Getting a baby on a schedule

As we all know, humans like routine. So one of the cornerstones of parenting babies is the idea that babies need to get into a routine, and that things will go more smoothly for everyone once the routine is solid.

The problem can come in when someone tells us that we HAVE TO get our babies on a schedule from the get-go or the entire world will crumble apart. Let's look at what's wrong with that idea:

1. Schedule vs. routine. Routine is awesome. Wake up around the same time, eat around the same time, see the same people, do the same things around the same time. It gives us a structure, and lets us trust that things are going well so we can be free to think and work and grow within the structure. Schedule, though, indicates that we're on the minute, and if we get behind we're somehow doing something wrong. Is it semantics? Maybe. But one indicates that time is working for you, and the other inducates that you're trying to keep up with time.

2. Anyone who has a baby who's 6 months or older knows that babies in the first 12 weeks are a total crapshoot. Everything is so radicaly different from day to day, or certainly week to week, that trying to impose some external structure on a baby is difficult at best and extremely stressful (for you or the baby or both) at worst.

3. If a baby is healthy and his or her needs for food and comfort and touch are met, the baby's system will regulate and the baby will fall into a routine. Whether you impose it or not. (The issue then becomes manipulating the baby's routine so it intersects more closely with the routine you want the baby to have.) Some babies fall into a routine early (around 8-12 weeks) but some don't really until 4-5 months.

4. Don't believe the hype. All of the "you must impose a schedule as soon as possible" sounds to me a lot like just another way to make us feel bad about ourselves if we're not doing the exact right things at the exact right times.

5. Like everything else about parenting, routines are a collaborative effort between you and your child. Not something either of you imposes on the other, unless you want to get into a bad control game.

So, those of you who have infants, have your babies settled into a reliable routine yet?

Those of you who have older kids, do you remember when your babies settled into routines? How much of that was you, and how much of that was the baby, and how much was collaborative?

My younger one settled into a routine really early. He liked a 7:30 bedtime from a few weeks old, and even though the daytime stuff took a few months to stabilize, that bedtime stuck for years. My older one seemed more chaotic to me, but that was probably because he was my first and it took me longer to recognize patterns, and to realize that I wasn't doing anything wrong.

How did it go for you?

 

Comments

[SarcastiCarrie]

The routine was set at about 4 weeks, but it was loose and mostly indicated that feedings happened 2.5 hours after the last one and naps were had (in the stroller or whatever).

The routine for the 2nd child was just an extension of what the first child did, so it was totally fine. I never worried about a schedule until I went back to work and actually needed the kids in the car at a certain time in the morning. That was kind of stressful, but it eventually evened itself out.

[Elita]

I don't even remember when my son fell into a predictable routine but I believe it was around 4 months or so. I knew he'd be ready for a nap around 10 AM and then again around 2 PM and then bedtime routine (bath, book, boob, crib) around 7 PM.

The thing that drives me crazy about "scheduling" is when people insist you do it from day one with a breastfed baby. Not gonna work. If I had a nickle for everytime I hear from someone who is trying to put a newborn on a strict feeding schedule that their milk "just dried up!".....

[MLB]

Routine is so very important. And the baby will in many ways impose it on you. I.e. sleep - whether you co-sleep, don't co-sleep, do CIO, don't do CIO or any other permutation, the best thing you can do for your child and family is create a routine based upon what the child needs. Same thing every night at the time that the child needs. I really learned this when my 8 week old started screaming in the evenings at a time she had previously nursed through. Turns out she was tired and needed to go to bed earlier. So we moved the bedtime routine up.
Routines become super-important too when kids get older. Until they are about 4, 4.5 anything out of the ordinary threw my kids for a loop. It doesn't mean it wasn't worth doing (i.e. vacation) but it is a window into how valuable the routine of their daily life is - Wake up, breakfast, school, home, lunch, nap, afternoon activity, Mommy home, dinner, bad. Anything to disrupt that has a ripple effect.

[Emmie (Better Make It A Double)]

I agree with your thinking in general - but it does include the assumption that your child is healthy and mature enough to make his/her needs known right from birth. Not true for all preemies or special needs kids, who may well benefit from a schedule at first because they can still be too "sleepy" to wake up to eat, etc. I disntintly remember my all-out-AP friend clucking at me waking my skinny, sleepy 5-pounders, and that kind of stung, but I knew from experience that my babies would sleep 6-8 hours without a feed if let be - too long for them at that time. I had my twins on the NICU schedule of feeding every three hours right after a diaper change, up until a few weeks after their due date when they'd been gaining well for a while and were clearly healthy and waking up to feed on their own. After that, we were on more of a routine and I never woke anyone up to eat, but I still put them down awake for naps at more or less the same times every day without having to let them cry. Sometimes I think there was a weird blessing in having to have my kids on a schedule to make sure they ate in the beginning - they were great sleepers. Still, if I had one healthy infant, I'm sure I'd feed him/her when asked to and let him/her sleep as she wished until a routine presented itself more clearly a few months in.

[Erin]

@ Elita: Word.

I really dislike scheduling, if only because it implies that each day will be exactly the same as the one before or the one after. Babies aren't like that - even now (baby is 10 months) sometimes he doesn't have good sleeps, or wakes up early, and then (gasp!) he needs an earlier nap time. Saying "Nap is at 9!" would then require keeping him awake until he is overtired, or letting him cry when he is hungry. I felt like my children fell into routines in various stages - like levels of organization from early organizing (a basic lengthening of feeding times and reduction of cluster nursing around 4-6 weeks and larger chunks of time sleeping at night) to daytime organizing (clear nap times emerging, clearer and more spaced feedings, 4-6 months). But I still put them down when they are tired, and feed them when they are hungry, esp the baby who is still nursing.

Oh, and one of the best pieces of advice I ever got for newborn sleeping was to make sure in the first weeks when you're trying to teach them that nighttime is for sleeping is for everyone to go to bed at the same time, so the whole house is dark and quiet when the baby is put to bed. I always went to sleep with my babies, and I think this helped them organize their early sleep.

