Works for Me Wednesday: The Baby Years - Schedules/Routines

Since I wasn't blogging when my kiddos were babies, I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane with you for a moment and reminisce about those years. I am going to spend a few Wednesdays looking back at what worked for us when our kids were babies.

Pardon me if I get a little bit on my soap box here for a minute, but I'm a little tired of always reading posts about how bad it is to have a schedule with a baby. OK, so maybe "always" is a bit of a reach, but I definitely see more posts against it than for it.

I have even noticed that when I see a post about how bad it is, people won't even mention the name of "the book" where they read about scheduling like it's too awful to utter.

Get real. OK?

I read the book "Babywise" and I used a schedule/routine with my kids when they were babies.

I can hear the collective **GASP** right now.

You'll get over it, I promise.

Anyways, I'm here today to tell you that it worked for me and for us as a family. It may not work for everyone, but it worked for us, and I think there are several reasons why.

For one thing, both of my kids had jaundice when they came home from the hospital. Not so bad that we had to use the lights or blankets or anything, but noticeable.

With jaundice, it is my understanding from my lactation consultants that the bilirubin in the bloodstream acts like Valium to the baby and makes them very sleepy. In other words, neither of them ever woke up to eat in those very early weeks. They would sleep right through, if I would have let them.

So, take a dopey, sleepy newborn and add in a mom whose milk won't come in until about 5-6 days post partum and you have a potentially disastrous mix. Except that we stayed on a schedule.

I woke them up every 3 hours to eat around the clock that first week. After the first week, I still woke them every 3 hours to eat during the day. If I had not done this, there is no way either of them would have gotten enough calories to flush the bilirubin out of their systems, the jaundice would have gotten worse, making them even more sleepy, and we would have probably ended up in a "failure to thrive" situation as things spiraled downward.

I tell you that first week was a beating. No milk was in yet, so each feeding cycle consisted of me trying to get them to nurse, then passing the baby to someone to bottle feed while I pumped, and then starting this process over again almost immediately it seemed. This went on for weeks with both of them, but that may be a different post altogether. A what didn't work for us kind of post.

But I digress.

My point is that the schedule was hard at first, but I believe it was absolutely necessary and the key to what helped both of my kids thrive from a feeding perspective when they were babies.

Another reason why the schedule worked for us was that both us and the baby knew what to expect with respect to sleeping. This is where calling it a routine seems more appropriate to me.

As both of my babies got a little older we were getting out more. Having scheduled times for naps helped me feel confident that when we did go out during wake times, my baby would be in a generally good mood and well rested. It allowed me to schedule appointments and outings during my baby's best times of the day because I knew when those times were, consistently. And I knew how long I could stay out before things would start going south.

I think it also put them and I in a rhythm of a nap-time and bedtime routine which I think eased the transition into sleep-time. Going down for a nap wasn't always a snap, but most of the time, my babies looked forward to it and I remember that both of them smiled a lot when they got in their crib for naps.

Both of my kids took a minimum of 2 naps a day until they were well over a year old. They both transitioned to one nap per day in the 15-18 month time frame. Even still, my 3 1/2 year old still takes an afternoon nap. He is showing signs of beginning to transition out of naps, but he still needs them and loves them - despite his verbal protests.

Really what it boils down to is that the schedule/routine gave me confidence that I was doing everything in my power to get my baby fed enough and enough sleep. That's not to say that we didn't have our off days, hiccups, and special occasions when our routine was altered. Because where there is routine, there must be flexibility. However, our routine was just that, a most of the time scenario. It gave our day a framework and something to build upon from the beginning.

I will also say this... it helped that I am the youngest of 3 sisters. So I had the added benefit of seeing baby routines and schedules in serious action for several years before my first was born. To this day, I don't know how my sister would have survived the triplets without a schedule.

My guess is that many of you, whether or not you subscribed to the "Babywise" routine, had or have some sort of routine with your baby. I'd like to hear about it, if you would like to share in the comments.

And for more Works for Me posts, head on over to Rocks in my Dryer.