As soon as a small child appears in the house, the usual rhythm of life changes. Now it revolves around feeding, walking and sleeping the baby.
How to properly build these daily rituals, so that everything has enough time and energy?
What is the newborn's day regimen for?
After returning from the hospital, the young mother is faced with many tasks that at first seem incredibly difficult. It is necessary to establish breastfeeding, learn to properly wash and bathe the baby, swaddle, change clothes, change diapers, process the umbilicus - all this merges into an endless circle of worries.
At the same time, lunch will not cook itself either, and it is especially important to maintain cleanliness in the apartment now that the newborn is in the house. It seems that the hours in a day for all this are simply catastrophically not enough.
But mom still needs to rest and pay attention to dad herself. That is why you need to try to build such a daily routine that will be optimal for the crumbs, and for the whole family.
Not to mention the fact that the regime is necessary for the correct and full development of the baby.
What is the regimen of the day of the newborn
In the first month of life, which is considered the period of the newborn, the baby often eats and sleeps a lot. It is these two elements - feeding and sleep - that form the basis of the newborn's day regimen. Plus walks and swimming, which are also desirable to tie to a specific time.
• Feeding With natural feeding in the first weeks of life, feeding on demand is recommended - that is, when the baby asks for a breast, he receives it. It seems that with the daily regimen this approach is practically incompatible. This is not entirely true. Indeed, on-demand feeding is necessary, and the newborn should not refuse it: frequent application increases the production of breast milk, and sometimes the mother’s proximity is necessary for the infant. However, pediatricians note that most healthy babies gradually, during the first two to three weeks, go to feed at a certain interval, usually 2.5 to 3 hours. Here is the first reference point for building the daily regime.
With artificial or mixed feeding, the interval between feedings is set more strictly. If breast milk is absorbed quickly and almost completely, then it takes a certain amount of time to digest the adapted infant formula. In the first month of life, the artificial baby receives a mixture every 3-3.5 hours, and deviations are not allowed here. This means that the feeding regimen is built by itself.
• Sleep. A newborn can sleep a total of up to 20 hours a day. The baby usually falls asleep after each feeding. But a long sleep at this age is impossible. Every 2-3 hours, the child wakes up to eat. So, at night, mom is unlikely to be able to sleep well. Ideally, the child can gradually go to a 6-hour night's sleep. But this ideal in most cases is unattainable in the first month of life. And if a newborn wakes up at night and asks for a breast, he needs to be fed - the child should not starve. And during one of the baby's daytime dreams, it is important to provide time for mom to relax.
• Walks. How many times a day and how long to walk with a newborn - it largely depends on the time of year. The daily routine is adjusted accordingly.
In summer, early autumn, warm spring, you can start walking at a weekly age, that is, almost immediately after discharge from the maternity hospital. In hot weather, it is recommended to go outside in the morning, until 11 a.m., until the air temperature is too high. It is advisable that there are two walks per day. The best time for the second is after 16 hours, when the daytime heat subsides.
In winter or late autumn, doctors advise, after discharge, to adapt first week at home and only then begin to walk with the newborn. You need to get used to the low temperature gradually, and in extreme cold you should generally refrain from going out with your baby. If the thermometer’s column is not lower than minus 3-5 degrees, you can go out first for 15 minutes, next time for 20, and so gradually increase the walk time.
While staying on the street, kids whet their appetite. In addition, babies usually sleep well in the stroller outdoors. If you can’t put the child at home, the walk often becomes a real salvation.
• Bathing. This is not only a hygienic procedure, but also a very important element of hardening. Healthy full-term children begin to bathe after the umbilical wound has healed. This should be done daily. At first, the duration of bathing is minimal - only 5-7 minutes, gradually by the age of one month the duration of water procedures increases to 15 minutes. The optimum water temperature is equal to body temperature - 36-37 degrees. Once a week, the baby is washed with baby soap. Most often, during the day, bathing time is allocated before evening feeding and nighttime sleep.
The approximate mode of the day of the newborn
6.00 feeding, sleep;
9.00 rise, hygiene procedures, washing, feeding;
from 10.00 to 11.30 walk and sleep in the air;
12.00 feeding, baby's sleep, mother’s rest;
15.00 feeding;
from 16.00 to 17.30 walk and sleep in the air;
18.00 feeding, sleep.
20.45 swimming
21.00 feeding, sleep.
00.00 feeding, sleeping until 6 in the morning (ideally) or feeding at night with an interval of 3 hours (or on demand).
Such a schedule is more suitable for the warm season. In winter, you will most likely have to exclude evening walk from it, and reduce the time of daylight hours depending on the air temperature.
How to maintain a newborn's day regimen
Many mothers will say - a regimen for a child in the first month of life is almost impossible. The baby cries a lot, constantly requires breasts, colic, which torment children at this age and prevent them from sleeping well, also make a negative contribution. And some whims are generally very difficult to put on both daytime and nighttime sleep.
However, without a regime, the situation will only worsen.
Therefore, calmly, persistently, but without fanaticism, you should accustom the baby to a certain routine:
1. Start small. It may take 2-3 weeks to set up a newborn’s day regimen. The easiest way to set the time for walking and swimming. Let this be the first little success.
2. Bathing, in turn, becomes part of the evening ritual - a kind of clue for the baby that it is time to go to bed. Such rituals also help to establish a regime. Mom’s lullaby or gentle, melodic mobile over the bed is a signal for the crumbs that it’s time to sleep. And gradually it will become an integral part of the daily routine.
3. Breastfeeding regimen can be the most difficult to debug. Not always mom can figure out when the baby is crying from hunger, and when he is just uncomfortable. Maybe he has a wet diaper, or his stomach is bothering. In any case, it takes time to digest breast milk, and if less than two hours have passed since the last feeding, perhaps the cause of concern is not hunger. Gradually, watching her baby, learning to understand him, mom will definitely come to the optimal feeding interval.
The main thing when establishing the regimen of the day of the newborn is not to go to extremes. Sometimes you can hear advice - wake the baby, if he "sleeps" and gets out of the feeding schedule, make him get up at the same time in the morning. This is probably suitable for older children. But for a baby in the first month of life, this is not the best recommendation. The baby will wake up anyway, hungry. A healthy sound sleep at this age is much more important than a half-hour day regimen. The exception is premature or weakened babies, which really need to be woken up for feeding, because they sometimes can not wake up themselves.
Not always what is convenient for mom is good for baby. When setting the daily regimen for a newborn, it is necessary to show sensitivity, patience and attention to the needs of the child, because nevertheless the main goal is his health and proper development. And you can find time for household chores in another way, for example, send a dad or grandmother for a walk with a baby.
