Need advice on developing a routine for a 10 month old?

Question

How do you spend your day with your infant? What things can I do to get on a routine? Eating, napping, sleeping all seems to happen randomly. What's your routine? (Also, My son is breastfed, and seems to only go to sleep if I breastfeed. How can he learn to self soothe and go to sleep without needing to nurse to sleep?)

Answer 1

Ferberize Him.

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/7755.html

Answer 2

Spend some time looking for sleepy cues for your baby. My kids usually got up around 6 AM, nursed and maybe slept for a bit more. Ate breakfast, played, napped from about 9-10. The more nursing and playing until lunch around noon. Offer food and finish with mommy milk for dessert. Nap 1-3 or so. More of the same for the rest of the day. Sometimes my kids would even take a rest around dinner, but keep it short so maybe your son will go to sleep at a reasonable time with a shot of milk before bed. Schedules make life easier in my opinion.

Answer 3

Oh, if your heart breaks to hear your baby crying, DO NOT Ferberize him! I gave it a try (admittedly, half-heartedly), and couldn't do it. I just died every time my little girl cried so hard the tears ran down her cheeks and she coughed from all the sobbing she did. I always went racing into her room to comfort her.

At first, she needed to be fed to go to sleep, too (bottle baby). But after doing that for a while, I started a little bed-time routine: bath, bottle, bed. And when she was in her crib, she got her soother, her Taggie (a flat fleece teddy bear thing), classical music, and something to momentarily distract her from crying (a mobile, or her lights n'sounds crib attachment).

After I kissed her and told her I loved her, I left the room. If she fussed, I didn't go in. If she cried, then I went in. I'd give her the soother back if she'd spit it out, stroke her forehead, coo to her, start the mobile again to distract her. I didn't pick her up, though, unless she was inconsolable. Now I almost never have to go in to her room after I put her down. She's been sleeping through the night since she was two months old. Yay! :)

Changing a bedtime routine is going to take patience. Best of luck to you!

(BTW, have you read "Secrets Of The Baby Whisperer", by Tracy Hogg? It's awesome, and totally addresses your questions about routines and bedtime. If you can get your hands on a copy, I recommend it).

Answer 4

About 50% of toddlers don't develop the ability to self sooth until 24 months. It is like anything else you can't really force it.
"Nearly a third of parents have a significant problem with their child's sleep behavior.
Sleeping through the night: 71.4% did this on at least one occasion by 3 months of age, but many of these relapse into more frequent waking in the 4 to 12 month period. It is not until after 24 months that regular night waking (requiring attention) becomes much less common. "
http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html

Answer 5

The first step to developing a routine is to get the proper order of events: eating-waketime-naptime. When naptime comes right at the end of feeding, the baby wakes up and wants to eat, not play and becomes fussy. Make sure that you don't allow snacking, only full feedings (snacking babies actually consume fewer calories even though they eat more because they only get the low calorie foremilk, not the calorie rich hindmilk).

Some activities I did when my son was 10 months (and will do with my daughter in 8 months when she is that age):
*Finger painting--strip him down to a diaper, throw out a big sheet of plastic or muslin, give him a quarter sheet of poster board and let him go at it. Make your own fingerpaints using sweetened condensed milk and food coloring (safe for him to put in his mouth, but not enough dairy to worry about, and dries glossy).
*singing and dancing--they love to be spun and bounced around
*reading books
*peekaboo

As far as falling asleep on his own, here was my experience:
I always rocked my son to sleep then had to very very gently put him down, when he was 8 months old I just let him cry it out one day to see what would happen, and after 20 minutes of crying he was asleep, and always went to sleep on his own after that, eventually sucking his thumb to fall asleep.

Good luck.