Ivy’s sleep + feed routine 🍼 how Ivy has slept 12hrs a night by 12 weeks old

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I have another mum potty for you guys. I'm sorry that it has been a lot of mum content but as you guys know, I'm a new mum and it's literally my life right now, and as we are planning for the next season and oh my god, planning some very very exciting things, I just wanted to bring you this content here and now, you know, while it's at the top of my brain and fairly and really relevant for me and I. So yeah, let's get straight into this episode. And this is a much requested episode about

Ivy's sleep and feed routine. So before we do get into it, a little disclaimer is obviously I am not a professional. I am simply just explaining to you guys what we are doing with our baby and the advice I have received from a professional sleep consultant and the resources we're using, you know, like like I say in all my episodes, like this is just me telling you guys. And I guess why I'm kind of putting that disclaimer in is I didn't realize this, but like routines for

newborns is a bit of a polarizing issue. Like when I first spoke about it on my Instagram, I didn't realize, but I got a lot of comments like you shouldn't be putting a newborn on a routine, and yeah, I realized that there's two camps. And it's like you're either for the routine or you're someone who doesn't like routine for newborn. And I'm just of the view that everyone's parenthood and motherhood journey is different and valid. You know,

every human is different, every baby is different. And as long as you're doing what works for you, as long as you're happy your baby's happy, I think that is like totally fine. So if you know, if you listen to this and you do not agree, that is so fine. I you know, I'm not saying this is the only thing you should do. I'm just simply saying this is what we did. And to be completely honest, I am someone who loves routine. I am, you know, a tiepai person.

I'm a bit of a control freak. And the first six like, if you haven't already listened to my episode, the first six weeks, it is the most intense shocking thing. It's like a death of yourself. And I found that this routine for Ivy and me has made me such a happier mum and honestly has made Ivy such a happier baby. I'll get into it. But before her routine, Ivy was not a happy baby. She was honestly very grumpy.

She was collar quy, she cried all the time, and all all that went away when we put her in this sleep and feed routine. And I honestly think it's because she was either hungry or she was overtired. Poor girl was not sleeping enough for sure, because yeah, she just didn't know how to self soothe. And when she started sleeping more and getting more sleep, she literally changed. Guys, like, she is such happy baby, and sleep for babies is

so important for their brain development. So yeah, anyway, long story short, let's get into so the reason that I had kind of heard of routines because I come from you know, like my mom had four babies and she had you know, she was a stay at home mom, and she was very of the view of, like, you know, sleep and feeding on demand and doing things that way.

And I only sort of knew about routines because a girlfriend gave me a book called I think It's like the Baby Bible, and it's by Rebecca Judd, and she's got four kids and she wrote a book about pregnancy and babies. And I remember in that book what And I read this while I was pregnant. Definitely a good book, Like there was kind of stuff in there which I didn't really agree with, but anyway, it was a good book.

And I remember her in that book saying she put her firstborn like she got help from a sleep consultant and she put her firstborn on a routine at six weeks, And by the time he was twelve weeks, he was sleeping seven seven pm to seven am, like twelve hours, which I thought, holy crap, that's incredible, and I remembered that. And then when Ivy was eight weeks. Also another popular

influencer I follow, savann Ahla. She also has two babies and spoke about them being on routine since they were like, you know, come straight from the hospital, and how amazing it was for their sleep and just their routine. So I had those ideas floating in my head and so let's chat about what kind of made me go to this. So at eight weeks, Ivy was just a man feeding

and sleeping through the night. She would wake usually every three hours, so you know, it was like six pm, we would feed her, put her down than nine pm. Then she would have a longer stretch till maybe two am, and then she would get up again at five am. And so you can imagine like when you were getting up that amount of times per night, like your brain is just not functioning. And even I had Tim helping me doing a bottle some of those feeds, and it was just it was wild and I just thought, surely,

I just thought, is there a better way? Like I was kind of losing my mind a bit with the no sleep because I just, yeah, it was it was a lot for us. And I found, you know, when I wasn't sleeping, I was quite I don't want to say unhappy, but when you're not sleeping, you obviously don't have full capacity. You're not functioning. It's like, you know, it's just harder to do life. Like I found that me and Tim were fighting a lot, and it just it felt really hard. And also she just was not

a happy baby. She was crying all the time, like she just Ivy did not seem good. And I remember saying to Tim, I feel like something is wrong. I feel like we're doing things wrong. And you know, the control freaking me was like, I need to sort this out because I see other people with their baby sleeping through and sleeping longer periods and just being a lot happier, and so yeah, I want to kind of get into this.

