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In my last post, I asked for help with the not-so-sleepy baby. Well, I wish I could say that all is perfect, but I guess I’m adjusting. And she did sleep well last night, so I’m a little less groggy. I promised that if you gave me advice, I would share some words of wisdom that have worked for me so far with baby #2.

Now, if you don’t know this, I have two only children—an 11 year old, and a 4 ½ month old. (Yes, they have the same dad.) Even though I’m not a new mom, I feel like I’m learning all of this for the first time. Besides the decade interval, the fact that one’s a boy, one’s a girl, and that all children are different anyway—I just flat out don’t remember everything that a baby entails.

I will start with this: not all advice works well for all children or all parents. But this bit here—man I wish I had heard it when I had my boy:

Eat, Play, Sleep.

Yup—that simple. Now, I know some people hear that and go, “Ah! Babywise! Stay away,” and make little crossing signs with their fingers. Let me assure you, I have never tried Babywise because I’m just not that disciplined.

One of my friends—who is pregnant but has never raised an infant said, “You have all these rules…” Other people hear that and say, “I don’t get what you mean.” So I will explain.

Let’s say you’re like me—that is, even if you wanted to put your baby on a schedule (which I don’t), it wouldn’t work for you and your family. But a schedule and pattern are not the same thing.

Establish this 12-hour daytime routine for your baby: he eats, then he “plays,” then he sleeps until it’s time to eat again. You can let him dictate the time frames. But always in that order. For me, it meant two things. First, I could finally figure out what my daughter wanted. Because, despite all the professional literature assuring me I’d quickly learn to distinguish hungry cries from tired cries from “I want to be held” cries, I still haven’t figured it out. Second, I wanted to dissociate falling asleep with nursing, a bad habit I established with my son that made me miserable.

This is impractical for most people in the first two weeks when all baby does is eat and sleep and cry, with a few exciting moments of alert awake time. But after week three, when many healthy babies have regained their birth weight and are on a course for success, you can ease her into the routine, following guidelines set by your doctor or a published source.

For example, after three weeks, most babies can safely go three hours between meals. So you set your pattern according to that. Let’s say he wakes up and eats breakfast today at 6:00 am. Keep him awake for as long as he’ll “play” happily, then help him to sleep—until somewhere near 9:00. If he wakes up at 7:30, you can probably assume he needs to sleep a little more. If he wakes up at 8:30, crying, you could logically guess he’s hungry. Then you start again. Eat, then play, then nap until somewhere in the 11:00 hour. As your baby gets near four months old, you can extend it into a four-hour routine.

That’s where we are now. And though my friend says I have all these rules, Eat-Play-Sleep has very much simplified—not complicated—my life. Depending when she gets up to eat in the morning, I can get a pretty good idea what time she’ll want a nap that afternoon, and make sure I’m not running errands then, for example.

So, that’s the best advice I received. I know it won’t work for everyone, but the more ideas you get, the better. Now I’d like to hear what was the best advice you received? Tell us what really works for you.

Tags: advice, pattern, routine, schedule
Posted in: Baby, Parenting