Schedule and routine for a 11-12 week old newborn baby. Get info on this baby’s daily schedule and what her routine was each day.

This is a summary for McKenna age 11-12 weeks, or the twelfth week. This week was kind of difficult. Let’s get right to it.

NURSING

McKenna is getting faster and faster at nursing. This is very typical as a baby reaches 3 months old. Both Brayden and Kaitlyn got a lot faster at three months–cutting their previous nursing time in half.

My yeast infection came back and came back with a vengeance (my friend who is a lactation consultant says this is typical). There is still no sign of it in McKenna. I called her pediatrician’s office and spoke to the nurse who is always rude on the phone (though she really is nice in person) and she told me the only treat the baby if baby has it. However, everything I have read says you treat both mom and baby if one has it. My lactation consultant friend says the same. AND I remember my pediatrician saying that with Kaitlyn. So McKenna now has Nystatin oral suspension drops and I am on a two week Diflucan (fluconazole) plan. Things are looking better.

WAKETIME

Waketime length stayed the same–about 50 minutes. However, I still found it elusive this week. I got the first two waketimes down with no problem. By the time her third nap rolls around I am confused and unsure…just as I was last week (I have since figured it out, but that was during week 13, not 12). I continued experimenting.

How do I know the waketime is wrong? Well, mostly due to the video monitor. I can watch her and I see that she takes a long time to fall asleep. This is a curse of the video monitor. If I didn’t have it then I would think all was well and she was sleeping. But, it is also a blessing because I can fix things. However, this week she also started crying before the nap.

11-12 week old newborn schedule and routine pinnable image

CRY IT OUT

Ugh! What? Crying! We had this down. Things were so peaceful for her entire life (save that witching hour at the end of the day when she cries only if left alone in her crib). I was frustrated. By the time Kaitlyn was this age, she was totally done crying. Why is McKenna starting now? A hard thing is that I really don’t know McKenna’s cries well since I rarely hear her cry. So when she started crying before her afternoon nap, I didn’t know what was wrong. I responded and I interfered, which I think was the right thing to do under the circumstances. She didn’t do it every day, and I meticulously kept logs (of course) and review the meticulous logs from her lifetime to see if I could see the common thread.

No luck. I could not see any reason to it. I hypothesized it might be the heat because that is the point in the day it starts to warm up in her room. As the days passed, she started crying before other naps. Finally one day she cried before her first nap. At that point, I realized I had created a bad habit.

It was hard for me since she had never cried. I figured something was wrong with her, which I honestly think is a wise assumption. I quickly saw, however, that there wasn’t anything wrong and she was just starting to protest the end of social hour. It was time to CIO. She must have sensed my resolve because she stopped crying that day.

Read all of my sleep training posts here.

SWING

This is where my downfall came, I think. McKenna has never liked the swing. We purchased a new swing before she was born and still had the swing Brayden and Kaitlyn had as babies. I decided to pull out that swing. She loved it! During her witching hour, she would sleep in it which is much better than being fussy in the other swing. It is often at the time of day Brayden and Kaitlyn go to bed, so it isn’t really practical for me to just hold her the whole time.

When she started having a hard time going to sleep, I would move her to her swing since she liked it. She has always gone down so well and I worried she would get overly tired. Then I started creating a bad habit.

I love the swing. I think it is great to have it as a back-up. Since McKenna senses my departure, it gives me more freedom when I cross our property line :). But I started to mis-use it. More on that next week 🙂

NIGHTTIME

The days were warmer for the most part and she started STTN again. One day it was quite cold. That night she woke at 3:30 AM. The other nights she slept through the night. Now, when I say STTN, I mean she is sleeping 7-8 hours. This puts her waking earlier than our ultimate waketime. So it is technically still a night feeding.

SWADDLE

The first day of this week I decided to try McKenna’s arm out of the swaddle. I did it for her first nap of the day. I debated when to do it. Her first nap is consistently good and I view the first nap of the day to be very important. If you mess up the first nap, you tend to mess up the whole day (especially with the younger babies). However, since her first nap is always good, I decided to go for that one.

As soon as I left the room, she was crying. This was before the crying started later in the week. So I immediately went back in and swaddled her arm in and she went to sleep just fine. She isn’t ready yet.

Read: Dropping the Swaddle

HAND SUCKING

McKenna is trying to suck her hand. She sometimes works her arm up from the swaddle (though not out of it) and sucks on her hand. Sometimes during playtime, she gets her hand there. So far it only serves to make her really mad. She can’t get it how she likes it I guess 🙂

OUTINGS/EVENTS

We of course still have a lot of disruptions. This is the reason I planned for a baby at the time of year that I did. Then she could be nice and established before the disruptions started, right? Well, she was 🙂 She doesn’t seem to be terribly thrown off by the disruptions. Like I said last week, I work to get her to sleep when she should and I keep feedings on time. I also always have a morning nap and I try to keep the disruptions to the evening as much as possible.

OUR SCHEDULE

It is the same:

7:30 AM–eat
8:30 AM–nap
10 or 10:30 AM–eat (I always get her by 10:30)
10:50 or 11:20 AM–nap
1 or 1:30 PM–eat (I always get her by 1:30)
1:50 or 2:20 PM–nap
4:00 PM–eat
4:50 PM–nap6:00 PM–eat
6:45 PM–put in swing (due to witching hour)–sometimes she sleeps, sometimes not
8:00 PM–eat (essentially a dreamfeed–no waketime)
8:30 PM–in bed
10:00 PM–Dreamfeed