And then I remember I went back to that book, The Baby Bible, when Rebecca was talking about like her routine and whatnot, and one of like a piece of advice in there she said, one piece of advice I'd give you is if your baby isn't sleeping like, go and help from a professional. It will be the best thing you do. And so I thought, that's it. I'm gonna like, I'm gonna seek help from a professional. So I found one and I will put her details in

the show notes. Her name is Susie and let me just let me look at my last invoice from her so I can see where she's from. So she's from Happy Baby Consultancy and she is Brisbane based. I'll put her details in the show notes and I just like text her. We jumped on a call and it was just such a relief because she she explained so many things to me where she was like, you know, babies biologically should feed and sleep and they should know basically what to do. And at this point to oh this, sorry,

I missed a whole part of this story. So a big part was so Ivy would sleep in a cop by herself during the night, which was really good, and we would obviously just get up to feed her every three hours, which was still painful, but you know, we were getting little bits of sleep, but through the day just because like from when she was a newborn, we would just kind of carry her around, you know, how do you do with a little baby, And what we were finding at eight weeks is she just wouldn't sleep

through the day unless she was on you, and so it was just really hard because me and Tim were like, you can't get anything done. So if I was home alone with Ivy, you literally couldn't really get anything done during the day. And obviously vice versa if Tim was at home with Ivy and I was just like, oh my god, like yeah, it was just a lot, very very clingy. And she also wouldn't go to sleep unless she was like yeah, on me or being rocked to sleep.

And I remember I just like I felt super anxious all the time because it's like you never knew how long it would take to get her to sleep, and then she was not sleeping more than forty five minutes, which is like a sleep cycle for newborns. And yeah,

it was just like this. It was a lot, and I was just like, I feel like there is a better way, and I had my first consult with Susie, and guys, this is not you know, sponsored or anything at all paid for Susie's services, and holly shit, best thing I do, but best thing I did, Like that book.

The best advice I can give you is if your baby is not sleeping for more than forty five minutes through the day, like they can't link their sleep cycles, or they're not sleeping through the night, like, just get some professional help, because it literally if you want, it literally changed the game for us. So basically, just to

you know, bring it back to the present day. After three weeks of Ivy being on this feed and sleep routine, she was sleeping from her nine thirty feet till seven am in the morning, and then just recently in the last week, she is now sleeping seven pm till seven am and we have to go in and wake her up at seven am, like she's just sleeping so well. And then throughout the day she has two one and a half to two hour naps and one forty five minute nap in the afternoon, so she is like getting

all her sleeps in. And she was a baby who did not sleep much when she was a newborn, and honestly, I honestly think that's why she was so grumpy, because she was like overtired all the time and she really needed help, you know, to get to sleep. So I'm not gonna lie, guys, it was a little tough getting her into this routine. So it was definitely a tough

you know, two to three weeks. The biggest kind of advice that we got from this sleep consultant was if you want your baby to sleep well during the night, you have to make sure they're getting all their food during the day. So I just used to leave Ivy until she told me she was hungry, whereas now she feeds at certain times of the day and I basically know that she's getting all her calories in during the day, which is why she can sustain that twelve hour nap.

I mean sleep well, it's definitely not an app And then another thing too is sleep breed sleep Like that's the saying the consult said, And basically I realize if Ivy is sleep during the day isn't good, her sleep at night isn't good. So when she sleeps, you know, quite good during the day and we make sure she's like not overtime and she's getting her naps, she sleeps even better at night. And it's weird because you would think, oh, if she sleeps all day, she's not gonna sleep all night,

but it's the opposite. If she sleeps all day, she sleeps all night. Whereas if she has like, yeah, a bit of an unsettled day, will notice, it's so much harder to get her to bed. So basically some things that helped us was her awake windows. And there's also this really great resource called what what Baby like WoT baby and that stands for windows of time. You can find them on Instagram. And also really good resource I

found on Instagram was the Sleep Teacher. Both of those were good, but like I said, I got an actual sleep consultant who worked with me in Ivy personally, and that was it was a game changer to actually have someone you know, texting Ivy's just working up. Should I go and resettle her or should I leave? Blah blah blah. So basically the biggest thing that we notice is her

windows of time. So Ivy was eating and then she would stay awake for like two hours before we would try and get her to sleep, and by that time she was overtired and it would be even harder to get her to sleep. So now her a wake windows during the day are an hour and fifteen minutes from the time she woke up to an hour and a half, And like I said, if we put her to bed any later than this, it's harder to get her to sleep.

