Getting Your Baby on a Structured Routine

The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems
by Tracy Hogg, Melinda Blau

The third book in the bestselling Baby Whisperer series — the most comprehensive, up-close, and personal to date!

Thousands of parents have asked the Baby Whisperer to help them solve their problems. With this book you too can take advantage of the advice, insights, and parenting techniques from beloved child expert Tracy Hogg. "A problem is nothing more than a situation calling for a creative solution," she reminds us. "Ask the right questions and you'll come up with the right answers."

Once you learn how to translate banguage, the "baby-language" your infant uses to communicate needs, feelings, and opinions, you can see your child for who he or she really is — an understanding that will serve you well as your child blossoms into the toddler years. By helping you establish a daily routine and tailor your parenting strategies according to your child's unique personality and stage of development, Tracy will teach you how to:

• Ask the Twelve Essential Questions to recognize potential problems and employ the Twelve Principles of Problem Solving — simple troubleshooting techniques for everyday situations

• Avoid, or remedy, accidental parenting — inadvertent adult behavior that often leads to such common parenting challenges as sleep problems, poor eating habits, separation anxiety, and tantrums

• Be a P.C. parent — patient and conscious — who knows how to detect rime times — windows of opportunity for teaching babies how to get to sleep on their own, introducing bottles to breast-fed babies, toilet training, and other growth issues

• Inhibit runaway emotions and foster his or her emotional fitness — the ability to understand and manage feelings

... and so much more. For Tracy's fans, this book will be a welcome addition to the Hogg library; for readers unfamiliar with her philosophy of care, it will open a new world of understanding and insight.

Chapter 1

E.A.S.Y. Isn't Necessarily Easy (But It Works!)
Getting Your Baby on a Structured Routine

The Gift of E.A.S.Y.

You probably have a routine in the morning. You get up at roughly the same time, maybe you shower first or have your coffee, or perhaps you immediately hop on the treadmill or take your pup out for a brisk walk. Whatever you do, it's probably pretty much the same every morning. If by chance something interrupts that routine, it can throw off your whole day. And I'll bet there are other routines in your day as well. You're used to having your dinnertime at a certain hour. You probably have particular rituals at the end of the day, too, like spooning with your favorite pillow (or partner!) in anticipation of a good night's sleep. But let's say your dinner hour changes or you have to sleep in a bed away from home. Isn't it unsettling and don't you feel disoriented when you wake?

Naturally, people vary in their need for structure. At one end of the continuum are those whose entire days are predictable. At the other end are free spirits who tend to fly by the seat of their pants. But even "flyers" usually have some sort of dependable rituals during their day. Why? Because human beings, like most animals, thrive when they know how and when their needs are going to be met and know what's coming next. We all like some degree of certainty in our lives.

Well, so do babies and young children. When a new mum brings her baby home from the hospital, I suggest a structured routine straightaway. I call it "E.A.S.Y.," an acronym that stands for a predictable sequence of events that pretty much mirrors how adults live their lives, albeit in shorter chunks: Eat, have some Activity, and go to Sleep, which leaves a bit of time for You. It is not a schedule, because you cannot fit a baby into a clock. It's a routine that gives the day structure and makes family life consistent, which is important because all of us, children and adults, as well as babies and toddlers, thrive on predictability. Everyone benefits: Baby knows what's coming next. Siblings, if there are any, get more time with Mum and Dad — and they get to have less harried parents who have time for themselves as well.

I was actually doing E.A.S.Y. long before I named it. When I first started caring for newborns and young babies more than twenty years ago, a structured routine just seemed to make sense. Babies need us to show them the ropes — and to keep it up. The most effective learning comes with repetition. I also explained the importance of a structured routine to the parents I worked with, so that they could carry on after I'd left. I cautioned them to always make sure that their baby had some kind of activity after a feed instead of going right to sleep, so that their little one wouldn't associate eating with sleeping. Because "my" babies' lives were so predictable and calm, most of them were good eaters, they learned to play independently for increasingly longer periods, and they could get themselves to sleep without sucking on a bottle or breast or being rocked by their parents. As many of those babies grew into toddlers and preschoolers, I stayed in touch with their parents, who informed me that not only were their children thriving in their daily routines, they were also confident in themselves and trusted that their parents would be there if they needed them. The parents themselves learned early on to tune in to their child's cues by carefully observing their body language and listening to their cries. Because they could "read" their child, they felt better equipped to deal with any bumps in the road.

