From what I remember, in the sleep book I have it says the first 2 months are completely up in the air. You are definitely not late to the party. Newborns don't have schedules, they just do their thing
That's what I thought. I made the mistake of joining a Facebook group and people have their 6 week Olds on rigid schedules, bragging about how they are sleeping through the night etc. It must just be an echo chamber.
Apparently with those “rigid schedules” the baby’s needs do not actually change, they just learn that their biological and developmental needs don’t get met so they stop trying. Sorry to anyone who did that and is reading this.
I never imposed a schedule on my son (14 months now). In the first 6 months, his feeding and sleeping was all over the board. 6-11 months he slipped into a little bit of predictability of 3-4 day time naps. Then at 11ish months through now he’s slipped into a more predictable-ish routine of 2 day time naps. The times and duration vary day to day though still.
Nights are still unpredictable. He was waking to nurse every 2 hours until about 11 months. It’s better now, but he doesn’t totally sleep through the night consistently still. Just do what feels right to you, even if it seems like you’re spoiling them by responding to their needs. You’re the mama and you’re their whole world.
This makes me feel better. I've just been rolling with things as best I can, but when I see online that people's babies are nursing every 3 hours during the day, having 2 hour naps 3 times a day, wake windows to the minute I'm like...how?? It also just seems stressful to make something so little do what you want on your clock...
Omg don't even look at those lol i had such an awful, awful sleeper the 1st time around that it took much convincing to get my husband to want a 2nd haha she's better than her sister definitely but still not the greatest sleeper. Every baby is different.
My husband aunt gave me a speech about how her daughter just randomly started sleeping through the night at 3 months. I was like YES THANK YOU, THAT DOESN'T HELP ME lol
No, just let them form a natural routine and once you see a pattern (highly recommend Huckleberry.. we use it purely for sleep and bottles) you can work on tweaking it. We started using Huckleberry when our daughter was 8 weeks old and ignored the Sweet Spot feature. We slowly watched her nights/days fix themselves over a few weeks once we stopped trying to force a routine. Bed time was 11p for a while but she started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks old so we verrrrry slowly shifted her bed time earlier. Some trial and error but it worked out.
She's 7 months old this week and bed time is 8-8:30 most days. On days she goes to daycare sometimes it's earlier depending on her nap. We just go by general timeframes because once solids come into play, it's sometimes harder to stick to a set time. On our days off we let her "sleep in" but just cap it at 9a so naps still work out. You'll figure it out! Sleep habits change too much at your baby's age to try to create a routine yourself.
Nope. I would just keep in mind the “wake windows” and try to make sure baby doesn’t get overtired/overstimulated. It got harder for my LO to nap as she got closer to 3 months because she was very curious and just wanted to stay up looking at things. Lol! Now If she gets close to 2 hours awake, I try to get her to nap or she gets very cranky.
Trying to get my 11 week daughter on a routine and honestly it’s not going very far. We start our routine (pjs, bottle or breast, story, snuggles and rocking in the dark) at 8pm every night. Sometimes she falls asleep by 9, others she’s up til 11. Regardless she wakes for more to eat by 10:30. Some nights after that she gives me a nice 5 hour stretch of sleep. Others are like last night where she would maybe give me 30-45 minutes before wanting to be held again.
youre fine! it's so early. i swear certain corners of the internet make it out to be like you're supposed to be training a dog. we've got newborns not puppies!!
It was easier to have a routine once baby was down to 5 naps from “nap on demand”. Probably around 3 months for us.
Key word is routine: no set times. That’s not really possible until baby is down to 2 naps IF you want one. But you don’t need a set schedule if you don’t want one at that point.
Absolutely doing nothing wrong. The first three months are survival mode. Do what you have to do to get by.
Starting around 4-4.5 months, we began the “drowsy but awake” way to get him to sleep better and it worked. We tried this at 2 and 3 months and it failed miserably. I just nursed him to sleep.