So really tightening up those awake windows and making sure if she's been awake for that manner time she's back down for a nap and you know, lining up her feed times and whatnot. So that's like, for example, if Ivy only has a forty five minute nap during the day, we don't keep her for a wake a longer longer than what that nap was. Are you currently trying to grow your hair, get glowing skin and nails, or help your gut health, Well, look no further because Naked Harvest's

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her back down to sleep and so on. So if she sleeps the full an hour and a half to two hours, we then keep her up for the hour and you know a half, But otherwise, if it's shorter, we match her nap to how long we keep her up.

We also feed her every four hours, but we she has like quite She's actually fully bottle fed now, and that's because Ivy started refusing the boob at eight weeks, which was a little bit sad for me, but you know, it's Ivy's well, it's what she wanted, and I honestly think that's because we did introduce the bottle so early.

But in saying that, we you know, I am back to work and Ivy is only three months old, so it's a little bit hard because we knew that Ivy would need to take the bottle because our plan was always Tim would spend this year at home with Ivy and I would go back to work. So of course we need her to take the bottle. So yeah, she's fully bottle fed now. So it does make it a bit easier for us because we know exactly how much

she's getting. So this is another thing with resettling. Like I said, Ivy wasn't sleeping for longer than forty five minutes at a time, and she would wake up and cry and we would pick her up. So what we now do and she fully knows how to self settle, So basically our routine is we put her down in the cot, fully awake. You know, we make sure we fully prime the environment. So we put her little glow dreaming light on, she has a sound machine. We put

her in a sleepsack, we have blockout blinds. We put her in her cot and we say, Nana, Ivy, this is during the day, and she goes in her cot fully awake, and we simply leave the room and we let her. We let her put herself to sleep. Because basically what was happening is before we were completely putting her to sleep. So we would rock her, we would bounce her, we would do all those things get her to sleep, and then like carefully put her in the cot. And then what she would do is she would wake

up after one sleep cycle. And because when she went to sleep, I was there, we were rocking her, we were comforting her. When she would wake up and we weren't there, she wouldn't link her sleep cycles and she would cry for us. So basically, if you guys think about it, like babies are a clean slate, like they only know what they know. So or for the first eight weeks of Ivy's life, during the day she slept on me, we always rocked her to sleep, like all

these things. So of course she would cry unless that thing happened. So this is where I say it was a little bit tough, and it feels a bit, you know, against your intuition. But at first, you know, we put Ivy in the cot fully awake, and she would cry. And when I say cry, I'm not talking like an emotional cry. I'm talking like they call it a protest cry when the baby simply you know, wants to have mum, if that makes sense, So what would we So what we would do is we would put her down. You know,

she would cry, kick around the cot. I would always time it, and I wouldn't leave her for longer than six minutes. But ninety nine percent of the time she would cry for five minutes and then she would just go to sleep because she realized I wasn't coming back. If you know, she had been crying for a good five to ten minutes and I could see that she wasn't putting her to sleep. I would go in there and pat her bum and have my hand over her,

just so she's like, she knows Mom's there. But I would never pick her up because the whole thing we realize is, you know, if you if she cries and you go in and pick her up, then she goes, oh, okay, anytime I want mom to come pick me up, I just cry. She picks me up and I can sleep on her. But what we kind of showed her was, no, you cry, I'll come in and comfort you, but you're going to sleep and you're cot and you'll you know,

you have to link your sleep cycles. So, like I said, it was a little bit hard at the start, because no one wants to hear their baby cry. But once you realize, like, it's so funny because we have a baby camera and we'll literally watch Ivy and she'll cry, and once she realized no one's coming in, she'll look around and then just put her head down and go to sleep. And me and Tim are like, oh my god,