It's also kind of ironic that the desire for a routine can be so strong with a baby, but a toddler's deep need for complete daily repetition (a REAL schedule, since they often have no flexibility) can be maddening!

[Emily]

I read a million times not to schedule my baby- to feed on demand, etc. My first daughter came home from the nicu already scheduled. She nursed every three hours, slept for three hours at a time, etc. When my son was born, he came home right away, and I tried feeding on demand, etc. It killed me. So I started scheduling him to nurse every 2-4 hours, depending on what he needed. It was a loose schedule, but it saved my breastfeeding. Nursing on demand is fine for many people, but I think the constant pressure and the exhaustion that can come with it makes a lot of women stop nursing. My son had to wait for two hours after a full feeding before he nursed again, but he didn't starve- he thrived. I figured that if the doctors thought my premature daughter could wait 3 hours between feedings, surely my 9-pound son would make it. My milk supply didn't suffer, my nipples stopped bleeding and I got the energy to continue breastfeeding him for another 18 months. If scheduling him wouldn't have been an option, it would have taken about a month before he was on formula. For us, scheduling was the best way.

[Betsy]

Initial routine was set at 8 weeks, but was radically readjusted at 4 months, 6 months and then again at 15 months to the current schedule we have (21 months).

That said, my kid also thrives on structure, so once he initiated a routine, sticking with it on our end worked best for him until he showed signs of needing it changed.

[TodayWendy]

I'm fairly anti-routine, and my daughter is too - she loves it when the bedtime routine gets switched up, stories read the wrong way, skipping bits and adding new things. It was a real struggle when she was tiny because she just didn't want to sleep. Ever. And we were trying to just go with the flow and do things according to her internal schedule which mean that someone wound up staying up with her until 2am on a very regular basis. Part of the problem was that we really wanted to co-sleep and it turns out that doesn't work for her at all (which took us forever to figure out). I think things would have gone better if we had tried to impose a very loose external schedule, I would have gotten more rest, breastfeeding might not have been a total disaster, we might have figured out that she really needed to be left alone in order to sleep.
I think the trick might be to figure out how much of a routine/schedule *you* need, and then adjust yourself to the baby's needs within that context. Because your baby's health is important, but so is the mother's health, and I wound up totally neglecting myself in a desperate attempt to follow the baby's lead. Which is probably just as destructive as putting the baby on a rigid schedule and refusing to adjust it as necessary. But as a new mom I really had no idea what I needed - minimum amounts of sleep, minimum number of consecutive hours of sleep in order to function properly, etc.
It took us over a year to establish a routine that actually managed to include enough sleep for everyone. In retrospect I think we probably could have done that sooner and we would have been much happier.

[Cathy]

A key for me to get a schedule/routine was looking for the early signs of sleepiness (which I recall are somewhat subtle and a longish list). Also, it was kind of a loop - eat - play - nap. [maybe in a different order, and probably a bottle/story in before nap, and diaper was kind of key also].

[Fentia]

Thanks for the great topic. As a first-time mom of a now 6 month-old, I've got a couple of thoughts on this topic:

First, as with a lot of things, I wonder how it must have been hundreds of years ago when people were raising kids. Did they have the ability to put a kid down in a crib when he/she was sleepy. Did their lives have a consistent routine the way we think of it? The answer is probably yes and no. But sometimes when I read books about what you are "supposed" to do, I think about all of the times and cultures in which healthy babies are raised and try not to take it all to literally.

Second, I think our daughter got into a rough bedtime sleep schedule around 2 months or so. Before that, she had been going to sleep around 8:30 or 9. But I read about babies sometimes needing earlier bedtimes and little by little she kept pushing her's back. She now goes to sleep "around" 6:00-6:45pm at night. Anytime later than that is not good news. We do have a bedtime routine (song, books, nurse)that I think works, but I don't really know. But her nap and feeding schedules are still pretty much dictated by the "It it's been about 2 hours it's probably time" rule.

Third, I'd like to hear more from moms who have to work. I work full time and my husband works 80% so we have the following schedule: Monday at home with dad, Tuesday child-care sharing with mom at someone else's house, Weds. day care, Thurs home with dad, Friday day care. This is what we we do to make the most of our flexible schedules. And our daughter seems just fine with all of this. So what's that about?

Finally, I always love to come back to Ask Moxie after feeling brainwashed by "those books". I feel like "those books" create a rigidity of thinking that makes it seem like it's never ok to change the routine. But really, if a couple of times a month your child doesn't get great sleep because you are also trying to have a life, is that really so bad?

[gretchen]

Our 5 month old has had a very predictable bedtime. I remember her falling asleep at about 8:30 [sometimes as early as 7:30] from the age of 6 weeks. We are still waiting on the naps to regulate more.We can expect that about two hours after she wakes up- she will need a nap. The other naps, just depend on how stimulated she is on any given day.

We have started a nightime routine- diaper, change of clothes, story, sleep sack. But,she could easily fall asleep without it. Sometimes we get through the routine and she is not ready at all for bed so we rock for like 40 minutes. Othertimes, she is crying by the end of the routine because she is overtired and we again have to rock for 40 minutes. BUT, when we get it right- we hang out with her for 10ish minutes and there is no crying! [that is the goal right- trying to get it right more often then not]I think we just have a routine because we are suppose to and hopefully we are doing this for the future.

Distractable baby SAY what!

[paola]

6 weeks for no. 2. That was when she started wanting to go to bed at around 7.00. That was also the time that she started sleeping nights ( 12 hours!). This ended at around 16 weeks though and everythign turned to seed. Naps were nonexistant till around 7 months when we sleep trained her and she settled into a proper routine (2 decent naps and 7 o'clock bed-time).

6 months for no.1. That was when he would consistently nap for 3 hours in the afternoon and another hour in the morning.

