Building a Routine at Home

Coming home is when the reality lands. In hospital there was always someone to ask. At home, at two in the morning, there is you.

The thing that helps most is writing the routine down rather than holding it in your head. Exhausted people forget, and two exhausted people remember different things.

Put on one sheet, stuck where you will see it:

• Feed times, and roughly how much.
• When checks are done, and the target range you were given.
• The medicine, the dose, and the time.
• What to do for a low, with the exact amount to give.
• The number to call, day and night, and when to call an ambulance instead.

Build the routine around your baby's feeds and sleep rather than around the clock. Feeds are the anchor at this age, and a schedule that fights the baby will not survive the week.

A few things that make the first weeks easier: keep supplies in one box that travels with you around the house; prepare what you can in advance, in daylight, rather than at night; and set alarms rather than trying to stay awake.

Expect the first fortnight to be worse than what follows. Almost every parent describes the same arc — unmanageable, then difficult, then routine — and reaching the third stage takes weeks, not months.

Do not aim for perfect readings in this period. Aim for safe readings, feeds going in, and everyone getting some sleep.