@terrastorm I’m still winging it at 15 weeks! I’m lucky I don’t have to get a strict schedule because I’m unemployed so I dont have work or daycare to fit in the day. I know I will but I’m cherishing living by what works for baby in the moment. I’m slowly seeing a pattern emerging but until it’s needed, I’m not doing it
@terrastorm Yeah, routine started to emerge for us around 3 months, when baby stopped nursing to sleep consistently (she got super interested in the world) and I had to actually start figuring out when she needed to sleep and how to build sustainable sleep associations rather than stick with her preference which was to be walked outside or bounced.
@terrastorm We started a routine at 6.5 months! That said, I do wish I would have done it sooner, but not at 2 months… I was still just taking it hour by hour at that point.
@terrastorm Mine is 3.5 months, I just went back to work and still no schedule or routine to speak of. We’re out here doing our best and she’s clean, fed, rested and loved. Not sure I can always say the same for her dad and I, though!
@terrastorm 4 months is when we attempted routines.
We started with naps and then milk was the second.
It took a surprisingly short amount of time for our kiddo to get used to it. She is 12 months old and she’s a clock. We have routine down to a T. She’s doing amazing with it. But in the beginning? Nah. You’re doing just fine, do what works for you!
The first months are absolutely brutal. You don’t need to be making it harder on your family. Relax and enjoy the time you’re in right now.
@terrastorm We didn’t even start thinking about routines until 3m because of me going back to work at that time. Now at 9m I’m glad we are on a routine but I wish we could steer from the routine every once and a while. If we stray even the slightest (30m-1hr) then we get all messed up on sleep and eating for a week but it takes a week and a half up to 2 weeks to be fully 100% on schedule. If we don’t keep the schedule I’d be up from 3am-2pm then 5pm-12am (know from experience).
@terrastorm Ours is 8 months and every day is still different lol I do whatever seems best for him in the moment. Like some have said the schedules seem to be more for the parent's benefit but I have the freedom to not worry about that so I feed when he seems hungry, let him sleep when he seems tired, let him sleep as long or as little as he wants, feed him when he wakes up overnight, etc. Even if I wanted to force some kind of schedule it doesn't seem like it would work well at all. It's hard enough just following his cues but if I tried to make him nap when he wasn't tired, or timed a nap for later when he is tired now, that sounds like a nightmare. lol
@terrastorm We're at almost 18 months and we are going with whatever is flowing!
He's tired, he naps. At the childminder he'll nap 2-3 times. At home; maybe once! Usually about 4 hours before first nap, but today it was like 6.5 hours! Who on earth knows?!
Safe
Fed
Clean
Sleeps when tired
Entertained
Fresh air
Yep!
Two months I didn't know where down was from up! You've got this!
@terrastorm Still in survival mode with a 4.5 month old and we def aren’t following routines other than naps and bed time haha. At 2 months we were running purely on survival mode just trying to make it through the day without dying from exhaustion and PPD (mostly me). We also weren’t aware of the “wake windows” and all the baby sleep stuff. We just kinda went with the flow, let him sleep whenever and wherever as long as he was being fed every 2 hours. My husband had a morning routine with him where he’d take him out to run errands and he’d nap, and my routine was always taking him on morning walks after his morning feed no matter how brain dead and tired I was. And even now at 4 months we’ve established a bed time routine (since 2 months) but don’t always follow it to a T. Staying at my in laws for Christmas and they let him contact nap on them in the morning, not paying attention to wake windows, etc. and he’s still sleeping ok. Trust me, don’t stress on routines at this point. Do what you need to do to sleep and survive and routines will become more predictable and established once you get past the survival stage. I didn’t realize how much of a routine we actually had until I started tracking feedings, naps and night sleep using huckleberry and was like holy shit we’ve been on a routine all along and had no idea.
@terrastorm My little one is 2 today and I'm still in survival mode lol. It's your little person, so when it feels like you need a routine, start small and fit in whatever works for you and your family.