[My Kids Mom]

I'm data driven, so I started graphing his awake alert time, feedings and sleeping. Since life was pretty chaotic, I was using a small scrap of paper and a crayon to do this. It turned out to be more useful than something meticulous. I couldn't see exact data points, but what I could see was a trend. He "usually" fell asleep about 9 in the morning and "usually" slept for an hour, etc. I then began to watch him as it neared 9am to see if he seemed ready to go down. This way he led the routine, but helped me to find out that it really was there.

[the milliner]

Hmmm...I honestly can't remember when DS fell into a routine. I think it was probably on the later side. I seem to remember starting to figure out the routine at around 3 months (ah yes, probably just before the first sleep regression when it went out the window).

As @Moxie said in reference to her eldest, it was hard for me to figure out patterns at the beginning. I had no freaking clue what I was looking for. And it was hard to make sense of what I did see.

What helped us get into a routine was starting with the 2/3/4 rule for naps. And then everything else just fell into place.

What I remember more vividly is that for at least the first year, I found external changes to our routine (DS going to daycare, at 11 mos, me going back to work) to be extremely difficult and stressful. Actually, come to think of it, it was more the imposing of a schedule on our routine that I found very difficult and stressful. Eventually it all comes together, but yeah, a challenge. I still kind of dread changes to our schedule now for exactly the reason @Erin points out: 'a toddler's deep need for complete daily repetition (a REAL schedule, since they often have no flexibility) can be maddening!'

I just came across some daily routines I wrote out to manage the transition to a new situation. It made me smile to look at them (and to remember how important it was at the time), but I'm glad that as DS gets older it gets easier to wing it, even if it's only now and then.

[meggiemoo]

I love that you make the distinction between routine and schedule. Routine is key with my 2 kids, but scheduling is more important for my younger (2 y.o. DD) than my DS (5). She gets sleepy at almost exactly the same time every night. Her naps are very predictable.

My son, on the other hand, has fought schedules from day 1. He was a very inconsistent sleeper, eater, etc. Even today, he fights bedtime every night. He's not very tuned into his body, so can't tell that the reason he's feeling so badly is his need for food or sleep. It makes it much more challenging.

[J Morris]

The best advice we had was this: in the first few weeks and months, think of your baby as weather. Just because it rained at 7:30 yesterday, doesn't mean it will rain at 7:30 again today.

That said, my 11-week-old is being helped into a routine that seems to be working pretty well. Lights out at 9pm, no noise, talking or distractions. He still needs a feed during the night, but this is in the dark, and my wife wears headphones while she watches rubbish on TV. Nothing interesting here, might as well be asleep.

6am and I get up. Lights on, radio on, morning time! Feed, change, interact for a couple of hours while Mummy sleeps, and then it's off to work for Daddy.

This has all been achieved through negotiation with the baby. There's no schedule most of the time, but there's a routine emerging. This is our first, so we have absolutely no idea what we're doing, but we do know that the truth of our baby, and the truth of us as parents, means that we could never achieve anything rigidly fixed to a schedule. What an awful life that would be.

James

[Charisse]

I think there are babies *and adults* who are all along the spectrum of routine-dependence. Luckily for my non-routine husband and me, we got a non-routine baby too. Things did settle into more predictability around 4 months or so, but we've never had an absolute set mealtime or bedtime - we eat when people are hungry (scheduling around other stuff that's happening) and we go to bed when people are tired and/or things are done happening. Mouse has always been low-sleep-need in addition to being low-routine, so we've never worried about her not getting enough sleep (us, yes, at times!) and we were blessed with an early end to the hell of napping. Right now (much later days, she's almost 7) we're teaching her to be really aware of when she's hungry, which seems to be a bigger issue for her.

We eat breakfast between 8 and 10, lunch between 12:30 and 3, dinner between 6 and 8. Mouse can have a snack if she's hungry inbetween. Generally Mouse is in bed by 9:30 or 10, but if something interesting is going on we let her stay up a bit.

I'm just posting this for folks who find their baby doesn't care that much about routine and possibly they don't either. It is perfectly fine not to have one if your baby is cool with it. You might even consider that it would be useful to vary things, so your baby won't become dependent on a restrictive routine and make it hard when you want to switch things up. Just a perspective from one extreme.

[Oothoon]

My policy is: I don't expect from my baby anything that I wouldn't even expect from an adult.

I don't always go 3 or 4 hours (why is always 3 and 4 in these books?) without eating (OR drinking -- breastmilk is for thirst too). I don't sleep at the same time for same duration everyday. I don't eat the same amount of food everyday. I don't eat, play, and sleep in that order. I don't force feed myself a huge dinner in order to sleep longer.

Do I sleep and eat at random times? No, but I think in the end it's a matter of semantics, like Moxie said.

I've lurked on parenting forums that follow certain books/methods, and while those parents would say they're following a routine/schedule, they spend a huge amount of time tweaking and stressing -- because their babies just won't follow it to the letter. Then I realized their days probably looked a lot like mine, only I don't write everything down.

I think it's important to understand (1) what's typical for a baby that age and (2) the individual needs of your baby. For example, you need to know that a young baby usually can't stay up for longer than 1-2 hours, so you don't end up overtiring your baby, etc.

I follow my 6-month-old son's cues, keeping in mind everything I've read about the 'typical' baby. I put him to bed when he seems sleepy. I nurse him when he seems to want it, whether it's been 30 minutes or 3 hours since his last nursing. 90% of his life, he's gone to bed between 6:00-7:30pm without any difficulty. I don't sweat the few nights he went to bed at 5:30 or 8:30.

[Jennifer]

This post would have been invaluable to me had I read it before having kids. I definitely fell into the "I'm a terrible mother because I can't get my baby on a routine" hype with my first, who will be 4 on Wednesday. She was super colicky and fussy (she still is fussy!) and never slept. She did settle into a bedtime by around 2 months, but naps with her were always a guessing game. I was actually happy when she gave up napping shortly before turning 2 1/2. My youngest, now 20 months, also settled into a bedtime within 2 months, but has definitely shifted that bedtime within the last year. It was 6PM, but is now ~8:30PM. We put our oldest to bed at 9PM, but she rarely falls asleep before 9:30PM. I would say that our life now is pretty scheduled and we can even push the limits of that schedule a bit now that my youngest is turning the corner toward 2 years old. I should mention, too, that my oldest never ever ate on a schedule and that was really hard, too. My youngest did a bit better in that area.