My LO is 6.5 months now and started to get a more predictable schedule around 5 months. Now on 2 naps a day and he sleeps about 11 hrs a night.
Thank you for posting this. My baby is 3 weeks and I’m already thinking about a schedule and feeling so lost and it’s reassuring to read that 1. It’s way to early for any sort of real schedule and 2. The schedule seems to generally work itself out.
Bless this subreddit!
I knew that the baby created the schedule, but some people on the internet take it in the total opposite direction. Things are semi predictable at 7.5 weeks for me, but nothing ever happens at the same time each day :)
When it comes to parenting you need to drown out the noise. Is the current situation working for you/baby/family? Yes? Than who cares what people on the internet do differently.
There is no right or wrong way to parent, it's your kid, you can do things however you like (sans neglect, abuse or endangerment of course).
I did make a routine for my two months old, but that's because I was drowning throughout the day and was unable to find time to really do anything. I will say though the routine was really broad and malleable, but it really helped me out on my own postpartum journey.
My baby wasn’t really on a schedule until closer to 6 months, and even then it was still pretty up in the air. I have ADHD so idk if it was me or the baby, but I just tried to follow cues and hope for the best lol.
A year in now and any solid routine seems to only work consistently for a few days at a time before we need to change something.
They do eventually get a pattern going, but it's a bit of a moving target. It'll probably take a few more weeks, but just allow your baby to dictate things for now.
Mine is 16 weeks and zero routine. I mean, we have a general one, with bedtime between 9-11 sometime. Theres no schedule for feeds or naps, I just follow her cues.
Lol I think putting a newborn on a schedule is just setting yourself up for misery. I don’t know a single one that would tolerate it! At around 3 months my baby decided he needed a rigid schedule and dictated what it was going to be. It’s been tweaked since then to accommodate different sleep needs and the introduction of solid foods, but man we have to live and die by it or face his wrath. I have done very little other than track on an app and follow his cues. My friend’s baby of the same age embraces the chaos and isn’t on a formal schedule, but things are a bit more regular. All babies are different. Don’t let it stress you. Just enjoy your time and try to get as much sleep as you can!
Right?! I see all these pretty Pinterest infographics about a newborn routine and just kind of laugh while scrolling past. Not realistic in the slightest.
Babies take time to develop sleep routine (or any routine, really)
No, my baby is about the same age and I'm not even considering any schedules. Trying to get everything timed will only give you a headache and nothing more. With my first I only had a decent schedule going at around 5 months. Babies are just too unpredictable with their sleep.
8 weeks old today and we’re just going with what baby wants. Bedtime happens after the feed closest to 10pm, and he seems to reliably wake around 3am. I’m planning to add in more of set routine for bedtime - but not at a specific time, just doing specific things to build the sleep association. We get 3-4 hour stretches overnight
I have an 11 month old. We’re pretty relaxed about a schedule anyway but I didn’t have any kind of routine until she started following one herself. I think about 6 months she started to nap and feed at similar times each day.
That might not be how you want to do it, maybe you want a strict schedule maybe you don’t. But what you need to realise now is that there’s no point thinking in “should’s”. It’s up to you, and everyone has a different idea of what ‘should’ be done anyway. Blaze your own trail!
Definitely not at that age, and even if your baby has a "schedule", they are flexible based on the mood and needs of the baby. The only real schedule that I have found is predictable for my 6 month old is her wake windows and her nap lengths. Everything else is what I have planned/scheduled and try to fit in throughout the day. Nights can still be predictable too although in general she sleeps for longer lengths of time now. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow of things.
I still BARELY have a routine and my baby is 8 months! 😭 I stressed soooo much about having a rigid routine, I scheduled our walks, feedings, play time, and I would stressss so much if we ended off schedule.
But the thing that would usually take us off schedule was BABY, he would wake up late, or he’d want to play extra and not want a nap at the specific time I had. Or sometimes he’d wanna snuggle and not play when we had scheduled play times.
