- Plan your day (and outings) around your baby’s sleep times (as opposed to her feeding times). Anticipate when she will need to nap and work around that. Try to avoid interrupting baby’s naps, and try to be home for at least one long nap each day. Where possible, try to keep baby’s weekend routine similar to her week routine.
- Catch the sleep wave – watch out for signs of tiredness and put baby down to sleep when you see that she is sleepy.
- Try to establish an early bedtime (6-8pm) for babies over 6 weeks (babies under 6 weeks have a naturally later bedtime).
- Try to develop a soothing bedtime routine to give baby a chance to relax and wind down before sleeptime. This may include a bath, massage, reading a story, singing lullabies, feeding and cuddling. Routine helps to set baby’s “biological clock.”
- Try to keep to regular feed- and sleep times, and try to keep events like bath, massage, walks in the pram, at more or less the same time each day. Don’t worry if you have no sleep routine for the first 6 weeks.
- Babies this young don’t have a fully developed circadian (day-night) rhythm yet. Circadian rhythm slowly starts developing between 6 and 16 weeks. Most babies switch day and night in the first weeks. They like to sleep all day and then wake up every hour during the night. This problem usually corrects itself.
- You can help establish a day-night routine by differentiating night and day – keep the environment quiet and dark during the night, and light and active during the day.
- Remember to adapt your routine as your baby grows. A newborn’s routine will be very different from that of a six-month-old baby. Try not to be rigid about routine – you’ll have to be flexible at times. Changes in your routine (going on holiday, moving house etc.) will probably upset baby’s sleep routine. This is especially true for babies between four and six months.
- It may be wise to keep as many elements of your baby’s normal routine during the disrupted phase, such as his bedtime routine. Try to keep to his usual awake times between daytime naps as well.
- Try to return to your normal routine as soon as possible after the disruption. Accept that no two days will be identical. Just when you think you have it all figured out, things change. Be philosophical about this. Your post-baby routine will be dramatically different from your pre-baby routine.
- Be gentle, be patient. Make gradual changes. If mum-and-baby classes, shopping, visiting friends etc. interfere with baby’s naps every day, try to tone things down a little. Keep your daily routine simple and avoid too many hectic days. I have learnt this from my three children: if you disrupt their routine, they will disrupt yours.
- Some people need a lot of structure and order to be content. Others prefer going with the flow. There is no right and wrong – you have to decide what works for you and your family. Don’t agonise and obsess about routine. It will come. Remember that getting to know your baby takes time. Establishing a routine takes time. Life takes time.
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