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Routines
Hello all you august mummys!
I have been AWOL for a while so thought i would catch up on how everyone is doing. How are all your routines going? Mollie seems to be in a 3-4 hourly routine for feeding but we seem to have a 7pm-10/midnight episode of unsettledness and crying and we cant seem to settle her down despite rocking/ feeding. Its not colic- shes not bringing her legs up or seeming to be in discomfort. She just seems to be overly tired and fighting sleep... and if we do get her to sleep its such a light sleep that she wakes up easily with any noise or if she sleep "startles".
I want to try and start getting her into a routine now so thinking bath at 7:30pm and bedclothes on and then feed and try and put her down but not sure how you do this if she consistently cries?
Any advice would be great! Hope you are all doing well.
xx
I have been AWOL for a while so thought i would catch up on how everyone is doing. How are all your routines going? Mollie seems to be in a 3-4 hourly routine for feeding but we seem to have a 7pm-10/midnight episode of unsettledness and crying and we cant seem to settle her down despite rocking/ feeding. Its not colic- shes not bringing her legs up or seeming to be in discomfort. She just seems to be overly tired and fighting sleep... and if we do get her to sleep its such a light sleep that she wakes up easily with any noise or if she sleep "startles".
I want to try and start getting her into a routine now so thinking bath at 7:30pm and bedclothes on and then feed and try and put her down but not sure how you do this if she consistently cries?
Any advice would be great! Hope you are all doing well.
xx
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Replies
Im not really a great one to give advice as henry is our first and we're learning as we go along! He's 6 weeks old on sunday and a very good boy. He's breast fed so to a large extent he's made his own routine with feeding, however we've always been set on a bath time/bed time routine which had definately helped him know night from day. He is very sleepy for lots of the day, with brief awake times. At 5 ish he wakes and can be quite grizzly but we try and keep him going till 7pm. He often cluster feeds while he's feeling grumpy and obviously i never stop him, then at 7 we bath him and about 7.15 i always feed him. Sometimes he hasnt long fed and doesnt take much but he always has something. He goes down in the moses basket upstairs in the dark then. As he's got a bit older he has started to cry a bit after ive left and its not unusual for me to have to go back let him burp and give him another ten mins or so but he's usually asleep by 8pm. this is always his longest stretch through to 11pm/midnight, then he wakes about 2am/3am, and 5am/6am which i dont think is bad. After that he feeds 1-2 hourly for much of the morning and has a long sleep in the afternoon.
As henry gets older he's had a couple of these episodes of crying, refusing the breast, not wanting cuddles or winding or anything. I tend to walk round with him against my chest saying shhh over and over but it takes some time to bring him down. He pulls away when i offer the boob, sometimes i just have to put him down and leave him to cry for 5-10, then when i go back he seems to feed. he's had a bit of a cold and sometimes i think he's got in a temper over not being able to breathe as the breast is on his face, so ive fed him underarm which helped once he'd calmed down. Its tough to listen to though, i know lots of people who have to deal with this all day due to baby having reflux etc and that must be very wearing. I think the evening time unsettledness is very common in new babies - my mum tells me they all do it for some unknown reason. I think if we hadnt instilled the bathtime/bedtime routine so early (from a few days after coming home from hospital) henry would probably do this later than he does too. i think you're right to think bathtime at 7.30 ish cuddles and feed and then bed. It might not work straight away but stick with it, babies are creatures of habit! xx
christopher is now 10 weeks old, fully breastfed, and also feeds every 3-4h, longer when hes asleep. we dont really have a routine for bedtime as of yet but he normally goes to sleep around 9ish and sleeps for 5-7h in one go most of the time, then wakes up for feed and diaper change and back to sleep till 7-8amish. however he has done this on his own as i dont follow any sort of schedule with him as such. im prolly the only one doing this lol. but im happy to say weve never had a problem with him at night. no matter how often he wakes up, he goes right back to sleep and i consider myself lucky for that. i think he was born this way though as even during pregnancy he never ever kept me up at night with kicking. weird. i want to start getting a more fixed bedtime now though so lets see. its hard though when theyre this little as it can differ from day to day. also i never wake him up from a nap so if he sleeps a lot during the day he sometimes goes to sleep a bit later. latest latest at 10pm though and this is rare now. xx