By the time I was ready to write my first book, my coauthor and I came up with "E.A.S.Y.," a simple acronym designed to help parents remember the order of my structured routine. Eat, activity, sleep — it's the natural course of life — and then, as a bonus, time for you. With E.A.S.Y., you don't follow the baby; you take charge. You observe him carefully, tune in to his cues, but you take the lead, gently encouraging him to follow what you know will make him thrive: eating, appropriate levels of activity, and a good sleep afterward. You are your baby's guide. You set the pace.

E.A.S.Y. gives parents, especially first-timers, the confidence to know that they understand their baby, because they more quickly learn to distinguish their baby's cries. As one mum wrote to me, "My husband and I and our six-month-old, Lily, are considered an enigma among my peers in our childbirth education class due to our sleep-filled nights and very pleasant baby." She goes on to say that they put Lily on E.A.S.Y. when she was ten weeks old. As a result, Mum says, "We understand her cues and have a routine — not a schedule — that makes our life predictable, manageable, and fun."

I've seen it time and again. Parents who establish my E.A.S.Y. routine quickly get better at figuring out what their baby needs and wants at a particular time of day. Let's say you've fed your infant (the E), and she's been up for fifteen minutes (the A — activity), and then she starts to get a bit fussy. Chances are, she's ready for sleep (the S). Conversely, if she's been napping for an hour (S), while you (the Y) hopefully have been stealing a little downtime for yourself, when she wakes, there's no guesswork involved. Even if she's not crying (if she's under six weeks, though, she probably is), it's a pretty safe bet that she's hungry. And so the E.A.S.Y. cycle begins again.

Write It Down!

Parents who actually chart their baby's day by writing everything down have less trouble sticking to a routine or establishing it for the first time. They also are better observers. Writing things down, even though it seems tedious at the moment (goodness knows, you have lots of other things to do!), will give you a much better perspective. You'll see patterns more readily, and see how sleep and eating and activity are interrelated. On days that your baby feeds better, I'd just bet that he's less cranky during his awake time and sleeps better, too.

When E.A.S.Y. Seems Hard

In preparing to write this book, I pored over the case files of thousands of babies I've worked with, as well as questions I received from parents who have recently contacted me via phone, email, or through my website. My goal was to identify the stumbling blocks that typically occur when well-meaning and committed parents try to establish a structured routine. Most parents' queries are not about routines. Instead, their questions tend to focus on one of the letters of E.A.S.Y. They might ask, "Why are my baby's feeds so short?" (the E), "Why is he cranky and uninterested in his toys?" (the A), or "Why does she wake up several times during the night?" (the S). In this book I deal with a whole range of questions like those and offer lots of suggestions for dealing with specific problems — all of chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to eating issues, and chapters 5 through 7 to sleep. But we also have to look at how the three areas are interrelated, which is what this chapter is about. Eating affects sleep and activity; activity affects eating and sleeping; sleep affects activity and eating — and all of them will naturally affect you. Without a predictable routine, everything in a baby's life can go haywire — sometimes all at once. The solution is almost always E.A.S.Y.

Parents tell me, though, that E.A.S.Y. isn't necessarily easy. Here's a portion of a letter from Cathy, mother of one-month-old Carl and twenty-two-month-old Natalie. It captures the confusion and several of the difficulties parents seem to experience:

My older daughter, Natalie, sleeps very well (seven to seven, puts herself to sleep, naps well). I can't remember how we got her there and need some sample routines to use as guidance for Carl, starting now and covering the next several months. He is breast-fed and I fear I inadvertently keep nursing him to sleep, and I sometimes confuse tired/hungry/gas pain. I need to have a general structure to follow to help me keep track of where I should be with him, since his sister demands a lot of attention when she is awake! Tracy's [first] book talks in general terms about amounts of time on E/A/S, but I'm finding it difficult to relate that to the hours in the day and night.