I never had success with parent-led scheduling and most of the first two years of my oldest daughter's life were very "on-demand". It was a bit rough at times, but we've moved so far beyond that now that it's just a memory, and even a dim memory at that. My point, is that it gets better and the family as a whole moves through those challenging times.

[Carla Hinkle]

My kids are 7, 4, and 15 months. All of them fell into a routine at about 3-4 months. For the most part I just followed their lead, but I always did (do) try to encourage a reasonable bedtime routine, for my sanity as much as anything else.

[K]

10.5 months and we're still struggling for routine. We've got routine-ish around timing for bed, feeding, etc. Naps are pretty much a crap-shoot. The big problem for us is a complete lack of consistency in life rhythm. DH travels for work for 4 day stretches - sometimes over the weekend, sometimes during the week, sometimes home for 2 days then gone, sometimes home for over a week at a time. I WOH fulltime and the kid's in daycare on weekdays when daddy is gone and home with daddy when daddy is home. I'm too exhausted to try and fix the nighttime wake up problem and DH doing things differently than me when he's home doesn't help. How in the eff do you get consistency in the kid with a complete and utter lack of consistency around him?

[Rbelle]

Wow, I was just thinking of finally writing in with a question on this exact subject because ... well, at 6.5 months, there is still no routine. I'm not sure how much of this is my fault, and how much is my daughter's personality, but I do indeed feel like I've ruined her by more or less following (what I perceive to be) her cues. She was actually much more predictable at three months or so, when she'd wake up, go to sleep, and nap all around the same time, and for the same length of time. Attempts to follow what seems to be a workable pattern these days - say, taking her for a walk in the stroller around the same time every afternoon - go from wildly successful (she slept for two hours!) to disastrous (she screamed the entire time!) within a couple of weeks.

This is not to say we have no patterns. I try to keep what happens after she wakes up more or less the same on weekday mornings, and afternoons are for playing with the babysitter while Mommy gets work done in the other room. But how she feels about this varies from day to day. Sometimes, she plays happily for over an hour at a time. Other days she cries every 20 to 30 minutes until I come say hello or nurse her until she falls asleep. And the only routine thing about nighttime is that she won't go to bed without us, and will fall asleep a good 20 to 30 minutes after my husband and I would already prefer to be asleep ourselves. Except, of course, on those nights she decides she's tired enough to fall asleep nursing on the couch, in which case, we're able to relax and take her to bed with us an hour or so later, without her ever waking up. Unpredictable!

Honestly, I feel like this routine resistance probably all ties back to sleep - how much of it she's gotten, how tired she is or isn't, and whether she's napped for long stretches or short catnaps (common on the weekends, when my husband wears her in the carrier off and on all day while he does chores around the house). But "to resist sleep" is apparently her raison d'etre, and there is no getting her to if she doesn't want to (see above about suddenly hating the stroller).

Anyway, sorry this is so long, but I'm starting to go a bit bazoo. On the one hand, what's happening is more or less working for us right now - since my daughter goes to bed so late, we at least sleep in, and I catch up on lost sleep from night wakings. I'm reluctant to mess with that, especially since she doesn't seem to NEED routine as much as other babies (in fact, she often seems bored at home and LOVES going out and seeing new things). Then again, when I look ahead I can't imagine dealing with a toddler this unpredictable, and I feel like I should probably tackle some of these issues soon. I just don't even know where to start.

[charlene]

Rbelle, absolutely do NOT feel like you have ruined her! In fact, don't feel like you need to do anything about it -- it will probably fix itself, or else there's not much you can do about it.

My daughter, now 14 months, was a non-routine baby (which she totally gets from her dad). She did get on a (semi)routine around 9 or 10 months. Before that she would have times she was more likely to fall asleep than not, and she was usually pretty good at sleeping at night, but other moms would say things like "Oh, Jackie takes a nap around 9am" and I'd wonder what planet I was on that my child would take a nap at 8 or 9 or 10 or 11, depending on how the previous day and night had gone. And it made it worse I was following one of those sleep books that said Every Child Will Take A Nap At 9am and 1pm and If She Doesn't You're Not Doing Your Job. And my mom would keep asking if she was on a schedule yet. ARGH.

At 14 months she's transitioning to 1 nap and so we're back in non-scheduled territory for naps, actually, although at least now she falls asleep at a fairly consistent time.

Also, heh, that's funny that you try to have a bit of a routine -- I purposely try not to for activities because I don't want her getting the idea we always go to the park after lunch. (We got into a rut like that once and she SCREAMED if we didn't immediately go to the park. I didn't want to do that again.)

[Mama Fuss]

My oldest (now 3) put herself on a schedule/routine at 3 weeks old, I kid you not. She would take her naps at roughly the same time every day (she'd just pass out, if I didn't put her down for said nap), she ate at roughly the same time every day. She even woke during the night at the same time every night (within a 30-60 minute window). She is still very schedule-oriented, but it's more about a rhythm than watching the clock. She's flexible when she needs to be (and as long as you keep her busy, her naps and meals can be adjusted as needed) but she prefers and does best on her usual routine.

My baby (7 mos this week) is a little more "go-with-the-flow" and really only got into a predictable rhythm within the last couple months - somewhere between 5-6 mos. Before that, i just had to follow his cues to figure out if he was sleepy or hungry, etc. He also would have slept the first few weeks of his life away if I hadn't woken him regularly to feed him, but he got over that at about 1 month old.

[Kim]

My older one (coslept) through the night at 10 weeks. But, regular bedtime, waking and naps was a challenge for a long time. Part of the issue was likely that I work two days and the drive into civilization is an hour, so she would fall asleep there and back, which would throw her off. Her napping seemed to stabilize for a little bit around 8 months and then again about 13 months when she went down to one nap. But she was never the 2-3 hour napper that I'd heard about. At 3 1/2 she doesn't nap anymore and still has problems on her 'school days' getting to bed at her 'usual time.'

