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breastfeeding and a basic routine?

Hi ladies! I'm wondering if anyone can give me any advice or their experience of establishing a basic routine when breastfeeding.



My daughter is now 8 weeks and have been feeding on demand - we had a bit of a rocky start but settled now and generally breastfeeding is going well now after a lit of hard work on both our parts. She generally only has one feed during the night now after an early and then a late evening feed. However timings could be anytime throughout the day and there is no real pattern to naps. I realise that it's hard to get a beastfed baby into a routine but I'd really like a loose one - even just setting a general bedtime and wake up time. I'd like to do early evening feed and bath starting about seven so my husband can see her and help out when he gets home from work. So if anyone has experience of this or any words of wisdom then they'd be gratefully received!



Thanks!

Replies

  • The E.A.S.Y routine. baby eats (drinks milk) has some Activity then Sleeps, which gives You "me" time. it doesnt give you timings but it does give you a sense of what you are doing!!! she'll soon be fitting into time slots too. but it's a good idea to get the bed time routine started now! my breastfed baby is 9 months old.
  • Its really hard, my ds had a VERY loose routine from about 3 months, which was really centred around a bath and 'bedtime' which was about 7. But now (since maybe about 4 months, we started weaning early sorry!) he has 4 feeds and 3 meals a day with 2 naps. So an early milk feed, breakfast, milk and nap at 11, lunch at 1, milk and nap at 3, dinner at 5 and bath, milk and bed for 7- 7.30pm.



    We have always followed his lead and its hard to impose a proper 'routine' because of growth spurts etc, and even now (almost 7 months)he will have extra wee feeds some days, if he is hungry or tired. Hope you get something sorted, have heard that the EASY routine above is really good x
  • We started with just a bedtime routine at 5 weeks, and everything else fell into place. In fact, I've never tried to enforce any other sort of routine, but find that because she goes to bed at the same time every day she'll be ready to get up, have meals and naps at a similar time every day. You soon notice a pattern to what they need and it becomes easier to anticipate what they want.
  • Firstly, well done for getting the BFing cracked! It's hard but so worth the effort - feel very proud of yourself.



    My LO was EBF and we started with a routine based around EASY at about eight weeks when I discovered she napped better upstairs in her crib, rather than downstairs.



    We actually did EAESY as one feed didn't last her long enough to get through the activity and the sleep. The timings really varied from day to day but I just took the lead from her and got really good at knowing when she was tired or hungry.



    At bedtime we did a bath at 6.00pm regardless of where in the EAESY we were, then a feed and bed about 7pm.



    Going out throws the routine out because they sleep in the car but we always started with the first E whenever we got back from anywhere.



    The Baby Whisperer warns not to let them fall asleep feeding as they become dependent on it to fall asleep so I started rousing her before I put her in bed from about 12 weeks. It worked well for us as she always been able to self settle and dropped her bedtime feed at about 10 months.



    HTH

    B xx
  • Although I sort of follow the EASY pattern, can I just say not to get overly worried if your baby doesn't fall into the pattern exactly. We often do EASYAE simply because Liv isn't hungry as soon as she wakes. Adapt it to your own needs and don't get bogged down in the detail like I did!!
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