she's so cheeky. So and that's the thing is it was only hard at the start, And she only did that at the start because previously she would cry, we'd come in, we'd put her to sleep, and that's all she knew, and that's what she thought she had to do to get to sleep. Whereas now she knows I can put myself to sleep, I know. And this is the big thing that I love about routine is Ivy barely cries because she doesn't need to cry for me

to feed her. She gets fed every three to four hours, you know, once her two hour nap is over, or once you know it's seven am, I come in and I pick her up. I don't wait for her to cry, if that makes sense. So what we have found since putting this routine into place, we've found are, like, you know, the whole witching hour thing. So Ivy used to cry

NonStop in the afternoon. She no longer does that. We do not have witching hour, and I honestly think that's because she's getting enough sleep during the day and she's getting enough calor during the day, so she literally has no reason to cry. And I think what was happening previously is because I wasn't being very like onto her feeding time. She was either overtired or she was hungry in the afternoon, because I get more hungry in the afternoon.

So basically she doesn't cry at all because yeah, like I said, once her NAP's over, we come in, we pick her up, and when like we feed her before she's even needing to cry to tell us she's hungry because she's fed. And for us it has just been an absolute game changer to see how happy she is. But also it's been a game changer because we know when we're feeding her, we know when her naps are,

so we can completely plan the day. I've gone back to work, so this routine has made it so much easier for Tim, you know, to look after her and also like her sleep pep through the night even at ten weeks, like from that nine thirty till seven am. Oh my god, guys, I need sleep. And it changed like it was a game changer for us. And I'm a big believer. Is like if mom's happy, baby is happy, and it's it's just it has been so much better

for us. Like I said, it was a little bit tough at the start figuring it out letting herself soothe. I do want to be like deliberate though, and just say we don't do the crying out method, Like if you do that, amazing, you do you, But it's not like we leave her and she's crying for hours. The simple protest cry was just to teach her to self soothe, and it honestly only took a week or so and

she understood it. And now she completely puts herself to bed and even I will watch the camera after forty five minutes she wakes up in her morning naps, she'll wake up, she'll move around the cod a little, she'll make some noises, and then she'll put herself back to sleep because she knows, oh, I've got another sleep, and then Mum will come and get me and we'll feed.

So like she's she's super smart, like babies are really smart and they they know you know what they want and they know, oh if I cry, Mum will come get me and I can sleep on her. Whereas, yeah, if you don't teach them, they you know, they only know what you can know, if that makes sense. But yeah, A couple other things that we did is I started reading the book Save Our Sleep. This is a musk, guys,

So this very much. If you can't you know, afford the Sleep Consultant, or you just like you don't feel like you're at that step yet, go and read this book. Get it on audible, get it on Kindle, because very much everything that I was taught from the Sleep Consultant was in this book. And I will go back to the book. It's a little bit different with their awake times, but in this book they have example routines that tell you exactly you know, when to feed, when to put

baby down, and this and that. So if you're wanting direction about routines, that's definitely what I recommend. But to give you guys a rough idea, currently what Ivy's routine looks like. This is what we do. So we wake Ivy up at seven a m. She's usually always sleeping at this point, and so we go in and wake her up. We never leave her past this point because generally there's a twelve hour window, so whatever time you wake baby up, that's the time they'll go to bed.

So we never want her to put her We never want to put her later than seven pm to bed because we eat after that. It's like wait too wait for us. So just think, whatever time you wake baby up is generally the time that they will go to sleep. So we wake her up at seven am. We say, hi, Ivy, you've had such a good sleep, you know, kisses, cuddles, change her, bring her downstairs, and she has her first bottle of the day. A quick tidbit guys with feeding.

