Establishing a Routine

When do you think is a good age to start a routine for an infant? What sort of routine did you / do you have in place? DD is only 2 weeks old, so it's early days yet. Basically, I am just trying to establish the difference between day and night by keeping things quiet and dark at night time during feeds and nappy changes and not really speaking to her or anything during those times. During the day, I talk to her a lot, sing to her, play music, have the TV on and just get on with regular chores and stuff. Since it's been nice, I've been opening the window and letting some fresh air in and everything and we have been going for walks together with the pushchair. We'd like to establish a bedtime routine to have her in her bed around 7 pm, but right now she isn't too keen on baths, haha. Any ideas?

A friend of mine with a baby (he's about 8 weeks now? maybe 10?) always does a "song, story, bed" routine with her little one. Basically, right around 7ish, she puts him in his cot and sings a song, tells a story, and then leaves him be for a bit.  They've been gradually lengthening the time he is happy to be there as well (they don't do that controlled crying stuff at all though). Both mum and baby are enjoying themselves.

How are you guys doing? She looks ADORABLE in the pictures!

It's early days still ... although I understand your wanting to establish a routine, she'll make her own "time" for awhile yet. Sounds like you've got the right ideas going. Do what feels right for you and her.

I found with both of mine the bath, feed, bedtime thing worked great.  I can't remember how early we started it but sort of just fell into it naturally.  I did try to keep a little log of eating and sleeping for a week or 2 which helped me sort of see what was going on then made little tweaks as things went along to get the sleeping parts more to where I wanted them.  DD was definitely a "routine" kid and with the same sequence could get her to go to bed as easily at 5pm as 7pm or 8 just because she had the signals.  DS wasn't as reliable but even if its a 5 minute bath or story or whatever they like I think its the consistency that makes the difference.

I am a fan of the Happiest Baby on the Block method, he believes that the first 12 weeks are still part of the gestation period (if you will) so the first 3 months are like them just getting used to the outside world. So for me, 12 weeks is a great place to start with routine. In the beginning, I say just go with baby and follow baby's cues. Its a bit of a bubble with a brand new baby isn't it!

With both of my kids, we started a bedtime routine at 12 weeks...a wise lady once told me that the best bedtime routine was bath, bottle (or boob) bed. It was the single best piece of parenting advice that I ever got! my kids still have a bath everynight!

Good luck with finding your feet!

We started our full on day routine sometime around 4 weeks. We had to do something because it was totally manic and driving us nuts. Our day routine consisted of feed, play, sleep. I always made sure daytime was light and I didn't try to block out the noises during naps.

Our nighttime routine started around 8 weeks and that just consisted of bath, feed and bed. That's when everything got quiet and calm and we always put them in a dark room to sleep. We'd speak to them soothingly and after putting them to bed I wouldn't speak to them at all. I'd make little noises to calm them down if they cried but I didn't want to stimulate them at night. I still do this and if I have to go into their room (they're starting with the nightmares) they calm down pretty quickly with a little cuddle and a tuck back into bed.

I agree with the advice above, you should go with what feels right for you. Jon and I couldn't cope for much longer the way we were going so we felt an urgent need to get a routine in place and some of my friends thought it extremely strict but the routine set me free. Because I knew when I had to do something, I could plan around it. A strict routine was right for us. We relax it a bit now that they're 2 but we find that if we go too far out of the routine, they act up and get fussier.

Also wanted to say, I used this book with our routines. She's got a really helpful section of routines set out for the amount the baby is eating. This was my bible.

Just to bring the other side to the table, baths were NEVER relaxing for my kids so we've never been a bath every night family. First the boys just didn't like them (as babies) and then they just became chaos because they discovered splashing! They'd come out of the bath more hyped than when they got in.

My oldest just set his own routine and quickly got his days and nights sorted.

My youngest, well, if he'd been my first born, he'd be an only child! He was almost 1 before he got himself sorted out and I tried EVERYTHING!!

It's great you're aware of the options, but just be prepared to go with the flow!

Thanks for the advice, everyone! DD has already developed a little bit of a routine on her own. She really only wakes up once at 1 am and then wakes up for the morning at 4:30. She normally goes to bed between 7 and 9pm, though we would like that to be closer to 7pm, ideally. But we can work on that later. I'd say we are doing really well for 3 weeks! 

She didn't like the bath the first time or two, but now that we seem to have a better method, it really seems to relax her. Last time, she didn't even cry when I put lotion on her and put her pajamas on afterwards, and that says a lot, because getting her nappy or clothes changed is what she hates most! 

We've done the proper clothes during the day thing too (no sleepsuits in daytime once they were maybe a week or so old).  Basic sequence but go with the flow. 

Gotta go - it's tidy uptime before bath time!

Hiya - congrats on the new baby. I'm only 12 weeks in with my first, but over the last two weeks we've really had a breakthrough. Bea is an active baby and would just stay up for hours until I realized I HAD to put her down as she'd never fall asleep on her own. From the day we started the new routine it's been great. She gets up at around 7am, goes down again at around 8.30. She wakes up again at around 10.30, is up for no more than two hours and is back to sleep before 1pm. She takes a third shorter nap in the afternoon and then sometime around 5.30 I run her bath. I bath her, shove her in pjs and feed her - or if she's recently fed, my husband will read her a few stories (she's not a fan of stories from me as she'd rather I just fed her). When she sleeps, it's in her cot with the curtains drawn with her dummy and bear, same routine. Today she cried, maybe, 10 minutes total. I don care if I'm a bit housebound - it's totally worth it for the peace!!
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share with you what works for me as it's totally made a difference in my quality of life - my Bea without good sleep is HELL to be around!
The most important thing I learned is to limit her periods of wakefulness to 2 hours.
Good luck!

Thanks for sharing your experiences! So far, Eva is in a pretty good routine, but bed time is still a bit sketchy. She hasn't been wanting to sleep before 9 pm for some reason. I think it's because she doesn't really see her daddy until after 6:30 pm on weekdays and just wants extra cuddles. She is only 5 weeks old now, though, so there is plenty of time to get a schedule sorted. Things are going more smoothly all the time and she does settle on her own sometimes when I put her in the cot while still awake. Normally I have been going to bed around 8 or 9 pm and dad stays downstairs with her while she sleeps in her travel cot and he feeds her if she wakes up and brings her upstairs to her cot bed when he comes to bed, anytime from 10:30 to 12:30 depending on whether he has to work the day after. That last feed will usually last her until about 1:30 am, which gives me several hours of much needed sleep in a row, but sometimes recently she has slept until 3 am or so, which is lucky for me! The rest of the sleep I get is just little naps here and there while she sleeps through the day, but I'm not feeling too sleep deprived lately thanks to those little stretches before her night time feed.