My second had absolutely no structured naps and bed for the first year. I thought I had it all figured out, but he was just a crappy sleeper. Somewhere around 13 months he randomly started to pretty much sleep through the night and take one solid nap a day. Put him down by himself and he's out. Unlike my older one, he's not as sensitive to the ride and maintains his 'schedule' even on 'school days.'

How much was me and how much them? And how much a combination? That's hard to determine. I always wonder if I could have done something different with #1, but she is pretty senstive overall and I think just got really impacted by being out of the home, even though it was only 2 days. But, that said, I also learned a lot through mistakes and trial and error, so who knows? Then with #2...that's still one big WTHeck for me? His first year was HORRIBLE. I knew more, but it didn't matter. With him, I'd have to say he worked it out when he was ready.

also I think overall temperament plays into this in the bigger picture, but more so after the first year.

[Charisse]

Oh @Rbelle, sweetie, my post above was totally for you! I feel your pain, but I also feel that most of your pain is coming from other people's expectations - it sounds like you all are doing great!!! Your daughter will get better and better at telling you what she needs, and then the fact that it doesn't go by the clock won't matter all that much. (Of course she may adjust and be more by the clock too.) :) But the baby that gets bored, likes new things, resists routine, doesn't want or necessarily need to nap that much? I had her. @caramama and @Cloud too, with their first ones. She turns into an inquisitive preschooler who hates and resists enforced rest time, and eventually into a schoolkid who can practice her music early and do her homework on the road so you can take her to a modern-dance dress rehearsal that goes past her bedtime, on a school night. And be fine the next day.

In the meantime, try to look at routines in the abstract - if she's impossible when she gets hungry, then carry food with you for whenever it happens; if she's ok without you as long as something really interesting is going on, then get the babysitter to take her out as much as possible. If she seems to need X amount of sleep but it doesn't really matter when, then just plan for a spot for her to bonk out.

Good luck!! I've had lots of fun with this type of kid once I stopped believing she'd be better off if she'd accept more structure. :)

[parisienne mais presque]

The way I see it, finding a routine with a baby serves two purposes:

1) Reassuring the baby that their needs will be met by giving them a structure so they can start to predict what comes next

2) Organizing the day predictably so that parents don't go insane

The first purpose of a routine doesn't tie you to the clock. It's more the art of reading your baby and progressively improving your algorithm to figure out when they're likely to be tired, hungry, or bored. Today may not look like yesterday (and in the first few weeks, I'm convinced the only constant for me are the dreadful dark circles under my eyes), but it's a good place to start, as you try/fail/modify slightly/try again.

The second purpose is more temporal, alas: the dreaded "schedule." Because darn it if it wouldn't be nice if you could predict with certainty that your kids will nap at the same time, or that your baby won't be hungry until you get back from a solo trip to the grocery store. Or maybe you need the schedule because you're working, or you're leaving the kid with an outside caregiver, or the million other reasons you need some rationality in your life.

The first is far more important to me, in the grand scheme of things. Even though I thrive on predictability and sleep, I, as a mostly rational adult, can work around a temporary lack of either one. The problem is, when you start reading Those Books and listening to Those People, you start fixating on the second. I try to keep it in perspective: yes, it's maddening to have no idea exactly how long my four-month-old's nap will last, but that's just part of what makes infants so adorably inconvenient (ha!). It's my problem, not hers, and no pass/fail grade on my parenting. If my routine however theoretical or unconventional meets purpose number one, she's doing just fine.

It helps me feel better, at any rate.

Now, for data points:

My firstborn was a high-needs infant and I was a truly clueless new parent. His bedtime settled pretty quickly -- at around six weeks, I think -- but it was so impossible to get him to nap in his crib at the beginning that I built a routine around going out for long walks or nursing him to sleep in my arms. That, and the fact that he would nurse every two hours exactly during the day until 7-8 months, is all I remember. The routine worked OK for me, sort of, but created some difficulty when I went back to work at nine months. The nanny tisk-tisked my first-time mom naiveté and got my son on a solid in-his-own-crib nap routine after three (challenging) weeks.

My daughter -- now almost four months -- has been a much better sleeper from the get-go. I also have a rough schema in my head of "how babies really sleep" so I've been able to recognize her routine as it has started developing. Recently she's started to stretch her nursing out to every 3-4 hours and consequently (O miracle!) to fall asleep on her own often without nursing down. (Although a good part of me -- sniff -- kind of misses that cuddling.)

Still, of her two (more rarely three) naps, one is usually 2+ hours, the other 45 minutes, and who knows which will be which. And who knows if she'll be up for the day at seven o'clock or at eight-thirty in the morning. I'm still on maternity leave so I can flow with this, mostly, luckily.

I guess what I want to say is that I love Moxie's distinction between "routine" and "schedule." Babies need routine, but schedules are for parents. Which doesn't make them any less important for our sanity, of course, but can help us avoid adding one more layer of guilt to our sleep-deprived, addled minds. Right?

[tryingtowork]

This post is incredibly well timed for me, as my 14-week-old doesn't have a good routine yet and it's just starting to stress me out. My first (now 3 1/2) was always fussy and a terrible sleeper, but I remember having her on a good routine by this time, even though it was a major struggle getting her to fall asleep or stay asleep on her own, something that she still can't do.

I basically agree with Oothoon about being loose, based on an understanding of what can be expected; and in general I tend to let the baby show me what s/he needs, then create a routine to fit. But right now it feels like the baby needs a little guidance from me.

So far, this one is the opposite of his sister in many ways--he is totally happy and easy, and has been perfectly fine with dozing off pretty much anywhere when tired. And he's doing some good long stretches of sleep at night, which his sister didn't do until she was...well, never.

