sample routine @3months

Can anyone help me out with a sample routine for their 3 month old? I am a bit confused as to how long to keep my ds awake as he sometimes can only manage 40mins to 1hour still before he gets fussy and needs to sleep. Is that normal? However he then only catnaps, so was wondering how to make the change to a longer wakey time and a longer nap particularly over midday. Any suggestions?

Completely normal for him to need to sleep after being awake for an hour at this stage. With my little one I found it was best to put her down for a nap at the first yawn or eye rub - if I left it too long she was much harder to settle. The short naps are also pretty typical at this stage, and nothing we did really helped - she just seemed to develop the ability to nap for longer periods once she hit 5-6 months.

Routine for us at the minute seems to be napping for an hour before each 8oz bottle. Takes five 8oz bottles between 7am and 7pm. Would also nap if we are out in car or pushchair. In saying that I haven't really committed myself to a solid nap routine if he's fussing at other times I'd put him down for a nap.

Thanks, I won't stress too much yet then! I tried to get dd on a routine which worked but i've no time to do it with ds as iv a 3 yr old to look after too. He sleeps well at night, wakes once in 12 hours so he is doing ok, but i was worried of spoiling him during the day as they say from 3 months they are getting cute. Sometimes when i lift him after a half hour nap he is still groggy and grumpy and if i try settle him again he screams blue murder until i feed him. I give in always and i guess he knows it as my 3yr old stresses when he cries so its almost like i spend my days spoiling ds to minimize crying! We were working on the E.A.S.Y. routine since birth and when he wakes he just expects food, even if he had the last drink only an hour before. I feel hes not really drinking then as he isn't hungry, yet he will scream if i don't offer it, won't play or be otherwise amused.. feel like i am sitting under him..

I'm not far behind you. Have a 9 week old and started the EASY routine last week. It's hard to know what to do as sometimes I get a two hour nap and other times more often than not a 45 min nap and LO also can be a nightmare to resettle after 45 mins. Does your LO go down for a nap ok.. Have you done sshh pat or do you need to? I'm going off topic but just wondering if it gets easier to put them down. I could be half an hour getting him to settle and I always start the wind down after the first yawn.

My boy is coming up on twelve weeks and will not sleep during the day unless on me or when I'm out and about. At that, most days it's just cat naps, half an hour at he very longest. Once a week he may conk and get a good 2 and a half hours but never more than 15 mins if I put him down in his crib. He has about four 5/6oz bottles between 7:30 am and 7:00 pm, another at around eleven and then will wake any time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am for another bottle. I'd love to get him sleeping through the night and some say he's not drinking enough during the day but if I try to maximise the amount he's drinking during the day, he'll just drink about 3oz at every feed instead. Any advice on how to get him to eat more at daytime and less at night? Do I just keep persevering with putting him down for daytime naps? He screams blue murder if I do!

Thanks, glad i'm not alone! I guess its pretty normal behaviour so Yes i know isabella123, i just got a 2hour nap today and haven't a clue what i did different! I wonder will it stick! He usually settles for a nap ok now at 12 weeks, but he has a soother. I just lie him into the pram, give him the soother and he turns his head and off he goes. I started to gear up to that around 9 weeks. I had been rocking him and putting him down when he was almost asleep and then slowly over a few days i was putting him down more and more awake. When he cried i lifted him and rocked him again until he was calm and then straight back into the pram. Now he is at a good stage. At the times he was inconsolable i would rock him asleep. I wouldn't say half an hour is long for settling though. It does get better when you are consistent. They get used to a routine. But maybe try lifting and comforting and putting down if ssh pat doesn't work. I always got confused on the ssh pat thing.. Whether you use a soother, ssh pat, or rocking and putting down, you are still providing your LO with some form of comfort to fall asleep and they need your attention for it! So go with whatever gives the least crying and is most relaxing. We just keep putting the soother back in coz at 2am its less exhausting than sitting with a suspended arm, sshing sounding like i am deflating ;) haha! Persephone, I believe that the better they nap in the day, the better they sleep at night so i would persevere with naps in the day getting as much down time as possible, whether its in the sling or whatever. Thats what i am trying for too. I think it just takes time for them to sttn. What brought my ds to sleep longer (which doesn't make sense but it worked) was to bring his bedtime back. Instead of a 5.30 nap and bedtime at 7, i started a bedtime routine at 5.30 and settled him to bed for 6. If you aren't busy in the evenings you could try it. It bypassed his fussy time. We used to have a fussy baby who napped at bedtime from 7pm-7.30 and would wake and scream til almost 10pm. Then that change in bedtime made him sleep from 6am til 1 or 2 am and then on again until 7am. I breastfeed so can't tell you how much he drinks exactly during the day, but he is also only having 5 feeds and sometimes an extra one in the last few days when he is doing those half hour naps and wakes crying. Basically he gets a feed when he wakes from a nap. Another option would be to try a hungry baby formula for the night feed if you think he is really starving when he wakes? This has been our morning routine recently: approx. of course! 7am -awake milk1 7.30 -nappy and play 8.15- nap 1 9am -milk 2 9.15 -playtime and nappy 10am -nap2 then its all higgeldy piddeldy and he starts the half hour thing.. wakes at 10.30 and i try settle him.. if it doesn't work he gets milk 3 at 11am, 11.30 -nap 3 12 -awake again (lots of fussing unless he gets milk) milk 4 So he gets an extra feed basically 1 hr apart. If he does these short naps then he doesn't sleep so well at night and wakes twice for milk and is just wakey in general. Today worked really nice, he slept from 10-12.30 and woke happy and smiley. So hoping for a good night like before!! Our evening has been this: 1 pm- milk 3 2.30pm -nap 3 3pm -milk 4 4pm -nap 4 And so all set up for waking at 4.30 and bedtime routine at 5.30.

I got a two hour nap today too and did nothing different! It must be just on how tired they are. I always watch out for the yawn when he's been up about an hour and by the second yawn I'm winding him down in the bedroom. How long were you helping to sleep before they could drift off themselves? We use a soother also. And white noise for naps and bed. I'm doing the easy routine and feeding every three hours. BFing too and he seems happy with every three hours. Offering him both boobs. And if he wakes from a nap early I try to hold out till closer to 2.5-3hr mark. We're also doing a dream feed around 10-11 with formula to see if he'll last longer and it's slowly stretching. I totally underestimated routine but were doing it a week now and it's making a difference.

I love routine too..as you can see When i saw it work with my first i was all for it for ds. EASY is great but stretching out the feed to 3hours if he wakes early is a good idea. I might look into that tomorrow. Its just different with a 2nd. I feel i am just doing what suits a situation. Then again i am more relaxed and ds is a calmer baby by far than dd!! I top him up the odd time before we go out too so i don't have to feed on the playground for example. Hmm, i think he always self settled a little bit from birth. Whenever i fed and changed him and gave him some cuddles i lay him down. If he cried, i picked him up again and comforted and laid him down again. This could go on for half an hour but if he was getting further wound up and hyterical i just rocked him to sleep. And it is still like that. I just always put him down awake. Lets say 8 times out of 10 he drifts off and the odd time i rock him or put him in the carrier and go out with my dd if hes not settling. He always sleeps in the carrier. Sorry i am not more help to you there. But i wouldn't worry on how long it takes, all babies are different. If you are starting to work on it now, give it a few weeks of ssh and pat, or putting the soother in or rocking or whatever it is you do to comfort. Then put him down awake and go from there. The time it takes will get shorter as he notices the sleep signals i think.