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When to start a baby routine

My experience indicates that babies don't start to surface between sleep cycles (the process of drifting between light and deep sleep) until they reach 6kg/13.2lbs, which is usually around 8 to 16 weeks. This is why you can aid a newborn baby to sleep and he will still sleep for a long period, however when he starts to surface between the sleep cycles, he will start to catnap during the day. Then at around 8kg/17.6lbs, which is often around five to seven months, he will start to wake between night time sleep cycles.

This is why I recommend starting to establish a baby routine so early, as it will prevent sleep problems occurring. So by week two, it is important to be developing some sort of sleeping and feeding routine.

For years, health professionals have been debating the pros and cons of a baby routine, but the one factor they always agree on, is that young children and babies feel safe and secure when they know what and when things are going to happen.

You will notice I have different routines for babies who are bottle-fed and breast-fed until eight weeks. This is because the routines before eight weeks are based on the mother's needs not the baby's needs. A breast-feeding mother needs to feed her baby more often in the first eight weeks to build up a good supply of breast-milk.

Tip: If you are breastfeeding with one or two expressed milk feeds or formula-feeds in a bottle then you should follow the breast-feeding routines. If you are feeding all bottles of expressed-milk then you should follow the bottle-feeding routines but express at the times on the breast-feeding routines.

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• Why Baby routines?
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• Getting out and about on a baby routine
• The Dreamfeed
• Routine FAQs