A guy that my pediatrician told me is you go off your baby's weight times one fifty, which is like how many mills, and then you divide that by how many feeds you do a day. So we do four feeds for her at the moment, so she has around two hundred mills in each bottle. So yeah, seven am feed. We then keep her awake for an hour and fifteen to an hour and a half. We have playtime in the Mama Roo that sort of thing, and then she

is down in her cot. We put her in a cot completely awake, and we let her self soothe and go to sleep. So often we'll look the camera and she won't go to sleep for like fifteen minutes. She will like mess around her cock cot, talk to herself that sort of thing, but eventually she'll go to sleep. If she does cry and she doesn't go to sleep, I'll simply go in there, tap her bottom, help her

to sleep, and she'll go to sleep. But usually, you know, she knows how to self soothe now, and then she'll usually have an hour and fifteen to two hours for her first two naps. Again, if she wakes up after one cycle and she doesn't link it and she cries, I go in there and I pat her bum. I never had. I never take her out of the cock.

If she's hysterically crying, I generally know okay, she you know, is either have has a burp or she needs her nappy changed, and obviously I will, you know, do those things. I'm not like a robot. Her next feed is at eleven am, and then we do the exact same thing with the awake times. How we put it to bed and and then her next feed is at three PM and then six point thirty and then in the afternoon.

She doesn't usually sleep longer than forty five minutes, which is fine because she usually gets a good three or four hours before that. And then we do her bedtime routine, so we give her a bath, we have a little play, we get her in her pajamas, and then we do her last bottle at six point thirty, and then she gets put in bed at seven and goes to sleep, and at the moment she's sleeping the twelve hours touch wood. So that's just a little bit about what has helped us,

what we're currently doing with her routine. But yeah, I hope that helps. Definitely check out what Baby, which is Windows of Time. The sleep teacher on Instagram has some great resources. The book This is a Musk Guy's The book Save Our Sleep has been such an amazing tool for us. Again, we don't do everything in the book, but take what you want. It's just really great, you know, to know. And then getting help from the sleep consultant Susie. I'll put her details in the show notes. Oh my God,

like game changer. I text Susie all the time. And I go, oh my god, you know, Ivy's had the best sleep day, thank you so much. And she's like Susie's very old school and she yeah, she's like she was a bit brutal. I'm not gonna lie, but she was awesome. And she just gave me so much confidence.

And that is like the biggest thing. Since we've got Ivy into this routine, I just feel so much more confident as a mum because, you know, because I know if she's crying, it's like I know that you know, I know she's been fed, i know her nappy has changed, I know that she's had enough sleep. So if she's crying, I'm like, all right, what's wrong? And it's just like her routine eliminates so many things and she doesn't really

have a lot of reasons to cry. And then also it's just it's made me and Tim's relationship so much better because everyone knows, you know, what they're doing when they're doing it, what she needs. It's so amazing for me going back to work. It's so amazing for both me and Tim's sleep, Ivy sleep, Like obviously you can see I'm a big fan of routine. Yeah, it has been a game changeer for us, so obviously I wanted

to share this. But again, I know this is not for everyone, and that is so okay, but please do not DM me and you know, come at me about routine, because like I said, everyone's journey with parenthood is different and valid and whatever works for you, that's amazing. I'm just telling you, guys, what has worked for me and Tim. And also I'm telling you because I kind of wish I had started this whole route thing earlier. I know,

and save this, save our sleep. She has routines from newborn, and one hundred percent with our next baby, I will be doing her routines from day dot because I just feel like, you know, newborn stage is hectic enough to eliminate you know, these sorts of things. It's it's super helpful, but again that's because I'm someone who loves routine, and of course my baby loves routine. But yes, anyway, guys,

I hope that answers your questions. I know I've kind of just like blabbed on, but yeah, I hope that is helpful. Make sure you check out those resources. I will link everything in the show notes and I'll definitely update you guys, because I know the whole four month sleep regression is coming and I will let you know how we go with that. But for now, everyone's sleeping in the Crouch household and it is just bliss. And if your baby's currently not sleep, definitely definitely look into

us again. It took us a good couple weeks before we saw the results. I have another girlfriend who is currently just starting a routine and she has said, you know, the first couple weeks is hard, but stick to it. Yeah, we saw amazing results, and yeah, we're all very happy. But I hope this episode is helpful and I will chat to you in my next episode. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you for listening for another RNC episode. I really appreciate taking the time to be here with me, and

also for taking the time for yourself. If you found this episode helpful, it would be so amazing if you shared it on your stories and tagged us, or simply just send it on to a girlfriend or family member who would benefit from listening. We are an independent podcast run by me and my amazing podcast manager, so it would mean the world to us if you left a

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