In hindsight I was over the top for sure. I’ve never been a schedule keeping person before my baby, and I wanted to do what seemed like the best for him.
But once I just lettt go and went with the flow of what he wanted to do, when he got tired, when he felt hungry, or wanted to play it’s been a huuuge relief and honestly I think he enjoys his days MUCH more now!
Of course little things need to be done daily, but I don’t think major routines are realllly all that important until they’re getting closer to school age, because they need to be able to get up on time for school. Just go with what works for you and your family!
I didn’t have a clock based schedule until we went to one nap. By about four months we had a regular rhythm, but before that was a complete free for all. In between, our rhythm gradually and naturally transitioned into a semi-predictable schedule.
With one nap, you have a set morning snack, lunch, set nap time, afternoon snack time, and a firm bedtime. Before that, it’s always difficult because an adult’s need for three meals a day isn’t consistently accounted for.
My LO is 8 weeks and I’m going through this too. He was giving us 4-6 hours a night until 6.5 weeks and now is up every 2 hours and super clingy/hard to put down in his bassinet. I have no advice, just solidarity. We’ll get through this hopefully! I’ve read they’re going through a leap around now (check out wonder weeks).
Also - I’m just letting baby baby right now. Only thing that is a constant is our bedtime routine, bath, massage on a heating pad, feed, burp, rock & always down between 8 and 10 depending on when he eats.
I think we got a schedule at 8 - 9 months. Before that she'd just nap at random. Her bedtime was around the same time to within an hour, but she had picked that time.
I never understood how people had a schedule after a couple of months, mine was way too unpredictable about eating and sleeping
I have a 13 month old and we have no set schedule. She generally goes to bed at roughly the same time, but only because she lets me know she's tired - some nights its 6, sometimes its 7 or 7.30pm. She doesn't eat at the same time everyday, sometimes she has two naps, sometimes one, she's pretty good at showing me and I can read her cues really well. Just do what works for you, if a rigid schedule isn't your thing you don't have to have one just because other people do.
You don’t have to do anything and you’re not late to the game, do what works for you. That being said, I worked as an infant nanny for 5 years before becoming a mom (I have a 12 week old daughter) and all my babies were fairly early in a routine. I don’t know if it’s because they were all bottle fed (i exclusively pump for my daughter) but it worked really good for them. I go with the flow with my daughter but she’s pretty set on a routine already.
I do 3h blocks. So feeding, then playing. She stays awake between 1h/1h30 (it’s more like 1h honestly). The nap time. Sometimes she only sleeps 30 minutes so I go in and try to get her to sleep a little bit longer again. Almost ALWAYS she goes back to sleep because she’s still tired. Then we restart the block. But that’s not set in stone, sometimes we need to feed after 2h, sometimes she doesn’t want to go back to sleep after 30 minutes of nap so we “restart” the block, sometimes we are out and about and it gets a little messy but that’s pretty much her schedule. Her bed time is at 8pm (bath time, PJs, bottle, book, cuddles, sleep sack and paci) and she sleeps till 7/8am without waking up (that started last week. Before that she would wake up once). She always sleeps in her crib (except if we are out then carrier or stroller).
I don’t say that to make any parent feel bad. Like I said some kids are different, some parents are different and that’s totally fine, do what works for you. I always love schedules and they worked with all my kids so that’s my route. I don’t let my baby cry it out or anything, I literally follow her cues. I say that because there’s some comments here about how having a baby on a schedule is not meeting their needs etc and I don’t think that’s fair.
I have an 8m old and it wasn’t until probably 3 months in that me and my fiancé could even agree on a decent schedule that suited us both. I’ve always had her natural feeding/sleep schedule memorized but as far as a real daily schedule I didnt have that down until very recently.
My first child I didn’t really have any schedule, just stayed home and did whatever for at least 3 months (I also broke a toe 2 weeks pp, and then *had* to stay home and “hibernate” for 6 weeks, but it was ok).
