I'm sure it's been asked a million times

Anne_cordelia

I say cuddle the **** out of that baby. They only stay small for such a short time. Cuddle cuddle cuddle. Let them sleep on you. They will need to be going to bed before you soon enough as the tv and other noises start disturbing them.

fits

For me anyway trying to get them to settle away from me for their naps and sleeps would have broken me! Thank god for boobs and cosleeping. I genuinely was relatively well rested despite our challenges. ( although we didn’t start bedsharing until week 7)

If I had a newborn again I’d do a lot more skin to skin from the start. It was difficult to manage it with the two.

maxsmum

This thread is a prime example of how everybody has opposing advice and you'll be driven up the wall if you try to listen to everyone.
Just follow your own instinct.
And all that leap stuff is a load of rubbish. It's just a rollercoaster, try and stay on, all will be fine.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Electric Nitwit wrote: »

I can't claim any expertise compared to that (one 1yr old) but if you let them sleep on you as you say, would they not form a stronger bond with you, and be a more content baby? I genuinely don't know, but I'd like to think so. And if so I think sacrificing my sleep is a price well worth paying

Well from our experience, specifically mine, there was no issues with going from sleeping on me to putting him down to bed. It's not going to work with everybody, but it can work. Bonding is incredibly important and I am sure that it has helped a significant amount I think the sacrifice in sleep is well worth the well being of my child.

maxsmum wrote: »

This thread is a prime example of how everybody has opposing advice and you'll be driven up the wall if you try to listen to everyone.
Just follow your own instinct.
And all that leap stuff is a load of rubbish. It's just a rollercoaster, try and stay on, all will be fine.

Who's opinion piece did you read that told you that? Children go through mental and physical leaps. We are all ok with the physical leaps (growth spurts, vision change, motor development. teething) what's the issue with the mental leaps? As I said before, we found it to be quite accurate. The most accurate was when it suggested in week XX, that our child will start stacking things vertically, low and behold, that week we noticed him stacking items (blocks, toys, things in the garden, his food). It's mostly passive information, you don't have to do anything per say. It's information to help you understand what's going on with your child and how you can help (what games you can play etc).

Is it a wonder why we have such an issue with mental illness in Ireland when we are so dismissive? Just as your body develops, so does your brain. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make it nonsense.

Sorry about that

Congratulations Limerick, wonderful time for you both; can also be a little bit devastating in it’s own way too!

You will both figure out what works best for you, and as you can see from the replies here, it’s not an exact science! Lots of love, and both parents on the same page is a great start; what works in one family will be seen as horrific in another, trust me! (I was very attachment-y, but it was not a plan, just happened).

It may seem unrelated, but if you have some support to help with other bits, like laundry, or a couple of dinners, it’ll help you both get through those (sometimes upside down) early days. Take the help.

Neyite

Congratulations!

Another vote for no routine and let them lead you in what they need. We also did the cuddle to sleep stuff here, but he was colicky so needed it.

One thing I learned was that in the womb the motion when the mother is active (during the day usually) would rock the baby to sleep, and they would often have a lot of their waking time when it was quieter at night. So they come out basically nocturnal and doing what Shesty says of dimming the lights in the evening, and having normal household sounds around during the day will soon phase them out of being nocturnal.

I tried (and failed) to get my son into a routine. It all went swimmingly until about 4pm and then the book and the baby diverged so far from each other the book could have been describing an entirely different species. What I did find around 3-4 months, that he did have his own routine, just not one specified in the books, I just accidentally found it out by noting the sleeps and feeds and changes. We went with that one instead and both of us were far happier!

So for the first few months anyway, go with the flow. Get used to your new arrival and let them get used to your home and you. By all means, try things you think sound like a good idea and have researched but ultimately go with what suits your baby and you as parents.

You'll find (generalising here) that it's often the older generation are mad about routines and strict feeding schedules. And they also often have outdated advice that was 'correct' at their time of new parenting but evidence has since emerged that has changed those guidelines - like positioning them in the cot, the amount of layers you put on a baby etc. They want to help, they did it a certain way in their day and they remember what it was like to be a bit clueless and out of your depth so it is usually well meaning and trying to be helpful but it can be a bit annoying. I found that saying something like "thanks, but the public health nurse said to do it this way" usually fobbed off a lot of their outdated instructions in a nice way.

wildwillow

Cuddles are important and some babies, eg with colic, need holding upright on the shoulder for periods after feeding.

