Kacey is only 2 weeks old so obviously im not expecting anything yet. But do babys get themself into a routine or is it something i need to do or start doing. She is breast fed. She feeds every 2 hours during the day and usually has 1 sometimes 2 three hour gaps between feeds at night. Between her feeds she normally sleeps but does have active periods. Sometimes for the whole 2 hours between feeds and sometimes she will be awake for an hour and then sleeps and sometimes she just sleeps the whole time. Will she start going longer between feeds herself? I have noticed her awake times are getting slightly longer. Also how long should a 2 week old baby sleep for in 2 hours.

you will start to notice a pattern in her feeding/sleeping that you can start to work with to give you routine. we are still very much all over the place lol

I did whatever my lo wanted whenever with feeding and sleeping. was a crazy 2 months as she had days nights mixed up! at 2 months she sorted day and night and at 3 months she was going to bed at 7pm waking at 4am and then 7am. All without me doing anything to persuade her. All i did do recently is introduce a night dream feed at 11pm and then she sleeps till 7. Think i may have been lucky though.

We didn't really do muc by way of routine until 6 weeks, when the evening cluster feeding settled down, then we started to move bedtime earlier and put in place an evening routine of bath, massage and a last feed, it took some work to get her used to settling at 7 but now she goes down every night without any fuss. We are still working on a daytime routine of more regular naps and she is three months now. I think we sort of used her natural routine as the basis but we did work on getting some consistency for her so that she would know what to expect at certain times of day.

At some points I've tried to set routines but I found that I got really frustrated and felt like a crap mum because Brady so obviously wasn't ready to do it or didn't want to.

I don't put too much pressure on myself now though, and he's kind of got himself into a routine. I did little things to help him differentiate between night and day but he dropped his night feeds himself and has slept through for a while now. It's nice because it means that it's still quite flexible, so we can go out during the day and he'll nap in his pram or we can go to dinner at nanny and grandads so he might be up a bit later but it's ok coz I'm not worried about getting him to bed at a specific time etc.

Its not advisable to ever try and get babies in fixed routines for feeding, it doesnt work!
As she gets older she will settle herself into her own natural pattern. As for when they go longer between feeds...it varies! BF babies especially will change the length of time between each feed dependant on their need, during growth spurts they will often feed much more regularly so you may find the length gets to 3/4 hours for a while then goes to 1-2 hours for a week then lengthens back out a little etc etc...every baby is different and the best advise I can give is to stay relaxed and go with it, dont try and force her to go longer or stress shes not normal!
Things like progress to bedtime 'routines' can be useful once shes a little older, eg a repeat of the same patterns of behaviour from you around the time you would eventually like her to see as "bedtime"..you just need to not obsess about getting it right and accept that some days it will work and other days it wont however in the long run it will all come together.

I would let your baby lead the way, my LO fell into a routine by himself, I fed him when he wanted, never didn't feed because it wasnt long since his last feed, let him sleep when he wanted even if he'd just been awake for a feed and let him sleep as long as he wanted, even if it meant he was going longer than 4 hours without a bottle, made sure night time was dark etc and now he sleeps all night and has a 2 hours awake 2 hours asleep and a feed every 4 hrs routine during the day. I think if you actually try and force your baby into a routine you could be feeding them when they arent hungry and trying to make them sleep when they aren't tired which will just stress you both out more than anything, wondering why LO isn't feeding or wont sleep.

Same as the other girls - I let my boy dictate his own routine and he really does stick to it mainly! Often, if there's a change it sticks. He used to feed, 11, 4, 7. Now he feeds 11, 2, 7 !! Same gaps but just different times! If he does have an off day when he feeds later/earlier he brings it back around.
The only thing we've done from birth is the day/night differentiation - other than that, nothing! We're about to start putting a bit more into his 7pm feed to initiate a 'bedtime' routine, e.g. reading a book together before he goes down. I'm a bit reluctant to put a bath into the routine as A - he loves them and it might wake him up! B - he still wakes hungry so I'd have to wake him to bath him before he wanted food and C - it's a lot of extra work to bath every night and while I'm on maternity leave it's lovely to do it whenever it fits

Some babies fall into routines quite easily, others don't and if you're breastfeeding, it's important to let your baby set the pace.

I was never really one for routines, and neither was my daughter but as your baby gets older, you might start to see a pattern to feeding and sleeping. Tbh, if you do then I would go with that rather than try to get into a set routine from a book. The only thing we've ever done is a bedtime routine of bath, wind down, milk, bed and that wasn't until she was quite a bit older.

There is a downside to strict routines that mean you have to be in certain places at certain times as it does restrict you,

All we really did at that stage was try to make a difference between night and day - nighttime - quiet feeds, dark room, little interaction with baby. Daytime - lights, playing, interaction with baby.

At first it felt like Z was never going to get into a routine but gradually the time between night feeds got longer and by 6 weeks she was sleeping for about 6/7 hours at night.