When a person who is not familiar with your routine way of doing an activity, attempts to feed or bathe your child, the child might become anxious or uncooperative. Yet if you direct that person to do it your way the child will often calm and respond better. He's familiar with the routine. That helps him to better anticipate and participate in the activity. They also help weave a cluster of people, actions, objects and locations into a meaningful whole.
Routines make use of natural cues, i.e. one step acts as a cue for the next step.
This type of cueing does not require another person to always prompt the child because the objects used in the activity serve as the prompts. In addition routines can help a child anticipate an end to an undesired activity or recognize the beginning of a desired activity. If a child does not have an organized experience he can not understand. If he can not understand an experience he will not learn from it. When a child has an internal picture of an activity he can recognize when something changes.