7 week old + 3y9m routine combination

[Lilo's mom]

Hi there! My dd is almost 7 week old and she is a mix of textbook and touchy baby. She is quite easy to understand but is very sensible to noise and doesnt like to be left alone (who does?!)
I am breastfeeding and eveything is good with her health, but I couldnt establish a sleep routine just yet. She nurses every 2,5 to 3 hours during the day and stretches 6 to 7 hours at night. During the day, her sleeping pattern varies daily... There are days in which she pretty much seems to sleep all day, anywhere she is; and there are other days in which she seems to resist falling asleep and spends most of the day alert. When I put her down for a nap, it's a lottery: she may sleep 1,5h straight, she may sleep and wake several times, or she may sleep 20 min and that is all. So first question: is it too soon to start working on nap extension? I tend to think she is too young for that, but I wonder what is the correct age to start working on teaching good sleep habits? I noticed she is already able to sleep by herself -sometimes she falls asleep while nursing or while being held and, when I put her down she wakes. She complains, fusses a bit but eventually sleeps, alone.

The second part of my post is regaring combining her routine with my ds. He is 3y9m and sleeps very well. He still naps for 1 hour in the afternoon and usually sleeps straight from 9,30pm until 8am. His sleep pattern is a blessimg (but I suffered A LOT with short naps while he was months old, and people here helped me go through it, thankfully!)
Bedtime routine for him involves a bath with dh and milk, story and cuddle time with me. Since I stil dont know how long it will take to put dd to sleep, We usually put ds before her. So it makes her go to bed at 10,30 or 11, which wont be sustainable when I go back to work... Ds always insists he wants the cuddle time with me (and frankly, I love it); so, to accommodate to that, I wou,d have to put dd to bed much earlier, so I think my day would need to start too early... Do you have advice on how to combine the routines while dd is so young?
Thanks!!

[Martini~]

I think combining routine will be difficult at this age as her naps will vary a lot until 3/4 months when in my opinion they stabilize a bit as you go into 3 naps routine (2x naps and 1 catnap).

I have a 6wo right now (will be 7wo tomorrow LOL - time flies!) and we are trying for the routine from day one. The case is you have to understand that this routine will be different every day (slightly) and do not worry if it goes off a bit. We try to keep feeding schedule (it's not very popular these days but I do not feed "on demand" as such, but DS gains weight and there is not much of pushing him to 3h schedule, it's rather me waking him to feed), extending naps, working on independent sleep (which is early days is rather settling in the cot not going to sleep independently). A times vary a lot from 1:15 to 1:45 right now, every day is different as in first weeks you have 4 developmental leaps and 3-4 growth spurts). DS1 at that age was doing 1:15-1:20 of A tops to get a good nap, DS2 seems to be doing better on longer A so I presume we will be down to 3 naps quicker than 4 months. Haven't yet decided it's the right moment for doing that:). More rigid schedule will be present probably after 4mo when the leap 4 of wonder week will flush. So what I wanted to say is, you can go for EASY now or you can wait, it depends on you. Just remember to be very flexible in early days.

[*Ali*]

I agree the routine will change lots in the next few weeks.

Your BT is super late so I'm sure you could bring that earlier. Even 8.30pm BT for your baby would still be much later than most of us on here typically do/did with a young baby I should think. What time does your LO get up in the morning with a 10.30pm BT?

With the naps I'd try for a decent A time before each nap like pp says. If she does wake early you could try resettling her with shush pat or even a feed but if she gets upset or its not happening after 5-10 minutes I'd just get her up.