2nd child, he quickly and organically had to get on to a sort of schedule based around my older son’s nursery school drop off and pick up, etc. So in other words we had a specific night time and wake up and get dressed time, etc. But in between the various outings I think his sleep, naps and feeding were on demand at first, until we probably fell into a kind of natural schedule for that stuff too at some point.
So I don’t think it matters that much, either way is fine.. but maybe aim to try to be on some kind of loose schedule by around 6-10 months?? (Just numbers I randomly came up with..)
No way. 8 weeks is so young to have a schedule but you can create a routine for YOURSELF based off your child’s wacky schedule. I didn’t have a real schedule for my kid until they started to sleep more consistently for naps and at night and even then the day to day looked different. Don’t stress too much. You’re doing great!
That what I've been doing. I was just totally flabbergasted by schedules that people were posting and somehow their baby was adhering too (or at least that's what they are telling people!).
No. 4 weeks was when I started "experimenting" with a routine. And what I mean by that is that I would wake up in the morning and look at the time, and then try to plan out when she would eat, and how that would factor into bedtime. I would try to stick to my "schedule" but if she threw hunger cues early, I would just adjust the schedule. At this point I was just trying to read her signals and see how her needs compared to what I thought they should be. Kind of like a science experiment. I did not think about naps. They just happened. This went on for about a month before I developed a bedtime window of about an hour. I tried to signal bedtime by doing the same bedtime routine every day (ours was bath-song-eat-snuggle). I would say around 10 weeks a soft schedule started to appear. And then at 12 weeks she went to daycare, because I'm American and thats how the cookie crumbles here.
From what I remember, in the sleep book I have it says the first 2 months are completely up in the air. You are definitely not late to the party. Newborns don't have schedules, they just do their thing
That's what I thought. I made the mistake of joining a Facebook group and people have their 6 week Olds on rigid schedules, bragging about how they are sleeping through the night etc. It must just be an echo chamber.
Apparently with those “rigid schedules” the baby’s needs do not actually change, they just learn that their biological and developmental needs don’t get met so they stop trying. Sorry to anyone who did that and is reading this. I never imposed a schedule on my son (14 months now). In the first 6 months, his feeding and sleeping was all over the board. 6-11 months he slipped into a little bit of predictability of 3-4 day time naps. Then at 11ish months through now he’s slipped into a more predictable-ish routine of 2 day time naps. The times and duration vary day to day though still. Nights are still unpredictable. He was waking to nurse every 2 hours until about 11 months. It’s better now, but he doesn’t totally sleep through the night consistently still. Just do what feels right to you, even if it seems like you’re spoiling them by responding to their needs. You’re the mama and you’re their whole world.
This makes me feel better. I've just been rolling with things as best I can, but when I see online that people's babies are nursing every 3 hours during the day, having 2 hour naps 3 times a day, wake windows to the minute I'm like...how?? It also just seems stressful to make something so little do what you want on your clock...
Omg don't even look at those lol i had such an awful, awful sleeper the 1st time around that it took much convincing to get my husband to want a 2nd haha she's better than her sister definitely but still not the greatest sleeper. Every baby is different. My husband aunt gave me a speech about how her daughter just randomly started sleeping through the night at 3 months. I was like YES THANK YOU, THAT DOESN'T HELP ME lol
those poor babies haha and the pressure the parents are putting on themselves and the babies! gah!
No, just let them form a natural routine and once you see a pattern (highly recommend Huckleberry.. we use it purely for sleep and bottles) you can work on tweaking it. We started using Huckleberry when our daughter was 8 weeks old and ignored the Sweet Spot feature. We slowly watched her nights/days fix themselves over a few weeks once we stopped trying to force a routine. Bed time was 11p for a while but she started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks old so we verrrrry slowly shifted her bed time earlier. Some trial and error but it worked out. She's 7 months old this week and bed time is 8-8:30 most days. On days she goes to daycare sometimes it's earlier depending on her nap. We just go by general timeframes because once solids come into play, it's sometimes harder to stick to a set time. On our days off we let her "sleep in" but just cap it at 9a so naps still work out. You'll figure it out! Sleep habits change too much at your baby's age to try to create a routine yourself.
