Every few days I loosely try to get her into an eat-activity-sleep pattern and its making me BATTY!! I know sleep begets sleep but this kid will not nap when I think she should (after 1-2 hrs of awake time/when she starts yawning). When I try I end up spending like an hour trying to get her down, and then she just ends up hungry again and conks out after eating (or wasn't hungry and comfort nurses... No idea). I know this is probably still too young to have 'bad habits' but I don't know when a routine is supposed to start. Yesterday she slept ALL DAY and I had to wake her to eat, which was equally as frustrating. She was 3 weeks early so I guess developmentally is only 2 weeks?! So lost.. Help...
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NO. 5 weeks is definitely too early to impose a routine on her.
What we did is we just watched her for a few weeks and when we noticed her starting to set her own schedule, that's when we started a routine. I think she was closer to 8-9 weeks old. She would get tired the same time each night. She started waking up for the day around the same time. And then we just did naps on sleep/wake intervals, she could only last about 45 minutes awake at that age.
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No. I let my LO fall asleep nursing. He can go to sleep fine without it too. Nursing makes them tired. No reason to fight that. I tried to get him on a routine at five weeks too. No such luck! They just haven't consolidated their sleep cycles much yet.
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in my opinion, 5 weeks is too early to start a routine. at that age, they really have no memory of anything, so routine is really just to help the mom out. if it helps then that is great. if it is driving you crazy, then stop! i drove myself crazy with my daughter's naps and trying to do an EASY routine...seriously it was a total waste of time for me because my daughter's naps were terrible and they still are (7.5 months) so EASY ended up being EASAESA...you get the picture. i think i would try to start a routine at 10 weeks. but it never worked for us. the only "routine" we have now is feed every 3-4 hours or so and everything else is "scheduled" around that.
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I agree with PPs. Even my soon to be 1 year old goes off her routine so trying to get a 5 week old on one sounds incredibly stressful. I think at that age you just go with the flow. My LO was not a big napper as a newborn so I know what its like when you just want a break!
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@SleepyMonkey: exactly- it's usually EAES.. I just am cognizant to try and put her down to sleep before she's passed out totally, but my will will not be imposed on her and she wants me to know that
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My daughter is 7 weeks, and starting to fall into sort of a routine now-- she kind of sleeps at similar times each day. But some days she sleeps more, sometimes less frequently. It also depends on what we are doing. I haven't tried to enforce anything, we just go with the flow. If she hasn't slept a lot I wear her for a while and she conks out. I would just try to notice what she does naturally for now.
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I say, no way jose! my LO is 8 months and we just somewhat established a routine in the last couple months. HAHA. her night sleep is so terrible, that our days/naps are different all the time.
for example..sometimes 1 nap, sometimes 3. (I prefer 3, obviously!). sometimes she's up for the day at 5, sometimes she'll go back to sleep til 7. sometimes she nurses to sleep for naps, other days - like today - she goes down by herself in minutes.
it killed me at first cause I'm so type A/routine/obsessive - and my nanny LOs were on a super strict schedule - but I've adjusted. it's actually made me more laid back i think!
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Nope. Don't stress over routine. We didn't and our son put himself on one around 8 wks
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No, we didn't start any real routines until he was at least 10 months old. We aren't schedule or sleep training people, but approximate times and routines kicked in around then.
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No way just do what LO wants and try to go with the flow, you'll both be happier.
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My LO didn't have "naps" til maybe 7-8 wks? Before that, he just slept when he slept--I didn't try to force it, although it helped that he would almost always fall asleep in the stroller. I would definitely not stress about it at this point though!
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Same as @Silva. My daughter is nearly 7 weeks and I would say it's really only been in that last week that we've gotten into any kind of routine, and that's only happened because it just sort of developed organically. I also nurse her to drowsy/sleep....at this point I'm all about just doing whatever works!
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I spent the first 2 months just surviving! At around 2 months I started following sleepy cues and intentionally putting her down for a nap every 1.5-2 hours. I'm okay w/comfort nursing or nursing to sleep, but I do make sure not to nurse her to sleep every single time.
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13 comments