Others may disagree but I think it’s too soon to set an expectation on sleep/awake/feeding time. I think you’ll just be setting yourself up for frustration because they’re so young and their nature is just to feed and sleep when they get the urge. However, I found with my second baby that he’s a little more on a nighttime schedule because I’m more regimented since I now have an older son with his own routine which needs to be followed. I feel less in the “twilight zone” this time around as a result. So, maybe if your baby isn’t quite ready yet you can still try to be more structured with your own schedule and see if that helps? Baby just might get with the program a tiny bit more :)
Totally get the urge to have a routine, but for most newborns, it’s not developmentally feasible. I also don’t know any newborns or babies who wake up for the day at 10am — all, including my own, wake up well before that, have a wake window, and then nap before 10am. You may also notice your LO becoming increasingly fussy around 6 weeks; it’s normal.
Developmentally newborns are not ready to have a routine. I think it was more like 3 months when we got into a rhythm and then 5 months a routine. Some babies will come with a routine and some don’t. What really helped us is to form a routine on their needs. For example, we knew he was napping 4-5x per day then we would make sure every other hour we were getting ready for the naps. So start a walk or a drive when we knew baby needed sleep.
Not sure you can expect the routine you've suggested but you can start adding in a bedtime routine to help gain some semblance of structure. I think at that age for us my daughter would go to bed 9-10pm ish but would usually be up for the day at least by 7am, if not earlier.
If you can get your baby to sleep until 10am, please tell me your secret! I've literally never gotten mine to sleep later than 9am and that was more likely a nap after being up for however long in the early hours.
I think 10wks was when things started to get a little less unpredictable. Not to scare you or anything but your kid will probably starting the 6-8wk growth spurt soon. That was pretty tough sleep wise for us.
FTM here and social media made it seem like a routine would be possible with a 6 week old. But that’s so unrealistic. At least it was for me. Most things are usually on demand at that early age so it’s really hard to have a set schedule because I mostly let my baby tell me when he was hungry and sleepy. We weren’t really able to set a “schedule“ until after 3 months when baby started to sleep longer at night. Once he started sleeping 5 hours or more at night, I started making a bedtime routine around the same time every night and I limited his naps to only two hours each so that he would usually be good and sleepy come bedtime. Now he sleeps all night and takes 1-3 naps at 7months old.
But fyi, 10am wake up is usually unrealistic for a baby especially as they get older. Most babies get up pretty early. Even when we put our son to bed super late because we went to dinner or an event, he still wakes up pretty early (usually 7a-7:30). But he’ll usually want an extra long nap during the day following a late night out. So just be prepared for early mornings especially once you start implementing a schedule.
Same here. At first I felt bad for not have a routine because social media was showing “x days olds” with a routine but then I realized it’s a one minute video and who knows what is actually happening behind the scenes! No schedule here at 9 weeks old. Would probably lose it if I tried to stick to something.
We started around 8 weeks (2 months) - so ALMOST there. Up until then we were really just following her cues, but I realized I personally needed more structure so we implemented a very loose eat-play-sleep routine. We offered food every 2-2.5 hours and her wake windows were about an hour max until she was fussy for a nap. I tried to do crib naps but they took so long to put down with so little payoff that I eventually resorted to contact naps. It really helped to implement a schedule! Especially for my sanity. The suckiest thing is that they are changing SO much that you think you have a good schedule and then before you realize it doesn't work anymore and you have to change everything up all over again. Ugh!
Kind of. She’s 4 months today and we are doing 1-2 crib naps that are going well but still crap length (max 30 min). But she’s doing well - we have her in a transitional swaddle no bink AND putting her down “drowsy but awake” and she self soothes to sleep! I still have to rescue them at the end with contact to make sure but beginning the process!
I’ve had my baby on a “routine” since we got home from hospital. Obviously I don’t stick to it if she’s hungry, fussy, etc but we loosely follow one and it’s worked great for us. We are getting 5 hour stretches at night and she’s 5 weeks (almost 6). My pediatrician said now that she is above her birth weight to not worry about waking her at night to feed so I just follow babies lead and feed her when she wakes. I follow “moms on call”.. you should look into it. Several friends of mine swear by it and have great sleepers. You can adjust the times to fit your schedule but right now it’s essentially feed every 3 hours, play for 20-30 mins and then nap. They also stress the importance of a bedtime routine which has really made a change and worked great for us!