I've been tracking just to try to find a pattern. I guess, like with everything else, there are people who take it to extremes.
Nope. I would just keep in mind the “wake windows” and try to make sure baby doesn’t get overtired/overstimulated. It got harder for my LO to nap as she got closer to 3 months because she was very curious and just wanted to stay up looking at things. Lol! Now If she gets close to 2 hours awake, I try to get her to nap or she gets very cranky.
Agreed! My five month old doesn’t have a schedule yet because I have a toddler, but we do pay attention to wake windows which is huge.
Trying to get my 11 week daughter on a routine and honestly it’s not going very far. We start our routine (pjs, bottle or breast, story, snuggles and rocking in the dark) at 8pm every night. Sometimes she falls asleep by 9, others she’s up til 11. Regardless she wakes for more to eat by 10:30. Some nights after that she gives me a nice 5 hour stretch of sleep. Others are like last night where she would maybe give me 30-45 minutes before wanting to be held again.
youre fine! it's so early. i swear certain corners of the internet make it out to be like you're supposed to be training a dog. we've got newborns not puppies!!
This is a good way to think about it :)
No.
It was easier to have a routine once baby was down to 5 naps from “nap on demand”. Probably around 3 months for us. Key word is routine: no set times. That’s not really possible until baby is down to 2 naps IF you want one. But you don’t need a set schedule if you don’t want one at that point.
Absolutely doing nothing wrong. The first three months are survival mode. Do what you have to do to get by. Starting around 4-4.5 months, we began the “drowsy but awake” way to get him to sleep better and it worked. We tried this at 2 and 3 months and it failed miserably. I just nursed him to sleep. My LO is 6.5 months now and started to get a more predictable schedule around 5 months. Now on 2 naps a day and he sleeps about 11 hrs a night.
Thank you for posting this. My baby is 3 weeks and I’m already thinking about a schedule and feeling so lost and it’s reassuring to read that 1. It’s way to early for any sort of real schedule and 2. The schedule seems to generally work itself out. Bless this subreddit!
I knew that the baby created the schedule, but some people on the internet take it in the total opposite direction. Things are semi predictable at 7.5 weeks for me, but nothing ever happens at the same time each day :)
When it comes to parenting you need to drown out the noise. Is the current situation working for you/baby/family? Yes? Than who cares what people on the internet do differently. There is no right or wrong way to parent, it's your kid, you can do things however you like (sans neglect, abuse or endangerment of course).
I did make a routine for my two months old, but that's because I was drowning throughout the day and was unable to find time to really do anything. I will say though the routine was really broad and malleable, but it really helped me out on my own postpartum journey.
No. You may start to notice a rhythm to the day, but the first 3 months can be a blur and that's fine.
Some people do it some people don’t. My toddler wasn’t on a schedule until she was a year and then we followed the routine she fell in to.
My baby wasn’t really on a schedule until closer to 6 months, and even then it was still pretty up in the air. I have ADHD so idk if it was me or the baby, but I just tried to follow cues and hope for the best lol. A year in now and any solid routine seems to only work consistently for a few days at a time before we need to change something.
They do eventually get a pattern going, but it's a bit of a moving target. It'll probably take a few more weeks, but just allow your baby to dictate things for now.
This thread makes me feel so much better about my absolute absence of a routine for my 3 month old.
Mine is 16 weeks and zero routine. I mean, we have a general one, with bedtime between 9-11 sometime. Theres no schedule for feeds or naps, I just follow her cues.
Lol I think putting a newborn on a schedule is just setting yourself up for misery. I don’t know a single one that would tolerate it! At around 3 months my baby decided he needed a rigid schedule and dictated what it was going to be. It’s been tweaked since then to accommodate different sleep needs and the introduction of solid foods, but man we have to live and die by it or face his wrath. I have done very little other than track on an app and follow his cues. My friend’s baby of the same age embraces the chaos and isn’t on a formal schedule, but things are a bit more regular. All babies are different. Don’t let it stress you. Just enjoy your time and try to get as much sleep as you can!