But it is important for a baby to learn to put themselves to sleep and self soothe. The danger of always falling sleep in your arms is that they never learn and get distressed when they wake somewhere else. Putting the baby down after a good cuddle, and keeping it close by, even quietly talking to them, is a way of leading them into this routine.

Every baby is different and you know what is best. There are no hard and fast rules and it is true you can't spoil a baby. But you can allow it to have expectations of how things are done so try to steer him or her towards what you can live with. And in new babies, enough sleep is essential. Usually the more they sleep the better.


In a few years you will appreciate a sleeping routine when you can put a toddler to bed and he or she is happy to sing and talk to themselves and get to sleep naturally.

If a baby never learns this you will spend hours rocking them and staying in the room when they are bigger. But some babies and children will never develop a sleep pattern, and it is not your fault.

catch--22

Congrats on your arrival. We have an 8 week old boy - our first. So this is not advice, but it's what we've done in the last 8 weeks for better our worse.

We decided that for the first 6 weeks anything goes. If he's hungry he gets fed. If he cries we cuddle him. When he wants to nap we let him. No routine. This also worked better for our mental health we think.

Now that we're through those crazy 6 weeks we have started a morning and evening routine - but this is only for our benefit at the moment. We don't expect him to be aware of it but we find it helps us in the morning and evenings now that I'm back in work. We give him a bath and a feed and try to get him to sleep in the evenings and allow us to eat together (some nights). The hot weather is playing havoc on his ability to settle but some nights it has been great.

I will say this about letting your baby sleep on you; ours is only 8 weeks old and I already crave the memory of when he would fit perfectly on my chest in a tiny ball and sleep away. They grow so quick and I don't care if its given him a bad habit. I love those cuddles.

bee06

catch--22 wrote: »

I will say this about letting your baby sleep on you; ours is only 8 weeks old and I already crave the memory of when he would fit perfectly on my chest in a tiny ball and sleep away. They grow so quick and I don't care if its given him a bad habit. I love those cuddles.

This is so true. I have an 18 month old and I miss when he used to nap on me when I was on maternity leave. If I’m lucky I might get on nap once a month at the weekend now.

looksee

Children are different, babies are different. Even babies within one family are different. My first two were perfect, textbook babies. Slept when I wanted them to, ate all around them, didn't get sick, perfect. I am a genius I thought.

The next one disabused me of this. She didn't sleep, she screamed most of the night and was an angelic charmer during the day. She didn't eat. She was nearly three before we settled down at all and even as a teen she was a picky eater and could stay up half the night. There may have been reasons, possibly food allergy related but there was not the same awareness at the time.

Take each one as they come and do your best. In 5 or 10 years time it will all be a distant memory and new issues will come to frazzle you.

shesty

Excellent posts there!!Our first was the tough one, but equally, the arrival of your second, especially if it is close in age to your first, makes you change.Because some of what works when you have one child is utterly bloody useless when you have a second and a toddler to contend with!!

Our theory was the same as catch 22....anything goes to six weeks (except always with the dark room at night), bath/bed routine and a morning dressing routine round 6 weeks on and then gentle intro of nap routine from about 10/12 weeks on.They just seem to settle much better into it at that age,and you become better at reading them.The only other thing I would say is that I always tried to get them to start the night in their basket at the very least-so "bedtime", they always went into their basket beside me, but after nightime feeds they usuall ended up in with me-mostly because they were so bloody windy, they grunted themselves awake in the basket.But that was just my kids, others settle fine!!!

Bell Eve

Congratulations! I’ve got a 10 month old little girl so I’m still learning too

From birth we cuddled and let her sleep on us during the day if she happened to fall asleep on us. If she fell asleep in the pram etc., she slept there. At night time we took her to bed when she was ready, not when we wanted her to. She had a great routine and always went into her cot and settled herself to sleep even if fully awake before hand! She was amazing! She even started sleeping for 12 hours at night with only a 15minute wake up for a feed in that time.

And then she turned six months old! We went on a holiday to visit my husband’s family and she was fine. She stuck surprisingly well to her routine. We arrived home and BOOM! Waking three, four, five times a night. Crying and taking 30-60 minutes to settle each time. Four months on and she’s down to waking once or twice but only requiring a quick shhh or a cuddle.