Cathy was ahead of the game in one respect. She at least realized that her problem was inconsistency and her inability to read Carl's cues. She suspected, quite accurately, that the solution is a routine. And like many parents who have read about E.A.S.Y., all she needed was a bit of reassurance and further clarification. It didn't take her long to get on track after we spoke, as Carl was only a month old, young enough to adapt quickly to a new routine. Also, when I found out he weighed seven pounds at birth, I knew he wouldn't have any trouble going two-and-a-half to three hours between feeds (more on that later). As soon as Mum had her son on E.A.S.Y., she was better able to anticipate his needs. (See a sample routine for a four-week-old on page 25.)

All babies thrive on routine, but some adapt more rapidly and readily than others because of their basic temperament. Cathy's first child, Natalie, who is now a toddler, was an extremely easygoing and adaptable infant — I call them Angel babies. That would explain why Natalie napped and slept so well and also why Cathy can't remember how she got her there. But little Carl was a more sensitive type of child, what I call a Touchy baby, who even at a month old could be thrown off by a too bright light or Mum holding his head slightly lower than usual when she fed him. As I detail in chapter 2, temperament affects how a baby reacts to virtually everything in his life. Some babies need a little more quiet while they're eating, less stimulating activities, or a darker room to sleep in. Otherwise, they become overstimulated and will resist a routine.

With babies under four months old, problems also can occur because the parents don't realize that E.A.S.Y. has to be adapted to accommodate a special birth condition, like prematurity (see sidebar, page 27) or jaundice (sidebar, page 28), or their particular infant's weight (pages 27-29). Also, some parents misunderstand how to apply E.A.S.Y. For instance, they take "every three hours" literally and wonder how their baby will ever learn to sleep through the night if they wake her for feeds and what kind of activity should be done in the middle of the night. (None — you let them sleep; see sidebar, page 19.)

Parents also have problems with E.A.S.Y. when they think "schedule" and focus more on reading the clock than reading their babies' signals. A structured routine is not the same thing as a schedule. This bears repeating: You can't fit a baby into a clock. If you do, then both mother and baby become frustrated. Merle, a mother from Oklahoma, wrote to me in desperation after she had "tried unsuccessfully to do the E.A.S.Y. schedule." Straightaway, my antenna went up because Merle used the word schedule, which I never do. "It seems every day we are at a different time schedule," she wrote. "I know I am doing something wrong, but what?"

A structured routine is not the same thing as a schedule. A schedule is about time slots whereas E.A.S.Y. is about keeping up the same daily pattern — eating, activity, and sleeping — and repeating that pattern every day. We're not trying to control children, we're guiding them. The way humans learn — or other species, for that matter — is by doing something over and over, which is what a structured routine reinforces.

Like Merle, some parents misinterpret what I mean by "routine," often because they tend to live by schedules themselves. So, when I write down a suggested three-hour routine for a baby who's under four months — say 7, 10, 1, 4, 7, and 10 — a schedule-driven mum sees the time slots as written in stone. She panics because one day her baby naps at 10:15 and the next day at 10:30. But you can't put a baby on a clock, especially in the first six weeks. Sometimes you'll have a day when you're on track and everything goes smoothly and other days not. If you're busy watching the clock, instead of your baby, you'll miss important signals (like the first yawn in a six-week-old or eye-rubbing in a six-month-old, which means that your little one is getting sleepy — more on the sleep window, page 181). Then you have an overtired baby on your hands who can't get himself to sleep and who of course resists the routine, because it goes against his physical needs.

The most important aspect of E.A.S.Y. is to read your child's signs — of hunger, of fatigue, of overstimulation — which is more important than any time slot. So if one day, he's hungry a little earlier, or seems tired before it's "time" to put him down, don't let the clock threaten you. Let your common sense take over. And believe me, ducky, the better you get at interpreting your baby's cries and body language, the better you'll be at guiding him and at clearing whatever obstacles get in the way.

Copyright © 2005 by Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau

About the Author

Tracy Hogg obtained her nursing degree in England, specializing in maternity and neonatal care. Her uncanny ability to understand and calm babies led to her nickname "The Baby Whisperer." In 1997, she founded Baby Technique, through which she consults with parents individually, organizes and teaches group classes, and provides nanny training and referrals. She lives in Los Angeles and is the mother of two daughters. You can visit her Web site at www.babywhisperer.com.

Melinda Blau is an award-winning journalist specializing in family and health topics. She is the author of seven other books and countless magazine articles. The mother of two grown children, she lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts.