I recommend starting a routine around 2-4 weeks after birth, once your baby has surpassed their birth weight and is steadily gaining weight. Ultimately, babies are creatures of habit and very quickly find comfort in a daily routine.
The good news is that by establishing a daily routine in the first few months, you can help your baby work towards a more predictable day-to-day, eventually making a clock-based schedule very doable. The “bad” news is that a clock-based schedule is typically unrealistic until your baby is about 5 or 6 months of age.
Well, I have both good news and bad news for you. What You Can Expect from a NewbornĬhances are, if you’re reading this article, you are also a parent of a newborn and desperate for more structure in your day. Many parents feel like they are simply surviving and begin to crave more predictability. During the newborn phase, every day can seem like a blur of feeding, pooping, and crying (for everyone involved!).
It is no surprise that this is a common concern among parents. As a former night nanny, I can’t begin to count the number of times a new parent has desperately asked me, “How soon can I get my baby on a schedule?!”