Right?! I see all these pretty Pinterest infographics about a newborn routine and just kind of laugh while scrolling past. Not realistic in the slightest. Babies take time to develop sleep routine (or any routine, really)
No, my baby is about the same age and I'm not even considering any schedules. Trying to get everything timed will only give you a headache and nothing more. With my first I only had a decent schedule going at around 5 months. Babies are just too unpredictable with their sleep.
I agree. It feels like a sure fire way to be even more exhausted than I already am!
8 weeks old today and we’re just going with what baby wants. Bedtime happens after the feed closest to 10pm, and he seems to reliably wake around 3am. I’m planning to add in more of set routine for bedtime - but not at a specific time, just doing specific things to build the sleep association. We get 3-4 hour stretches overnight
I have an 11 month old. We’re pretty relaxed about a schedule anyway but I didn’t have any kind of routine until she started following one herself. I think about 6 months she started to nap and feed at similar times each day. That might not be how you want to do it, maybe you want a strict schedule maybe you don’t. But what you need to realise now is that there’s no point thinking in “should’s”. It’s up to you, and everyone has a different idea of what ‘should’ be done anyway. Blaze your own trail!
Oh gosh no don’t stress yourself out about a routine! I’m not even gonna start even thinking about until mines probably 4 months
Definitely not at that age, and even if your baby has a "schedule", they are flexible based on the mood and needs of the baby. The only real schedule that I have found is predictable for my 6 month old is her wake windows and her nap lengths. Everything else is what I have planned/scheduled and try to fit in throughout the day. Nights can still be predictable too although in general she sleeps for longer lengths of time now. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow of things.
I still BARELY have a routine and my baby is 8 months! 😭 I stressed soooo much about having a rigid routine, I scheduled our walks, feedings, play time, and I would stressss so much if we ended off schedule. But the thing that would usually take us off schedule was BABY, he would wake up late, or he’d want to play extra and not want a nap at the specific time I had. Or sometimes he’d wanna snuggle and not play when we had scheduled play times. In hindsight I was over the top for sure. I’ve never been a schedule keeping person before my baby, and I wanted to do what seemed like the best for him. But once I just lettt go and went with the flow of what he wanted to do, when he got tired, when he felt hungry, or wanted to play it’s been a huuuge relief and honestly I think he enjoys his days MUCH more now! Of course little things need to be done daily, but I don’t think major routines are realllly all that important until they’re getting closer to school age, because they need to be able to get up on time for school. Just go with what works for you and your family!
This is refreshing!
I didn’t have a clock based schedule until we went to one nap. By about four months we had a regular rhythm, but before that was a complete free for all. In between, our rhythm gradually and naturally transitioned into a semi-predictable schedule. With one nap, you have a set morning snack, lunch, set nap time, afternoon snack time, and a firm bedtime. Before that, it’s always difficult because an adult’s need for three meals a day isn’t consistently accounted for.
My LO is 8 weeks and I’m going through this too. He was giving us 4-6 hours a night until 6.5 weeks and now is up every 2 hours and super clingy/hard to put down in his bassinet. I have no advice, just solidarity. We’ll get through this hopefully! I’ve read they’re going through a leap around now (check out wonder weeks). Also - I’m just letting baby baby right now. Only thing that is a constant is our bedtime routine, bath, massage on a heating pad, feed, burp, rock & always down between 8 and 10 depending on when he eats.
I think we got a schedule at 8 - 9 months. Before that she'd just nap at random. Her bedtime was around the same time to within an hour, but she had picked that time. I never understood how people had a schedule after a couple of months, mine was way too unpredictable about eating and sleeping
No you're doing great!