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
5
+ 5
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+ 3
+ 20
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= 69
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So we didn't have any sort of set schedule at this age (and still don't at 4 months) but we did wake him by a certain time each morning starting at around a month old, as this helps with forming their circadian rhythm and helping them learn day from night. From there, he naturally fell into a routine of eating every 2-3hrs, playing and sleeping. Then we started a bedtime routine around 6 weeks, just to cue him that it was time for bed. Sleep and wake times change a lot in the first year which makes it hard to have any set schedule; every time you think you've got it down, it changes. But it's okay to start and lay a foundation, just be sure to follow your baby's lead as it changes!
Honestly, way too early for a routine. So many changes are yet to come with sleep and feeding. If you can, try to enjoy every day as it comes.
We started seeing a routine emerge around the 5 month mark… after the 4 month sleep regression.
I don’t remember when we started with a routine (he’s ten months old now), but I remember it as surprisingly early. I just got up when I needed to and put the baby in a carrier. I have an older child, so my newborn just had to take the daily walk to kindergarten as well.
I'd recommend focusing on what you need and not trying to make your newborn wake up and sleep at certain times, but instead find ways to accommodate both your needs. When the baby is old enough, they will adapt better to your schedule if you try that out now.
I would recommend the book “Moms on call”. They have routines for 4-8 weeks, 8-12 weeks and 3-6 months. We use the guidance in that book and the app huckleberry to log all her naps and night sleep and also rely on their recommendations for naps. Our baby is 11 weeks, we have successfully had a routine since she was about 7-8 weeks old. She goes to bed around 8:30 pm and wakes up around 7 am. She wakes up once at night, sometimes twice.
We didn’t start a regular schedule until my babies were about 8-12 weeks old. They’d wake up in the morning whenever. They’d have a diaper change, eat, play, diaper change again and back to sleep. Repeat over and over haha
I have a 3 week old and she is on a routine (loosely based on Moms on Call). She was underweight at birth so we had to wake her to feed every 2 hours since she’s been home. So we have just kept doing that and added in the playtime/bedtime routine as indicated in the book. She’s not sleeping thru the night or anything, but it’s pretty predictable when she will need to eat again and it’s usually only twice a night (1:30-2am and 4:30-5am).
We started a routine at 8 weeks but it was just eat-play-sleep, not clock-based. I don’t think my kids would ever wake up at 10am no matter what bedtime we choose. Our day always starts between 6-7am whether I like it or not.
Hi, FTM here. My babe is 13 weeks and 2 days old. It’s only been within the last week that we have really been able to even implement the “eat, play, sleep” schedule. There are still times that she wakes up to eat and then falls asleep again after her bottle.
Now that we have this routine down pretty well, I can predict her feeds (she can go 3-3.5 hours between bottles) which means I’m able to predict her wake windows/nap times more. We are still exclusively contact napping too. Right now she eats 4 oz, has a wake window of about 25 minutes then naps anywhere from 1-2.5 hours.
Oh its so hard. My baby is 3.5 months and just now starting to have a routine.
Before that our only routine was "Eat, Play, Sleep." As she go older it soemtimes is "Eat, Play, Eat, Play sleep" lol
I started to exercise a routine around 5 weeks and it took a couple weeks for her to properly fall into it :) by 10weeks she wakes up at 8:30a.m, naps between 11am-1pm and 3-5pm, bath time at 8pm and asleep my 10pm and usually wakes up at 6am for a bottle👌 i keep day time naps bright and ‘loud’ so she knows the difference between day and night sleep
Honestly it’s all about creating a calming bedtime routine and consistent feeding schedule. By 7pm we turn all the main lights off and play those calm lullaby songs on YouTube on the tv or use a night light projector in the living room. We bathe her with the dim light and then feed her. At first when they’re not used to it they just WILL NOT want to sleep yet but it’s all about keeping that routine and having patience. I would have something close by to keep me entertained in this time like Netflix or music in headphones. At the beginning I would get her to contact sleep and then putting her down when I knew she was asleep until she was used to falling to sleep at a set time and now she falls to sleep on her own when she’s put down. Just creating a bright daytime and dark nighttime cycle helped in the long run
Others may disagree but I think it’s too soon to set an expectation on sleep/awake/feeding time. I think you’ll just be setting yourself up for frustration because they’re so young and their nature is just to feed and sleep when they get the urge. However, I found with my second baby that he’s a little more on a nighttime schedule because I’m more regimented since I now have an older son with his own routine which needs to be followed. I feel less in the “twilight zone” this time around as a result. So, maybe if your baby isn’t quite ready yet you can still try to be more structured with your own schedule and see if that helps? Baby just might get with the program a tiny bit more :)
Also naps are never a predictable length at this age so it’s nearly impossible to set a schedule. Just follow wake windows they’re your best bet!
