Newborn Night Time Routine

Hello, lovelies!

In the last few weeks of pregnancy, I spent a long time looking at other people's routines with their kids. I've always been a lover of routine, it keeps my anxiety at bay and helps me know where everyone is (or should be) at what times, which is a big help when you have a newborn and a three-year-old running around.

For the first month we just went with the flow, let Caelan completely rule our routine and fed as and when he needed/wanted, slept when he slept, and never got any time for us to do, well, anything. Introducing this night time routine has really, really helped.

So, let's start at dinner time, which generally is the most stressful time of day in our house.

Anytime between 5pm & 7:30pm, we try and get all of us fed. Caelan will take 5 & 1/2oz at this point, and while either myself or James gives him it, the other will eat and make sure William (three-year-old) is fed as well.

If it's earlier in the evening, Caelan will usually have a small nap before bath time, but if it's a later feed, like around 7, we'll usually have play time/sensory time before his bath, and while William is having his.

Between 8 & 8:30 is bath time. We try and keep it the same every night, but on the nights we have William we usually do it just as he goes to bed at 8:30. However when we don't have him we do it a bit earlier. We use ASDA's Little Angels bedtime bath, it's 97p and has been amazing at helping settle Caelan for sleep.

After bath time we go straight upstairs for cuddles & settle down time. This is when Caelan and I will have skin to skin/tummy cuddles, and he'll usually snooze a little bit while James and I watch Netflix or YouTube, or a movie if we're feeling wild.

Between 10pm & 11pm Caelan will have his last feed. We usually do a bigger bottle, 6oz, as it helps keep him fuller for longer which means he sleeps longer. He's usually pretty tired by this point so it takes him longer to eat it, but we keep all the lights low and turn the TV right down so theres nothing too stimulating going on to wake him up.

Once he's finished eating, I'll swaddle him up and turn on the lullaby setting on his Ollie Owl and get some last cuddles before putting him down in his Next2Me for the night. He'll usually sleep from 11/11:30 until 4/5am, which is honestly amazing.

So, to recap:

• 5 - 7:30pm - "Dinner" bottle, 5&1/2 Oz.
• 7:30pm - Play/Sensory time
• 8/8:30pm - Bath time
• 9pm - Settle down time
• 10/11pm - Last bottle, 6 Oz.

While I know this routine won't work for every baby on the planet, I thought I'd share it just in case there's some new mum's out there feeling just as anxious and unorganised as I was.

I'll see you all next time!

Ree xo

Caelan At 6 Weeks

Hello, lovelies!

Can someone please tell me where the last 6 weeks have gone?! It seems like I've blinked and suddenly I have this 10lbs little boy smiling and giggling at me!

I know when I was pregnant I loved reading these kinds of blogs from other mama's, so I thought I'd pop my own up here. So, here we go, Caelan's 6 week update!

We've finally started to settle into a proper routine with him at nights. Bottle, bath, cuddle/play time, last bottle, then sleep. Thankfully, he's just like his mama and loves his sleep, so we usually get from about 11pm 'til 4/5am before he wakes up for another feed/bum change. I'm definitely not taking it for granted, because I know he can fall out of that habit as quickly as he went into it, but getting those solid few hours sleep a night has definitely helped me out a lot.

While he sleeps great at night, however, he does not sleep great during the day. I think we've only managed to get him to sleep in his moses basket twice, every other time he has to sleep on me; the second we put him down he pings awake and screams until he's lifted again. Which is usually right away because I can't stand hearing him cry, it truly breaks my heart, even if I know it's only because he's mad I've put him down.

We stopped breast feeding a couple of weeks ago, which I know is quite a controversial thing to do, but to be completely open and honest with you guys -- I was struggling. Really, really struggling mentally, and physically with it. I was constantly worried that he wasn't getting enough, and I was getting no time to do anything but feed since he's such a hungry little boy and was on the boob for 45 minutes every hour. Now, I can quite happily leave him with James for a bottle while I go for a shower and get the chance to feel human again.

The change hasn't seemed to have any affect on Caelan, and he's still just as much a little guzzle guts as he was when he was boob fed. He takes 5 and a 1/2 oz every three to four hours, and has been piling on the weight like a champ.

He's such a happy little man, and every day I look at him and think about how blessed and lucky I am to be his mama.

I want to keep doing these kinds of update posts, so look out for them! I'll also be doing a more in depth post about our night-time routine if anyone is interested in it!

I'll see you all next time!

Ree xo