake that baby up for a feed, don’t listen to well wishes who say you should never wake a sleeping baby! If you don’t wake them up to feed, then your whole routine is out of whack! It’s fine to wake them up to feed them, keep them up for an hour, back to bed. It may be tempting during the day if he is having a 5 hour sleep to leave him to get the house work done but you can be sure that huge day sleep will be a huge awakening that night. The aim is to get most of the feeds done during the day so he can have that wonderful 5 hour sleep at night.

Routine Objectors. You will have family members and friends question your routine, well wishes will tell you he is just a baby it will get better in 6 months. If there is one thing I have learnt with my three, the faster I got them in to a routine the better baby I had. The well wishes aren’t the ones who are there up at 3am with you. Getting your baby in to a routine will also help keep your day on track as well as his. You can plan ahead knowing his next feed is at 11am so you need to be back from the shopping by then, or he will be due for a sleep at 12pm so you can get him snug in the pram and asleep while you met your mums group for coffee.

Knock On Effect. While establishing your routine you will learn the meaning of the knock on effect. For example if you let him sleep past a feed time you put all the feeds out for that day. If you feed him too early say after 2 hours (not 3-4) you bring the next feed 2 hours forward. Try your hardest to be strict with the routine to avoid mucking up all your hard work, once on a set routine you are so much closer to getting him to sleep all night!

Sleep Routine. Try to always put bubs to bed in his sleeping spot. Always play the same music, always make the room dark and always shut the door. When you put him down always say the same thing like “nonights bubby mummy daddy love you”, so they learn when this pattern of events come together it is sleep time, they will learn to associate their bedtime routine with “Mums serious I’m going to sleep now”.

If you have any questions about routines I am happy to help out, hit the email link below.

Renee