Almost 3 1/2 months and we have finally settled into a newborn routine with our baby Sophie! Today I’m sharing all the beautiful photos that Aida Llanos did for us and also I will share our routine because I’m absolutely sure it will change again quite shortly… 🙂
Happy Thursday, friends! Today I’m sharing all the details of our baby Sophie’s routine, from mornings to evenings and everything in between! (And frankly after, too. 😀 ) Babies change so quickly it’s crazy, and so I’m sure this will evolve as she grows, but for now, we have a pretty good routine down! At first I admit it was difficult, but now it feels easier than ever. She’s grown so much and I can’t get over it, I remember when she was still sat in my belly, waiting to come out in labour – this was such a great time as luckily my birth was easy and quick, but unfortunately for some mothers the story isn’t the same. Some can be in a prolonged birth, which I’ve heard there are many risks to and can in fact end in them needing assistance from professionals like those at https://lawtx.com/. This isn’t something I had to experience luckily, and now me and my baby are well and healthy and in such a great routine! I thought I would share this in the hopes that it helps other new moms and dads looking to develop their own newborn routine. Sticking to a routine like this is really helpful for babies because it helps them to sleep and nap better (i.e. learn what to do at night and what not to do at night 😀 ), eat more regular meals, and overall feel more relaxed! Not only do babies require a routine, but new moms and dads do too! With a new baby in the house, it is evident that there would be a certain amount of anxiety and insomnia while looking out for your little munchkin. So, while your baby settles into a routine, the parents can do something similar for themselves. For example, if there is a problem of not getting enough sleep, you might want to consider taking turns to look out for your baby and while you attempt to rest, take help from alternative medicines like maybe a CBD oil UK (or wherever you live) to get enough sleep for yourself. These are just some ways in which you can build a healthy lifestyle for yourself and your baby. Now, we move on to our little one’s routine!
mornings…
. . . are not too bad these days! We have settled into a nice routine where most days, Sophie will wake up sometime between 7 and 8am. As I start work around 7am, and my husband leaves for work around 7-7:30am, we have our new nanny scheduled to arrive around 6:30am. We typically get plenty of time to get ourselves and the dogs ready and prepare for the day before our little nugget wakes up! She will usually get changed and then eat within an hour of waking, and then spends the morning with the nanny doing tummy time, hanging out on her mat, and other play activities.
naps!
We’ve worked a lot on sleep training, starting when she was about two months old. This can vary with every baby obviously, and you really have to listen to your baby and his or her signals on things like eating. But we also know that there is a lot of research to show that teaching your child good sleep skills is one of the best things you can do for them to promote lifelong good sleep in their future. Of course, as a new mom you might feel like you don’t really know how much sleep is good for your little one, for which tools like sleepify calculator can help. And while you’re at it, you can calculate the right amount of sleep required for new parents too. There is of course the added bonus of us sleeping better too!
During the day, we try to have her nap usually 2-3 times for a couple of hours each time. We do have some “off” days where she doesn’t want to sleep more than 30-45 minutes at a time, and occasionally early on we had to wake her up from afternoon naps to prevent her from sleeping too late and then not being ready for her bedtime routine (keep reading for info on that!). We would also wake her up purposefully by about 7:30-8:00 am in the morning when we first started sleep training, in order to get her used to starting the days routine at the same time every day. Routine is so important for babies, and I do feel this was helpful. But remember: babies sleep a lot, so it’s still important to ensure they are overall getting the recommended amount of sleep.
on to tummy time!
Tummy time is so important for little ones! It’s helped Sophie immensely with improving strength in her neck muscles, and she can almost hold her head up on her own all the time. She is still a bit “bobbleheadish,” but that is too be expected still 🙂 To help with learning more skills as she grows, we have also subscribed to Lovevery, a subscription box service for baby toys and activities based on Montessori methods. I can’t wait to see her learn new things and grow even more with this service! (But at the same time… seriously stop growing hun. Mommy need time to freeze just for a little while 🙂 ).
she’s our little chatty cathy 🙂
Sophie is jut like her mom. . . she lovvves to talk! Talking to her help her to learn communication skills, even though we have no idea what she’s trying to say at this point 😀 It helps her to learn sounds later used for learning speech too. We try to talk to her whenever she is receptive (she lets us know!), but back off when she is preoccupied with other stimuli in the environment so she doesn’t get overstimulated or overwhelmed. Sometimes letting her just observed and “be” on her own is just what she needs.
the dreaded evening routine (jk!)
We try to have her awake while we are cooking dinner and feeding the dogs around 5:30-7:30pm if possible, so that she is tired but not too cranky by the time her 7:30pm bedtime rolls around. Sleep training in infants is doable, but you have to be somewhat flexible. If it’s been a rough day for her and she seems to be in a crabbier mood, we will start the bedtime routine as early as 7. If she’s napped later than usual and is still wide-awake and happy while we are eating dinner for which we bought her some new baby bibs, we’ll start the routine closer to 8pm.
My husband usually spends some time with her after he gets home from work while I am cooking dinner, since he doesn’t get to see her during the day like I do. The dogs and us will eat usually around 6:30-7:30pm, and then we start her bedtime sometime between 7-8pm (trying to keep it close to 7:30pm whenever possible).
Her bedtime routine consists of
- Bath time every other night (omg she loves the bath y’all – I’ll have to remember to add it to my InstaStory next time!)
- Changing into clean diaper and pajamas
- Hair brushing! 🙂
- Infant massage, if she will let us (sometimes she is too activated and crabby so we’ll skip right to the next step)
- Nighttime meal (if she falls asleep during this we don’t wake her up to finish)
- Into the Snoo with the “Womb Sounds” app playing on Alexa!
She sleeps in her Snoo smart bassinet every night, which has a swaddle that clips into the bassinet to prevent her from rolling (luckily we aren’t at that stage yet anyways, but it’s coming!). Before she eats her last meal of the day, we will swaddle her in that sleep sack before feeding her, so she is nice and toasty warm when she falls asleep, instead of falling asleep and then getting put into a cold swaddle.
We make sure to keep a light on while we are feeding and burping her as well. After she is done eating, lights off and Womb Sounds on! It’s important to not start the “lights off, white noise on” routine until she is done eating, so she does not associate feeding with sleeping. If this happens, she may wake in the middle of the night and instead of thinking “oh it’s dark and my noises are still playing; I should be sleeping” she may start to think “oh it’s dark and my noises are still playing; why am I not eating?!”
This routine has been successful in getting her to sleep quickly, usually she falls asleep within 5-10 minutes. Early on when we first started working on this type of sleep training, it could sometimes take 30-45 minutes to have her fall asleep, so we’ve definitely seen a big improvement. It also helps that she has started to consolidate feedings, so she eats mostly during the day in 2-3 hour increments, and then usually only wakes us up once in the night between 2-4am to eat (sometimes sleeping through the whole night all on her own! #proudmama). Some babies might wake up more regularly to feed, so you might want to use hungry baby milk for a while to work out if they’re waking up because they’re actually hungry or because of another issue. You might be asking is hungry baby milk a myth, and whilst it doesn’t necessarily help your baby to sleep, it can help to rule out hunger as a reason for waking up too often.
She also overall seems like a happier baby recently, and isn’t having as may tantrums in the afternoon/evening like she’d have earlier on. Overall: I’d say a success so far! (Of course, we still have the dreaded “four month sleep regression” that I always hear about as well as teething to look forward to!)
Now I want to hear from you below in the comments! What are your best sleep techniques for your own kids? Also: do you want me to do a video review of our experience with the Snoo and sleep training? Let me know!