What age should I introduce a routine?
When it comes to routine it’s totally depend on you, your baby, your set up and your needs.
Do you naturally need structure in your day?
Does your baby really struggle when they become overtired?
Is this your only baby or are you juggling other children and their needs too?
Are you doing okay muddling through or are you at breaking and something needs to change?
If you’re looking at any of the above and thinking that you and/or your baby could benefit from a routine then the good news is it’s never too early to start thinking about a gentle routine.
From a couple of weeks old you can start to implement a bedtime routine to start creating triggers to show it’s bed time. Lots of newborns have a tendency to want to cluster feed in the evenings so don’t push for an early bedtime until they’re closer to three months old. Everyone will feel better from the baby cluster feeding in the evening and then going down a bit later when Mum can go to bed so she can benefit from hopefully a long block of sleep once the baby is down.
When you’re ready or feel your baby is ready for a daytime routine you can encourage a routine by starting to watch their wake windows and putting them down appropriately. Remember that babies are all individual, some might start having their long lunchtime nap at four months but others might still be cat-napping for half an hour at a time at six months. Both are fine as long as wake windows are hit - this is more important than the total sleep during the day. If your baby is a cat-napper with your support they should be able to start connecting their naps by around seven months.
If you want to start encouraging naps in their sleep space you’ll find the first nap of the day the easiest to get them down. Work on this one and then build from there. The last nap of the day is always fine to be out and about - it should always be seen to be a power nap to get the baby to bedtime without being overtired. This nap (if it’s nap three or four) should be capped at 30 minutes as anything beyond that might impact overnight sleep.
If you find your baby is waking multiple times at night and you feel confident that they could be sleeping longer blocks sometimes just tweaking the routine can improve the nights significantly!
Feel like you want to implement a routine or just some structure and not sure how why not get in touch today? I can put together a plan for you and over the three weeks support I can help you find your feet and get you to a better place with sleep.