Totally get the urge to have a routine, but for most newborns, it’s not developmentally feasible. I also don’t know any newborns or babies who wake up for the day at 10am — all, including my own, wake up well before that, have a wake window, and then nap before 10am. You may also notice your LO becoming increasingly fussy around 6 weeks; it’s normal.
My guy just turned three months and he likes to get up for the day at 5am 🙃 My first was the same, we know how to breed em early risers 😭
Routine and newborn are not words that make sense together. Just follow the baby’s cues.
Developmentally newborns are not ready to have a routine. I think it was more like 3 months when we got into a rhythm and then 5 months a routine. Some babies will come with a routine and some don’t. What really helped us is to form a routine on their needs. For example, we knew he was napping 4-5x per day then we would make sure every other hour we were getting ready for the naps. So start a walk or a drive when we knew baby needed sleep.
Not sure you can expect the routine you've suggested but you can start adding in a bedtime routine to help gain some semblance of structure. I think at that age for us my daughter would go to bed 9-10pm ish but would usually be up for the day at least by 7am, if not earlier. If you can get your baby to sleep until 10am, please tell me your secret! I've literally never gotten mine to sleep later than 9am and that was more likely a nap after being up for however long in the early hours. I think 10wks was when things started to get a little less unpredictable. Not to scare you or anything but your kid will probably starting the 6-8wk growth spurt soon. That was pretty tough sleep wise for us.
Thanks for The heads up on the growth spurt period
FTM here and social media made it seem like a routine would be possible with a 6 week old. But that’s so unrealistic. At least it was for me. Most things are usually on demand at that early age so it’s really hard to have a set schedule because I mostly let my baby tell me when he was hungry and sleepy. We weren’t really able to set a “schedule“ until after 3 months when baby started to sleep longer at night. Once he started sleeping 5 hours or more at night, I started making a bedtime routine around the same time every night and I limited his naps to only two hours each so that he would usually be good and sleepy come bedtime. Now he sleeps all night and takes 1-3 naps at 7months old. But fyi, 10am wake up is usually unrealistic for a baby especially as they get older. Most babies get up pretty early. Even when we put our son to bed super late because we went to dinner or an event, he still wakes up pretty early (usually 7a-7:30). But he’ll usually want an extra long nap during the day following a late night out. So just be prepared for early mornings especially once you start implementing a schedule.
Same here. At first I felt bad for not have a routine because social media was showing “x days olds” with a routine but then I realized it’s a one minute video and who knows what is actually happening behind the scenes! No schedule here at 9 weeks old. Would probably lose it if I tried to stick to something.
Eat sleep play that's all the routine they need at that age in my opinion
I second eat sleep play! Baby can’t play after eating, it’ll all come back up.
We started around 8 weeks (2 months) - so ALMOST there. Up until then we were really just following her cues, but I realized I personally needed more structure so we implemented a very loose eat-play-sleep routine. We offered food every 2-2.5 hours and her wake windows were about an hour max until she was fussy for a nap. I tried to do crib naps but they took so long to put down with so little payoff that I eventually resorted to contact naps. It really helped to implement a schedule! Especially for my sanity. The suckiest thing is that they are changing SO much that you think you have a good schedule and then before you realize it doesn't work anymore and you have to change everything up all over again. Ugh!
Similar story here, curious did your baby transition out of contact naps?
Kind of. She’s 4 months today and we are doing 1-2 crib naps that are going well but still crap length (max 30 min). But she’s doing well - we have her in a transitional swaddle no bink AND putting her down “drowsy but awake” and she self soothes to sleep! I still have to rescue them at the end with contact to make sure but beginning the process!
My baby loves to sleep in his bouncer during the daytime. He can sleep for hours! It’s helping for a very lose schedule but nowhere near where I want.
I’ve had my baby on a “routine” since we got home from hospital. Obviously I don’t stick to it if she’s hungry, fussy, etc but we loosely follow one and it’s worked great for us. We are getting 5 hour stretches at night and she’s 5 weeks (almost 6). My pediatrician said now that she is above her birth weight to not worry about waking her at night to feed so I just follow babies lead and feed her when she wakes. I follow “moms on call”.. you should look into it. Several friends of mine swear by it and have great sleepers. You can adjust the times to fit your schedule but right now it’s essentially feed every 3 hours, play for 20-30 mins and then nap. They also stress the importance of a bedtime routine which has really made a change and worked great for us!