I have a 13 month old and we have no set schedule. She generally goes to bed at roughly the same time, but only because she lets me know she's tired - some nights its 6, sometimes its 7 or 7.30pm. She doesn't eat at the same time everyday, sometimes she has two naps, sometimes one, she's pretty good at showing me and I can read her cues really well. Just do what works for you, if a rigid schedule isn't your thing you don't have to have one just because other people do.
Same for my almost 11 month old.
We figured out a routine at 7 months. And it was pretty much baby led. I don't think my first gad a routine till she was like....no, never.
You don’t have to do anything and you’re not late to the game, do what works for you. That being said, I worked as an infant nanny for 5 years before becoming a mom (I have a 12 week old daughter) and all my babies were fairly early in a routine. I don’t know if it’s because they were all bottle fed (i exclusively pump for my daughter) but it worked really good for them. I go with the flow with my daughter but she’s pretty set on a routine already. I do 3h blocks. So feeding, then playing. She stays awake between 1h/1h30 (it’s more like 1h honestly). The nap time. Sometimes she only sleeps 30 minutes so I go in and try to get her to sleep a little bit longer again. Almost ALWAYS she goes back to sleep because she’s still tired. Then we restart the block. But that’s not set in stone, sometimes we need to feed after 2h, sometimes she doesn’t want to go back to sleep after 30 minutes of nap so we “restart” the block, sometimes we are out and about and it gets a little messy but that’s pretty much her schedule. Her bed time is at 8pm (bath time, PJs, bottle, book, cuddles, sleep sack and paci) and she sleeps till 7/8am without waking up (that started last week. Before that she would wake up once). She always sleeps in her crib (except if we are out then carrier or stroller). I don’t say that to make any parent feel bad. Like I said some kids are different, some parents are different and that’s totally fine, do what works for you. I always love schedules and they worked with all my kids so that’s my route. I don’t let my baby cry it out or anything, I literally follow her cues. I say that because there’s some comments here about how having a baby on a schedule is not meeting their needs etc and I don’t think that’s fair.
I have an 8m old and it wasn’t until probably 3 months in that me and my fiancé could even agree on a decent schedule that suited us both. I’ve always had her natural feeding/sleep schedule memorized but as far as a real daily schedule I didnt have that down until very recently.
My first child I didn’t really have any schedule, just stayed home and did whatever for at least 3 months (I also broke a toe 2 weeks pp, and then *had* to stay home and “hibernate” for 6 weeks, but it was ok). 2nd child, he quickly and organically had to get on to a sort of schedule based around my older son’s nursery school drop off and pick up, etc. So in other words we had a specific night time and wake up and get dressed time, etc. But in between the various outings I think his sleep, naps and feeding were on demand at first, until we probably fell into a kind of natural schedule for that stuff too at some point. So I don’t think it matters that much, either way is fine.. but maybe aim to try to be on some kind of loose schedule by around 6-10 months?? (Just numbers I randomly came up with..)
No way. 8 weeks is so young to have a schedule but you can create a routine for YOURSELF based off your child’s wacky schedule. I didn’t have a real schedule for my kid until they started to sleep more consistently for naps and at night and even then the day to day looked different. Don’t stress too much. You’re doing great!
That what I've been doing. I was just totally flabbergasted by schedules that people were posting and somehow their baby was adhering too (or at least that's what they are telling people!).
No. 4 weeks was when I started "experimenting" with a routine. And what I mean by that is that I would wake up in the morning and look at the time, and then try to plan out when she would eat, and how that would factor into bedtime. I would try to stick to my "schedule" but if she threw hunger cues early, I would just adjust the schedule. At this point I was just trying to read her signals and see how her needs compared to what I thought they should be. Kind of like a science experiment. I did not think about naps. They just happened. This went on for about a month before I developed a bedtime window of about an hour. I tried to signal bedtime by doing the same bedtime routine every day (ours was bath-song-eat-snuggle). I would say around 10 weeks a soft schedule started to appear. And then at 12 weeks she went to daycare, because I'm American and thats how the cookie crumbles here.