"Is it time to get my baby into a routine?"

The short answer to the question in this title is one word: "No". It is not a requirement of early parenting to get your baby into a routine.

The long answer is the rest of this article.

(And by long I mean... yeah this article is pretty long. Feel free to take your time over a few sessions. Hopefully it is helpful!)

Explore your "why"

What has inspired you to try and get your baby into a routine?

• Did someone in your life earnestly press a book about routines for babies into your hands and swear it saved her in the early years?
• Or maybe life with a tiny baby feels like swimming in soup and a routine sounds appealing?
• Or is your baby waking up a lot and you are hoping a routine will help?

Your inspiration for wanting to put your baby on a routine gives you clues as to what unmet needs you are trying to meet.

To build on the examples above...

"Someone in your life earnestly pressed a book into your hands and swear it saved her in the early years..."
- Maybe you are trying to meet your need to feel like a good parent and/or fit in with other parents/caregivers that all seem to be sticking to a routine

"Life with a tiny baby feels like swimming in soup and a routine sounds appealing"
- Maybe you are trying to meet your need to have structure in your day and/or some semblance of control over your own day-to-day life.

"Your baby is waking up a lot and you are hoping a routine will help"
- Maybe your unmet need is rest/sleep.

I invite you to sit with the above section before going on to the next section. Maybe go have a cup of tea and a think and come back to this article later.

The bad news (followed by the good news):

Routines are a gateway drug to sleep training

First of all, a caveat. If you want to try sleep training, or you have done it in the past and it worked for you, that's great. This article is not intended as an attack on parents who genuinely love sleep training their kids. I am not here to have a go at parents for the choices they make. What concerns me is that parents who don't want to sleep train face a lack of support and resources on supporting their babies to sleep.

I am also not here to argue that sleep training is traumatising for babies. I genuinely don't know whether it is or not; I haven't analysed the research.

I do care about the possible risks of sleep training to babies, but as a postpartum education and care professional, I am in service of parents. And my concern is the risks of sleep training to parents, which include 1) stressing parents out 2) disconnecting parents from their own nurturing impulses 3) parents blaming themselves and feel like they are doing something wrong when their babies behave completely biologically normally.

The problem with sleep training

Sleep training is a massive industry that preys on parents' pain points without actually meeting their needs.

Emily Writes puts this well in a recent Instagram post (her IG is private so I can't link the post here, but her handle is @emilywritesnz and her newsletter is here. This quote has been posted with permission from Emily Writes)

First of all and most importantly - you don't have to sleep train. The relentless pressure you feel to sleep train is real and it's part of a system that monetises parenting. It's a sophisticated system aimed at making you feel insecure and anxious and afraid so you spend money. It's a system that relies on making you feel like you cannot trust your instincts with your baby. There is nothing wrong with you if you feel overwhelmed by it - anyone would.

You're exhausted and overwhelmed and because we live under capitalism you don't have the support you need. That isn't your fault.

Our current standard household structure is one or two parents being solely responsible for meeting 100% of a baby's needs (or multiple babies in the case of twins/multiples), plus any other children's needs, plus the financial needs of the household. This structure sets parents up to fail - it's way too much for one or two people.

Sleep training offers a way out of this mess by promising that you can make your baby sleep – and therefore you can get more rest. But you can't make your baby sleep, because you can't teach babies out of their own biology, predisposition, and need for nurture. So the unmet needs of the parent/s remain unmet, plus they now have to deal with feeling like a failure. This can lead to despair.

There is so much more I could write about sleep training but I have to leave it for a future post because we need to get back to talking about routines.

What does sleep training have to do with baby routines?

A parents googles "routines for babies" once and it's so easy to fall down the rabbithole. Because almost all roads lead to sleep training.

For example, one common suggested routine for babies is the acronym EASY: Eat, Activity, Sleep, You. As in, the baby has a feed, then a play (awake period), then has a sleep, then you get time to yourself while the baby is sleeping.

Sounds good, right? Especially the part where you get time to yourself! (Apart from the fact that if you are on call for when the baby wakes up, you are not really getting pure me-time).

The problem is that it's very common for babies to feed to sleep. The oxytocin released from bodyfeeding or cuddling up with a bottle helps them to drop right off. Feeding to sleep is one of the top strategies in a parent's toolkit for helping a baby go to sleep.

According to sleep training, the most important thing is to NEVER EVER help your baby to go to sleep. You should put your baby down "drowsy but awake" otherwise they will never learn to self-soothe. Therefore feeding to sleep is a big no-no. It creates "bad habits" that will haunt you at some future date.

The EASY acronym puts "activity" after "eat", so if you want to follow it strictly you might end up having to wake your baby when they fall asleep during feeding. Then you have to try to get them to self-soothe to sleep later, after said "activity".

So if you follow the EASY routine you are cutting yourself off from your own awesome strategy of feeding to sleep.

This is just one example of how a baby routine can lead to sleep training and actually make your life harder.

Again, there is so much more I could say about this, so I will write a future post about ways to help your baby go to sleep, along with ways to cope with difficult feelings that might arise when you use those strategies (eg. the stress of being nap-trapped [1]).

The good news: You don't need a baby routine to meet your own needs

Earlier I asked you to explore your "why" for wanting to get your baby into a routine, then we looked at some unmet needs that might be under that "why".

Here are some common needs that people want to meet by trying to put their baby on a routine, followed by alternative solutions:

Unmet need #1: Life with a baby feels like swimming in soup and you want some structure to your days...

