Baby Routine – Birth to 3 months

There is enormous variation in the patterns of newborns but what is essential to understand is that;

• Feeding; the times between feeds varies enormously in newborn infants, however as the weeks pass a more predictable, and eventually a fixed, pattern begins to emerge. The critical factor is that the baby is gaining weight and is content.
• Awake times; these also vary in length, from falling back to sleep straight after a feed through to being awake for half and hour or so after a feed.
• Calming; Babies are not born with self calming ability and they rely on you to help them calm, once they are calm, they will be able to feed and sleep more readily.
• Sleep; the duration of and frequency of sleeps fluctuate from twenty minutes initially to up to four hours. This is because a baby’s stomachs can only hold small volumes of milk, so they need to feed.

As the weeks pass, and your baby grows, they can tolerate greater volumes of milk and can therefore sleep longer periods.

The daily pattern of a newborn is naturally irregular, so if you expect that then you won’t be disappointed.

With time a predictable baby routine emerges, so just be patient in the understanding that your baby is evolving just how they should.

See Routine 3-6 months