Gentle Parents - can you answer these questions?

okaaaay, where to start.
well, it seems after four and a half months, i have started to listen to my instincts a hell of a lot more, and am slowly doing what seems to work best for me and bubs, regardless of what others think and what is the 'norm'...

for the past few weeks we have been co-sleeping from about midnight til 7am which is working out great... poor DP is sleeping in another room, but at least we are all getting a great night's sleep most of the time...

my first question is, for those who co-sleep, how do you get your babies to sleep during the day? what methods do you use to get them to sleep, since you are not next to them in the bed, IYKWIM. Is there any crying/fussing involved? At the moment DD seems to whinge/cry for about 10 minutes before going to sleep, and there really isn't much I can do to avoid this, even if I cuddle her she still cries as she is trying to fight going to sleep.... am wondering if some babies semi 'need' to have a cry to wind down? Not sure what methods I can use to avoid the crying...? We follow a ritual before nap of lights off, curtains drawn, lullaby music playing, hop into sleeping bag, cuddle with mum, then into bed....

my second question is (and i apologise now as i realise this is going to end up a ridiculously long post), is there any pattern, regularity to your days? We don't seem to be in any routine (for want of a better word) whatsoever.... every day is different, sometimes in the mornings i can get her to take a 2 hour nap, others its only half an hour... I guess I am just wondering if anybody else has a really irregular baby? I hear babies love routine, and am wondering if it is 'okay' to have a different groove every day? I guess wake up time in the morning and bedtime are the only two fairly regular things, what goes on in the middle is anyones guess. Do you think some babies are just different each day? Would love to hear that there are other people out there the same!? Should I be trying to gently encourage some sort of predictability... I have been trying for 4.5 months now and have had no real success! Am thinking it is not worth the effort and if she wants to not sleep some days and laze around others, then just let her be...

okay am going to stop with my questions now as it is getting too long, thanks if there is anyone out there who stuck around to read this! xx

Emma, I don't co-sleep (would love to but my boys for whatever reason prefer their own sleeping space) so I will leave part 1 to someone else. As for part 2, Tom is similar to what you describe. He usually goes down for his first sleep sometime between 8am and 9:30am, although if we have playgroup or something he often doesn't have a first sleep. Then what happens depends on when he woke from his first sleep (could be anytime from 9 to 11:30).

To my mind, routine and predicatibility is about order rather than structure. So roughly speaking, Tom's day is wake, breakfast, maybe bf (depends on the day), sleep, bf, lunch, play, bf, sleep, bf, play, bath, bf, dinner, bf, bed. But the order can change and he can miss a sleep or have an extra one. But more or less the order of things is the same. And also when it varies significantly (ie miss the first sleep), it's because we are out, so he then knows that means that he will bf and sleep as soon as we get home. So he still knows what to expect IYKWIM?

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you follow your baby's cues, things will pretty much become a routine anyway, just a more flexible one. I hope this makes some sense for you. I find this more so with a second child, as the two of them have to fit into each other's patterns to a certain extent, and most often that means all my shopping is done late afternoon as it's the only time neither of them needs a sleep.

Hi Emma, hope I cover everything with my reply.

Day sleeps DS will feed to sleep, like he does at night. Otherwise he will go to sleep in his pushchair or strapped to me as I walk around. We co-sleep, but he always has his first sleep in his bed because when he sleeps through I don't want to then change things. DS has 3-4 day sleeps, but they are all short sleeps, about half an hour each.

Our routine, well, we fell into this because of what suited my coffee mornings, so it is as follows:

7-7.30 get out of bed. Get up, dressed, breakfasted, ready to go out. If DS has been awake since 6ish, he has a sleep about 8ish.
9.30ish go out for a walk. Mornings are mummy-time so we play quiet games. Quite often DS will fall asleep before 10.
12.30ish he's asleep for my lunch. He wakes up and we share some fruit.
Afternoon nap is unpredictable, but afternoons are full of songs, dances, stories, games, hugs - it's full-on DS time now he has had a chance to do things for himself.
4.15 car-watching (DS loves watching cars go past)
4.30 DH arrives home, quick cuddle
5.30 Boys play-time while Mummy makes dinner
6.15ish Family Dinner (we each have our own food and it's sociable at the table, more to teach DS about social meals than about him eating right now, although DH and I do feed him).
7 start of bedtime
7.45 usually in bed asleep.

So that's the rhythm of our day, it can change a bit but DS likes knowing what's coming next and it fits in us going out and his playgroup (which is in the afternoon). Maybe if you write it down for a few days you will see a pattern emerge that you can encourage.

tis okay caro!!!!! i understand :-)

i guess it just feels weird because i hear a lot of (by around 4 months a pattern should be emerging), and its just not happening whatsoever... also a lot of the babies in my mums group seem to run like clock work....

DD is so different.... completely different one day to the next... for example she only had two half hour naps today, then at 3.30pm went down and now at 5.30pm is still asleep.... where as yesterday she had two hours in the morning, then two hours in the evening, then bed at 7pm.... tonight i am sure she wont go to bed until closer to 8 or 9 depending on when she wakes.... but it would have been cruel not to let her sleep at 3.30pm, and i certainly don't feel right waking her, as she obviously needs some sleep....

just wondering if such differing days really matter in the grand scheme of things... i try to encourage a 7pm bedtime, but obviously since its 5.30pm and she is still asleep, that is out the window today.