Here are some ways to create structure in your day without requiring your baby to follow a routine...

1. Create a rhythm:

A routine is a strict plan that must be followed, often dictating specific times. If the routine is not adhered to, the whole day is thrown into chaos.

A rhythm is a loose structure to your day that can be flexible.

[Credit to Brooke McAlary of The Slow Home Podcast, now called The Tortoise, for this routine/rhythm distinction]

One way to create a rhythm is to notice what your baby is already doing so you get an idea of what to expect. You might start to notice patterns, for example baby likes having a nappy change after a feed. That doesn't mean that a nappy change has to happen at 9:45am after a feed at 9am. The "EASY" routine is a nice idea in terms of having a sense of what order things tend to happen in. You can create your own version of this (without having to wake your baby up for activity after a feed).

2. Create rituals for yourself:

If you feel like you are drowning in soup, it could be that the demands of babycare make you feel out of control, like you have no time for yourself to do the things that make you feel human. One solution to this is the create rituals in your day that serve as touchstones for yourself.

It is crucial that these rituals do not rely on the baby behaving a certain way at a certain time.

Example 1: Having an arrangement with a good friend in which they call you for a 5-10 minute phonecall every day during their lunchbreak. Whether your baby is feeding, sleeping or playing you can hopefully still take the call. And if you are dealing with a poonami [2] at the time the phone rings, there is enough flexibility you can call them back when everyone is clean again.

This kind of social ritual is easier to achieve than, for example, going out for coffee at bang on 10am on a certain date, which is something that has a lot of moving parts and is vulnerable to being sabotaged by whatever is going on with your baby at that time.

Example 2: Eating breakfast outside. You have to eat breakfast anyway, so if you create a ritual in which you eat breakfast outside then you have something to look forward to every day (assuming, of course, that you enjoy being outside!). Get your feet planted on grass. Feel the breeze on your face. Plus most babies love being outside.

Example 3: Reading a specific novel or book of poetry while you bodyfeed/bottle-feed the baby. Sitting down to feed the baby is something that comes up fairly regularly. If you like reading, it's nice to have a book on the go that is JUST for feeding-time. This creates a structure in your day, again something to look forward to that you know is going to happen.

Unmet need #2: You are desperate for some rest

Again, relying on your baby to sleep a certain amount of time and at specific times in order for you to get the rest you need is setting yourself up to fail and risks creating feelings of resentment towards your baby. Plus, like I said earlier, even if you are able to rest/sleep while the baby sleeps, it's not the best rest because you have to jump to attention as soon as they wake.

I have written previously about ways to get more rest but here are some quick ideas...

1. Call in childcare support. Childcare, whether paid or unpaid, is not just for earning money! It is helpful to ask or pay someone to look after your child/ren so that you can nap or rest.
2. Prioritise being horizontal. Even if you can't sleep or have a break from looking after your baby, you can still lie down whenever possible and this will physically rest your body to a degree. If you baby is playing in the playmat, you can lie next to them. Wherever possible, prioritise lying down over other activities like housework.
3. Drop as many demands as possible. Prioritise what is absolutely essential to the wellbeing of you and your child/ren and get rid of as much as you possibly can in terms of other expectations, whether internal or external.

Unmet need #3: You want to feel connected to other parents

If you are the only person you know who doesn't have your baby on a strict routine, it can feel quite lonely. It's normal to want to fit in to your peer group.

Here are some other ways to meet this need:

1. Foster connections with people who make you feel good about your parenting choices. There is such a sense of relief in sharing life with people who have similar approaches to parenting as you. But you don't even have to be exactly the same. Surround yourself with people who are supportive of your choices rather people who feel the need to justify their own choices by making you follow them as well.
2. Connect socially through online content. If there is a lack of people in your real life who you are vibing with, it can help to connect with people through social media and podcasts. For example, the Beyond Sleep Training Podcast. There are risks in having too much of your social interaction being online, and/or connecting with people you don't actually have a personal relationship with, but there are also benefits in not feeling so alone.

Reflection questions

At the end of every blog post I include reflection questions for you to contemplate, journal, or discuss with someone you trust.

1. If you have been considering putting a baby routine in place, what are your reasons for doing so?
2. Can you sense any unmet needs underneath your desire for a baby routine?
3. What is one thing you can do this fortnight to meet one of those needs?

My services

Free postpartum support

Every Thursday during school term I run a drop-in service providing free postpartum support for parents who are going through any sort of challenge that would benefit from a listening ear. This is not a medical service and I do not provide advice. I listen and help you explore options and I find helpful resources for you, including referring to external services where required.

If you have been wanting to come along, tomorrow is your last chance this year! I will take a break for the school holidays and come back Thursday 30th January.

And if you have been wanting to come but not sure if your question or concern is appropriate, feel free to come along anyway. There are no wrong questions, and if I can't help you I will try to find you a service who can.

So feel free to come along to Yarraville Library tomorrow (Thursday 19th December) from 11:30am-12pm.

Queer Parents' Circle

One of the topics I touched on in this article is connecting socially with likeminded people. My service Queer Parents Circle is designed for this very thing: forming connections with likeminded parents in the local area, through discussing relevant topics in an inclusive space. This six-week program runs four times a year and the next one is running in February/March 2025. To register your interest, please reply to this email or email me emmelinetylerpostpartum at gmail dot com.

[1] Nap-trapped is when your baby goes to sleep on you and you are stuck in your current position for the remainder of the nap.

[2] A poonami is a tsunami of poo. As in, a nappy blow-out.