But, his daytime sleep is a mess still--the only place he will stay asleep through the light-sleeping part of his cycle is in the moby wrap. So quiet at-home days while his sister is at school, when I hope to be able to get some work done, are incredibly frustrating. Get the baby down (easy! yay! I love this perfect baby!), pee and get a glass of water, open my computer, waste 10 minutes on some blog (ahem), and then I work for about 6 minutes before he's awake again. (crap! i will never again accomplish anything and will be a professional failure!)

On the other hand, maybe he's a bit better about things in general partly because I have been more relaxed and let him lead me more. So I don't want to suddenly get all schedule-y and mess him up by asking too much of him. I found with the first that the more I tried not to care about something being "right," the better it would go. I never achieved zen detachment about her sleep because it was just. so. incredibly. bad. But since his is passable, maybe I could?

Sorry for the long rant. Short version: getting a routine going feels like such a complicated dance, involving feedings, family schedule, and my own emotions, all on a moving train since he's changing so fast. I'm tempted to let it ride, but I worry that his super-short naps are the result, and they don't feel right.

[parisienne mais presque]

@Rbelle - sounds a lot like my son, and you know what? He's now, at 3.5, very routine-oriented and a very good sleeper, even though I wasn't doing anything the way I was "supposed to" at 6 months. It was harder on me than on him back then... heh!

I think that what some kids need more of is predictable caregiver interaction -- cuddles, nursing, walks in the baby carrier -- and what others need more of is temporal or spacial predictability (the same doggone thing in the same doggone place at the same doggone time), and if you're responding to the one your kid needs most of in a consistent way, you're doing great.

The only thing I regret is that I assumed that since I couldn't get my son to nap regularly in his crib at 3 or 4 months, I didn't try again at 9. Because even though trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is supposed to be the definition of insanity, it can be oddly clever when you're a parent. (Also when you're a software engineer, by the way.)

[Cloud]

@Emmie hit on a good point- even with healthy, term babies, we had an honest to god schedule for the first couple of days, in that we would wake them up to feed if they slept longer than 4 hours. I think there is a place for scheduling there- my first, in particular, was just a super sleepy newborn. Add to that her super skinny genetics/high metabolism- and yeah, we had to force things a bit early on.

But after that, I'm firmly in the "follow the baby's lead" camp. The first needed some help to find her routine, but once we found it, it was a godsend and she really, really needed us to follow it. Only now (she's almost 4) do we feel OK with varying some aspects of her routine. (@Charisse- she's like your Mouse in needing far less sleep than other babies seemed to, but she definitely needed her routines, especially early on. And I totally agree with you that the things that drive you bonkers about your baby often turn out to be wonderful in your preschooler! Hang in there @Rbelle, follow your gut, and ignore anyone who tells you you're somehow "messing" your kid up!)

Our second (18 months) is way more freeform. She didn't settle into a true nap routine until she was almost a year old. I just about drove myself nuts trying to set up her routine before I realized that she didn't really want one. Even now, she doesn't mind it much if her routine gets disrupted. But she also throws her sleep routine out the window sometimes on her own, leaving me confused (and tired).

[scharkey]

My second is 6 mos and she is definitely settling into a routine. She sleeps about 12 hrs at night (lucky me! another good sleeper!) and takes 2-3 40 min naps per day. I keep hoping the naps will get longer, now!, but I guess I will have to wait on that. My first started to settle in around 4 mos - once I figured out she didn't want to sleep after nursing.

[RG]

My 10 1/2 month old is on a pretty regular routine - at least for bedtime and morning wake up. However this Saturday our daylight savings kicks in (we move the clocks backward one hour) - which will mean his perfectly manageable 6.45am wake up will be 5.45am - way too early...

Anyone got any advice on how to manage this...?

[BiteSizeTherapy]

Data point - On a schedule about 4 months.

General point - Routines and schedules can be great. But, isn't it true that once you have kids, you never really know how your day will go....ever again?!

[Cloud]

@RG, we generally try to move towards the "new" time in about 15 minute increments, starting with changing dinner time the night before. It has worked well for us, but transitions at under 1 year suck more.

And this year, it snuck up on us and we just switched all at once, and nothing bad happened. The routine-craving kid is old enough now to roll with it, and the younger kid just doesn't seem to mind.

[Kathy B]

So - when I read the title to this post, I laughed! Really, right out-loud, here in the office. (People already think I'm a bit odd, so it's OK!)

I agree, routine is very important. Beyond that, it's personal preference what 'structure' or 'schedule' you put to it, but do NOT expect an infant to understand that it is precisely 11:00 and they must nurse x amount of time then fall directly asleep. Can we follow those kind of stringent rules? I know I can't. All I can remember is that by the time my kid was about 2 years old, she would go to bed for me at 7:30 without a fuss. (She didn't nap; the babysitter would make her play quietly in a playpen, but she didn't sleep.) Anyway, I picked my battles. The things that were important to me I stressed, other than that - eh . . whatever (The important things to me were values, morals, respect etc.) Dang - I'm all over the place with this reply. Sorry - bottom line: infants - do the best you can and just be happy when they DO sleep, eat, poop, whatever! As they get older, schedule becomes more important (time to get up for school, homework, etc.)

OK - enough; my 'kid' is now 30 years old, and I'm not so sure that she has a schedule to this day!

Hang in there new moms, whatever is bothering you now will be replaced by something else to fret over in the near future. And at the end of it all, none of it will really matter all that much.

[Elaine]

It's tough for me to pinpoint when my son got on a predictable schedule because he started at daycare around 12 weeks and that kind of forces them into a schedule a bit. I would say that he really settled into a routine around 6 months. Naps started to get a bit more consistent and he was eating at the same times every day. He's always been pretty spot on with bedtime, going down at almost exactly the same time every day.

He's almost a year old now and everything is pretty set within about 15-20 minutes of wiggle. Sometimes he gets up 30 minutes early but he'll still have his bottle first then but wait until almost 8am for breakfast. It's kind of nice to have some predictability and he seems to be the type of kid that thrives on the routine and knowing what comes next. I think that's why we've been so successful with a bedtime routine for him. He likes to know what's coming.