All babies are different! Mine had a fantastic sleep routine and then it all went wrong. Follow your little girl’s lead and just enjoy this time!

kylith

I'll echo what everyone says here: don't worry about routines at a week old. Feed on demand, and my PHN said to wake every 3 hours to feed until over birthweight.

When it comes to napping, I did try to not let my little nap on me. What I would do is feed until she went to sleep, then wait for the floppy-arm-stage, about 10 minutes, then wrap her in a warmed swaddle (I put it over my lap under my duvet) so that the cool blanket in her moses basket didn't wake her.

We're at 9 months now, almost. She slept all night for a while, currently she isn't, but we'll get there again. Take one day at a time and remember; no-one really knows anything, all babies are different.

Sheepdish1

Congrats OP

I fed baby when baby wanted to feed and didn't stick to any routine in terms of naps for the first few months. I would have kept close eye when baby was sleeping and placed in a newborn snoozpod a few feet away from my bed

I cuddled baby with skin on skin contact if needed. baby was in my arms a lot as I you can't ''spoil'' a newborn imo, they are just so tiny I had to be super careful not to fall asleep with baby in the bed so always put baby in its newborn snoozpod when I felt very tired. I always put baby on back to sleep and never sleep in carseat.

Best of luck

Sheepdish1

Oh I used to go back to sleep in the morning when the baby was sleeping too.

annoyedgal

The newborn phase is gone in a flash. Savour it fully and enjoy every minute of your own tiny human sleeping on your shoulder ! Read up about the 4th trimester as it explains a lot about newborn sleep and behaviour. And anyone who talks to you about routine with a one week old is not being helpful or realistic.

evil_seed

Congrats from a new parent also. Our girl is 2 months old now. Those 2 months flew past so try and savour every moment possible.
What worked for us was feed when they want it, doesn't matter the time. Have them sleep on you if that works. Nothing has come close to that feeling of my daughter snuggling up to me for comfort and protection.

Give 2 fingers to the "experts" and do whatever works for you. We're only starting to try and build a routine now

LegacyUser

Contrary to many here we started to build routine from about 4 days old (when we switched from breastfeeding to bottle feeding basically). We both felt it’s important to get a routine in early in order to make things easier for ourselves, especially at night as I work away during the week a lot of the time so my wife is minding him alone.

From about 4 weeks on we had pretty much got the feed times the same every day plus/minus an hour with 6 feeds a day. Just gone 8 weeks now and it’s 5 feeds a day at pretty much the same times every day, 4 to 5 hours between feeds. He generally is happy to go the 5 hours between feeds but there is usually one feed we might do after 4 to realign or feed times again and so the last feed at night isn’t too late (generally at around midnight). Someone he might act hungry after say 3 hours but we comfort him with a souther and get him up to the 4 hours at least, aside from the fact it would mess up the feed times routine it’s also too much milk when he is on the bigger sized bottles and he would end up spitting up (a thing he does very little of on the routine we have). He has been sleeping 4 to 5 hours a row at night for many weeks now thankfully with this routine so it means just getting up once at night.

Other things like baths, once a week unless a bad nappy (I saw someone mention a bath every night, that’s far too often and not advisable for a new born - we like to stretch it out to the week as baths are hassle especially as I’m away most of the week.

As for holding him up, my wife and I are having a bit of two and fro on this. I don’t want to spoil him and for our own sanity I think he needs to be able to sleep in the buggy or cot and settling in the cot or bouncer so I push for this whereas my wife will just hold him up and let him sleep so he is getting a bit of both in that line. The advise we get from family members who work in areas with babies is try not to get them too used to being comforted in your arms for long periods. That being said I don’t leave him crying or anything either and would let him fall asleep up but then I put him down quickly after.

Night feeds we found staying in the bedroom made it harder for us so he is brought down stairs, changed on the changing table and fed in the living room. It gives the person feeding a chance to watch some tv also and as we alway keep him sitting up 30 mins after a feed to help digest so it would be a long time sitting in bedroom with no proper chair. It also helps the other person to get some sleep though not a major issue as I’m not there few days or sleep in the other room for work and at weekends my wife tends to sleep in a different room to get better sleep and I do the night feed.

One thing we both agree on is a big no no is sleeping in our bed and this is something we plan on enforcing at all ages, we might bring him in from his cot for few mins for a cuddle before getting him on a weekend morning but that’s it, he sleeps in his cot or the buggy and into his own room by 6 months at the latest even before if we feel he is ready.