If I were to tell the truth, the first few days of having our baby home were and absolute blur. I never knew what time it was, I stopped counting the hours between his bottle feedings and naps. I just worked through those days like a zombie mama, taking care of my baby as best as I knew how.

Now that he’s been home for a week, I’ve already started using my brain and my good friend Google to figure out how I can simplify the late nights and better manage my time. If I can start thinking about this one week in, I can only imagine what kind of mama machine I’ll be in a month or longer.

Routine, Routine, Routine. I usually start routines and then fall off, but I know in this case routines are going to be the keys to success for my baby and I. The most important routine I can have right now while I’m still at home is our nighttime routine. I’ve decided the baby is going to have a “bedtime” all predicated on his own schedule, but it’s at that time that we officially wind down from our day.

1. All of baby’s bottles that will be needed throughout the night should be prepped and easy to access. The same goes for diaper changing.

2. I tell Alexa to play some nice tunes for baby, but you can use any music and devices you’d like. I love classical baby lullaby’s or the shushing noise for baby.

3. Dim or turn off the lights, keeping only a night light on and get to work. It’s much easier to calm the baby for bed when the bedtime mood is set.

4. The hospital recommended that we have bath time every other day until he’s old enough. I’ll Baby should have let you use your own discretion with that one. Baby should have on clean diaper, clean clothes and then swaddled nicely.

5. While swaddled, or before, you can give him a nice little back rub or just hold him while you start feeding him that “last bottle before bed”.

6. Just before baby is sleep you can place baby in their bassinet so that they can fall asleep own their own, therefore encouraging them to sleep without being held. Out of all the things I could have prepped for, no one told me how much my baby would like to be held, especially in order for him to sleep.

This routine should prove worthy, or at least give you some structure while you awake every few hours. When baby wakes up throughout the night, they’ll be so calm, you can feed or change them and they’ll fall right back to sleep. It may not work like this every single time, but at least we can practice for a perfect world.

P.S. hug, kiss and snuggle your little as much as you’d like during this routine ♥️