When does a schedule happen?

My boys are 5 weeks today. I know they are very young, but when will a schedule/routine happen? Am I looking at maybe 4 months and will it magically happen on its own? My DD is 3 and I can't remember how it happened with her. I believe her daycare helped out, but now I stay home full time.

 

For us, we had them on a pretty good eating schedule, at 5 weeks it was every 3 hours...it was difficult to get some kind of nap schedule down because mine were all over the place with naps. I did not feel like we were in a "good schedule" groove until they hit 6 months and that's when they kind of worked out their napping issues. In those early days, I would let them nap where ever they wanted to nap. Ours had their days and nights mixed up, so we had started a little night time routine for them as well.

 

I think we got into a good schedule somewhat at 12 weeks old, and then definitely by 4 months.

 

The boys were in the NICU for a month and came home on a great 3 hr feeding schedule. Naps finally were predictable around 4 months and very routine at the end of 5 months. Hang in there! You'll develop a great routine before the schedule falls into place.

 

We were on a feeding schedule from the beginning, but the nap routine didn't really stay consistent until 5-6 months.

 

Mine fell into a routine pretty quickly. They were on a 3-hr feeding schedule but they changed to a 4-hour one themselves when they were 4 weeks old. Some feeds used to go a bit haywire but I´d say around 4 or 5 weeks for us.

 

Feeding right away, naps between 4 & 5 months.

 

We came home from the hospital on a 4 hour feeding schedule. As for a daily nap AND eating, our routine/schedule was established at 3 months, when they slept 12-13 hours at night. Until that point, they ate every 4 hours, the time depended on when they woke for the day, with the last bottle at 11 pm.

 

We are just starting something of a semblance of a schedule. They are napping at 9am everyday and then sometime around 1 and maybe another evening nap. I am trying to make bedtime at 730 pm every night but my husband who I swear has ADD does not seem to understand this. Night wakings are not scheduled yet.

 

We followed a routine from the beginning--EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) from the Baby Whisperer. It took maybe two months for the boys to really follow it (especially having consistent naps), but they fell into it before long. Following Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child helped with the naps! Since then we've had a fairly flexible schedule--things happen at roughly the same times every day but it's give or take half an hour. Actually at this point (they're 9 months) things are becoming a little more precise but there's still a range of maybe 15-20 minutes in either direction, e.g. wake time and bed time are somewhere between 7 and 7:30. Their morning nap can vary quite a bit (usually 1-1.5 hrs, sometimes 2) but the rest of the day is pretty predictable.