[Jennie]

I am not a very routine-oriented person, but when my first was born (8 1/2 years ago!), I seemed to have these voices in my head saying "A good mother gets her baby on a schedule." I didn't have any friends with kids, so those voices were coming from people whose children had been grown for many years. It was SO not helpful. Somehow I got my entire worth as a mother tied up in my baby's schedule or lack thereof. Awful, especially because I did not have a baby who either a) fell easily into his own routine or b) accepted the routine I tried to foist upon him.

By the time baby #2 came along, #1 was 14 months and he was in a routine. I think the routine really fell into place around 6 months, but he really isn't a kid who is married to his routine even now at 8. My daughter was much easier and she adapted to the household nap routine pretty much right away. They napped at the same time until they were 3 & 4 which was great.

#3 has had to go with the flow because, by the time he came along, everyone else was busy with activities, etc, so his naps have always been catch as catch can! The only "routine" things he demands now are getting dressed as soon as he wakes up and having a bath before bed.

[chanel J12 watches]

I have a baby already, a girl baby , so cute

[Molly (First the Egg)]

What an interesting question.

In some ways we had a routine from day three or so, in terms of which adult did what in roughly what sequence, what parts of the day were things to anticipate happily, etc.--a routine for us (the new parents, as parents), not for the baby really. The comforting sense that things are going basically how they're meant to go, or at least that the important stuff's happening: everybody's eating, everybody who needs to get to work is getting to work, everybody's getting at least enough rest so we can all still love each other.

We didn't have a SCHEDULE, like approximate times for naps and bed and getting up, until he was about a year old.

But the routine/schedule has always been flexible and changing. So we've had a basic sense of rhythm from quite early on, but very little sense of month-to-month or season-to-season predictability ever (and he's now nearly five). I suspect that's a reflection of how all three of us tend to live in the world and how we negotiate our own and each other's needs together, rather than saying much about developmental stages or anything like that, though.

[ARC]

As a first time mom I was pretty clueless when BabyT was a newborn, and I didn't realize I had to help her sleep. So we just let her stay awake for hours and waited for her to fall asleep on her own. (And then wondered why 6pm onwards was a mess of wretched screaming.)

We also figured out that nursing her was the first thing to try when she was upset - she was nearly always hungry. So the first 4 or 5 months was just a blur of nursing on demand.

At some point in the first 8 weeks I skimmed "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child" and ignored the annoying parts, but took away that she shouldn't be awake for more than 2 hours at the time. So we kept an eye on the clock and looked out for yawning and baby zombie eye, and put her down for a nap posthaste.

Apparently this worked like magic because once she started sleeping more during the day, she started sleeping loooong stretches at night (she was also an ENORMOUS baby, which I think helps).

Somewhere around 5 months, this stopped working, and we figured out she liked to nap twice a day, and it was pretty much at the same times. Our girl is definitely one for a routine.

We had to force the transition to one nap at 12.5 months when she started daycare so we had a couple of rough weeks there, but now she's settled in nicely. Nap is nearly always by the clock regardless of what time she gets up in the am.

Since I'm a very schedule-oriented person, this predictability works for me too, so I guess we got lucky :)

[Nell]

I agree with the distinction between routine and schedule for babies, but think a schedule (i.e., naps and bedtime) becomes important from toddler-age onwards. I was always really strict about when our child needed to sleep, and think it did a lot to cultivate a cheerful child with good sleep habits. Now that he's in school, I see a lot of kids who are not getting enough sleep. He's in bed by 8 pm, unless it is something super-special.

[Tina]

I thought S would come with her own pre-programmed routine--you know, sleep when she was sleepy. Was I ever wrong! I had to learn that she needed help to shut out the world and fall asleep, and I had to figure out her routine and work with it. At about 3 months I saw a pattern: nap 1 was 2 hours after she woke, nap 2 in the afternoon, nap 3 in the early evening.

By 6 months, she dropped a nap and I had to re-figure it all out. Plus I finally created a bedtime routine (instead of waiting for her to fall asleep or just taking her to bed with me). That helped my sanity a lot.

Now, at almost 18 months, I know she naps just the once, after being up for about 4 hours. And I know a nap is needed, and a bedtime routine is needed, and most days she's down with a little rocking in about 10 minutes (although still up 3 X a night--SIGH!).

All to say: You figure it out, eventually. I'm a routine kind of person, so finding S's routine helped me ensure she slept enough, ate enough, played enough, and ensured I kept my sanity and knew how to fill my days.

That said, don't listen to the "experts" who tell you to put baby on a routine. It took me forever to figure out a routine that worked for us, and S is perfectly happy and fine. And a friend of mine has 2 kids who had no routine at all until the eldest started school--and they found a routine when they needed to. They're happy and fine.

Trust your instincts, believe in yourself, love your baby, just get through each day as best you can. It's a hard job, and expert advice is often just blanket advice that doesn't fit your kid, your life or your beliefs. We've all been there--and we all get through it! It's OK. You'll be fine!

[Rbelle]

So glad I came back to read the comments. Thanks everyone so much for the support. Having read Moxie for years before having a kid, I honestly thought I'd be a much more relaxed first-time parent. But despite not reading any parenting/sleep books besides the Wonder Weeks, I've managed to internalize quite a few mainstream messages anyway - one of which is that if your child isn't on a predictable (and early) routine, she must be miserable. While my daughter SEEMS quite ok without much routine, there's a part of me that's worried I'm missing something big - like that she needs an earlier bedtime (she won't stay asleep without us) or that I should be putting her down "drowsy but awake" for naps (she won't go to sleep without help), and if only I would work a little on these things, she would magically become a different, more predictable, "happier" baby. But given that she is already so different than the "typical" baby, and that we willingly do a lot of things that Those People/Books say not to (not only do we co-sleep, but I still put my daughter on my chest when she gets restless at 4 a.m.) it just seems like it's not worth the hassle of trying to force change.

It's so good to hear that I'm not the only one with a child who prefers more flexibility, and that maybe I don't have to rush out and get a bunch of sleep/scheduling books after all.