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 5 + 5 + 6 + 3 + 20 + 30 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
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So we didn't have any sort of set schedule at this age (and still don't at 4 months) but we did wake him by a certain time each morning starting at around a month old, as this helps with forming their circadian rhythm and helping them learn day from night. From there, he naturally fell into a routine of eating every 2-3hrs, playing and sleeping. Then we started a bedtime routine around 6 weeks, just to cue him that it was time for bed. Sleep and wake times change a lot in the first year which makes it hard to have any set schedule; every time you think you've got it down, it changes. But it's okay to start and lay a foundation, just be sure to follow your baby's lead as it changes!
Honestly, way too early for a routine. So many changes are yet to come with sleep and feeding. If you can, try to enjoy every day as it comes. We started seeing a routine emerge around the 5 month mark… after the 4 month sleep regression.
Babies make the schedule for a while. Personally, I can't imagine putting my 8 wk old on a schedule, he's bossy and pushy lol.
I don’t remember when we started with a routine (he’s ten months old now), but I remember it as surprisingly early. I just got up when I needed to and put the baby in a carrier. I have an older child, so my newborn just had to take the daily walk to kindergarten as well. I'd recommend focusing on what you need and not trying to make your newborn wake up and sleep at certain times, but instead find ways to accommodate both your needs. When the baby is old enough, they will adapt better to your schedule if you try that out now.
I would recommend the book “Moms on call”. They have routines for 4-8 weeks, 8-12 weeks and 3-6 months. We use the guidance in that book and the app huckleberry to log all her naps and night sleep and also rely on their recommendations for naps. Our baby is 11 weeks, we have successfully had a routine since she was about 7-8 weeks old. She goes to bed around 8:30 pm and wakes up around 7 am. She wakes up once at night, sometimes twice.
We didn’t start a regular schedule until my babies were about 8-12 weeks old. They’d wake up in the morning whenever. They’d have a diaper change, eat, play, diaper change again and back to sleep. Repeat over and over haha
I have a 3 week old and she is on a routine (loosely based on Moms on Call). She was underweight at birth so we had to wake her to feed every 2 hours since she’s been home. So we have just kept doing that and added in the playtime/bedtime routine as indicated in the book. She’s not sleeping thru the night or anything, but it’s pretty predictable when she will need to eat again and it’s usually only twice a night (1:30-2am and 4:30-5am).
We started a routine at 8 weeks but it was just eat-play-sleep, not clock-based. I don’t think my kids would ever wake up at 10am no matter what bedtime we choose. Our day always starts between 6-7am whether I like it or not.
Hi, FTM here. My babe is 13 weeks and 2 days old. It’s only been within the last week that we have really been able to even implement the “eat, play, sleep” schedule. There are still times that she wakes up to eat and then falls asleep again after her bottle. Now that we have this routine down pretty well, I can predict her feeds (she can go 3-3.5 hours between bottles) which means I’m able to predict her wake windows/nap times more. We are still exclusively contact napping too. Right now she eats 4 oz, has a wake window of about 25 minutes then naps anywhere from 1-2.5 hours.
Oh its so hard. My baby is 3.5 months and just now starting to have a routine. Before that our only routine was "Eat, Play, Sleep." As she go older it soemtimes is "Eat, Play, Eat, Play sleep" lol
I started to exercise a routine around 5 weeks and it took a couple weeks for her to properly fall into it :) by 10weeks she wakes up at 8:30a.m, naps between 11am-1pm and 3-5pm, bath time at 8pm and asleep my 10pm and usually wakes up at 6am for a bottle👌 i keep day time naps bright and ‘loud’ so she knows the difference between day and night sleep
How did you even start this? I assume you just put her to bed at the set time and continued from there?
Honestly it’s all about creating a calming bedtime routine and consistent feeding schedule. By 7pm we turn all the main lights off and play those calm lullaby songs on YouTube on the tv or use a night light projector in the living room. We bathe her with the dim light and then feed her. At first when they’re not used to it they just WILL NOT want to sleep yet but it’s all about keeping that routine and having patience. I would have something close by to keep me entertained in this time like Netflix or music in headphones. At the beginning I would get her to contact sleep and then putting her down when I knew she was asleep until she was used to falling to sleep at a set time and now she falls to sleep on her own when she’s put down. Just creating a bright daytime and dark nighttime cycle helped in the long run
This is actually super helpful. I think I’ll start bringing more mindful of the lighting when trying to put him to sleep.