[Annie]

This is such a blessing to me right now. My second daughter is just 4 weeks and I was feeling guilty about not having her on a schedule yet but after these past few days of trying to start a schedule I think a routine is a better place to start with this kiddo! Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and experiences!

[Jenni]

My little one is 6 months old and hasn't really settled into a routine. I mostly follow his lead, and he has some general patterns to how things go in a day. He generally gets up between 6:30 and 8:30 in the morning. He is up for 1-2 hours and then he's ready for a nap. He's a highly distractible daytime nurser, so I usually try to catch him going to sleep, sleeping, or just waking up to feed him. His morning nap is usually 30-60 minutes long. Generally 2-3 hours after he wakes up from his morning nap, he's ready to sleep again, and the afternoon nap lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. He may or may not take a nap in the early evening, and that affects his bedtime. We do have a consistent bedtime routine.

My sense is that he'll continue to be a child with patterns and loose routines, but one that will buck against rigid schedules. I find it easier to cue on his needs than to fight with him to be on a specific schedule.

[Oothoon]

Rbelle, how many naps did your daughter take when she was more predictable? Maybe she's transitioning from 4 naps to 3 naps -- or from 3 naps to 2 naps? It happens around this age.

My son is almost 7 months old, and for a while his days were really wonky. He started being able to stay up longer between naps, but seemed conditioned to take 4 naps a day. That pushed his bedtime later, but he would still get up in the mornings at his usual time, so he had less night-time sleep and was cranky about it. Long story short, he eventually transitioned from 4 naps to 2-3 naps on his own and is much more predictable now.

[Chanel Watch J12]

thanks for your post , I like it very much

[Renee]

My son, now 3, just sort of fell into a routine and would gradually do the "normal" milestones. My daughter is 12 months right now and she was the opposite. Never slept, ate constantly, was "colicky" for lack of a better term of constant crying and screaming. It was hell for the first 3-4 months. By then we had realized I had to majorly restrict my diet which really helped to calm her. As for sleep in the beginning she was held almost constantly and would fall asleep only while being held. About 5-6 months she started to be awake for longer and then it was awful trying to figure out naps. She would get so fussy I knew she needed to sleep but she was still not going to sleep on her own. I would walk her around until she was asleep then lay her down. Then about 6 months she wanted to lay down when she was almost asleep and she'd roll over and go to sleep - that only lasted about 3 weeks. Then she didn't know what she wanted again. At that same time I started really watching her closely and about 7 months as soon as she'd yawn - which was about 1 -2 hours after she woke up - I'd quickly snatch her up and say we are going nigh night now and nurse her and lay her down. She was nearly asleep when I nursed her so I would just lay her down and she was asleep. Now here are the problems - if she was not really tired she would cry as soon as I laid her down. If she did not eat or suck long enough she would cry when I laid her down. Bottom line she was a tension increaser and would not calm herself down. So some days were better than others. With her the more and better she slept each day - the more and better she slept each day... that may sound weird but if she didn't sleep well for her naps you would think she would be tired and sleep well at night but she did NOT. She would be fitful and not sleep well all night long. Usually after that she would be so tired she'd nap great the next day and then the cycle started over again. So what I learned and what I did - finally just realized that nothing was more important than all of us getting good sleep - I stayed home a lot. Tried to closely watch her during the day so I could hit that "sleep window" and didn't stress if I had to wear her (Ergo) or rock or hold her a lot. Didn't stress or feel guilty about any of it. Tried to enjoy the time and realized that she will not be a baby forever and I will not be rocking her to sleep or holding her when she'd in junior high so I KNOW she will not be doing this forever. And realized that she is a well loved and so far well adjusted baby because of all the love she is receiving. She is not a spoiled child (well not yet anyways lol). We did not make her sit and scream for hours just to make her soothe herself - she has NEVER calmed herself down and sometimes just being with her helps her to calm down. Bottom line is she is getting better everyday at everything. It's hard being a baby! Love them and give yourself a break!!

[Alexicographer]

If there was one thing that I got out of the early days of parenting an infant it was that there was no sense going looking for problems/difficulties that I wasn't having ... if it was working, why sweat it?

I forget how much of a schedule/routine we had, but we muddled along pretty well. There was the (lovely and well-intentioned) co-worker who warned me that if we didn't move DS's crib out of our room SOON he would never sleep well (once we did move him); for us, this wasn't true -- we kept it there 'til he was 15 months old (mostly out of laziness/disorganization related to a remodel we'd undertaken when he was tiny -- what were we thinking? -- and our failing to move the furniture we'd stashed in his room back out), and basically the only difference moving him to his own room meant was that he slept through the night instead of waking once @~4 a.m., presumably because the (minor) noises we made woke him.

And losing the nap at ~3 years saddened me, but it was that or he didn't fall asleep 'til 11 p.m., so no nap became the lesser of 2 trials.

@Fentia my setup's been like yours, with no problems. From 2 months - 3 years DS was (mostly) with some blend of me, DH, and grandma MWF (and Sa/Su) and in a paid childcare setting Tu/Th. Now he's in preschool 4 days/week for 4 hours/day and with grandma or dad otherwise; 2 nights/week my DH is out of the house and DS and I are solo, and I've declared one night/week to be my night out, so he and DH are solo. And it's all good (except when it's not, but that's pretty rare). DS is pretty easy going, but whether that's an effect, a cause, or simply a blessing I couldn't tell you.

[Kristie]

I feel like the word to best describe life with a newborn is "rhythm". Before there is anything that can be called a routine there seems to be a rhythm or pattern to how they behave at certain times of day.

Now, with my first I don't think I ever noticed much of a rhythm and she wasn't on any real routine for quite some time. I think b/c I wasn't very good at reading her cues and also b/c I just adusted myself to what was going on with her.

The second and third babies fell into a noticeable rhythm very early, about 4 weeks of age, then into a more structured routine once the naps settled down, maybe aout 4-5 months. A lot of that probably has to do with them being folded into the routine already set up for the older kids.