Baby Nap/Bedtime Schedules - When to Begin and How?

Eight week olds don't have a "schedule." Let him/her sleep when s/he needs to sleep and you'll notice a pattern.

My advice would be to take your cues from your baby.

I did with my first until some well meaning person told me to get them on a schedule. A schedule outlined by the most popular sleep book at the time.

I found this went against my baby's natural rhythm and it just became a chore for me to try to adjust him into a pattern that wasn't natural for him.

Around 3 months they naturally will start to move towards a more regular nap schedule and night time sleep if you let them. I didn't try to structure my other babies at all and it worked so much better. I just adapted to them. We were all much more flexible. I had older children so sometimes the baby had to snooze while we went places with the older ones, other times my older ones just had to wait till baby was done their nap. The thing was, I wasn't looking at a clock or caring. We just went with what worked.

Sounds like you didn't worry about it with your first and it just worked out :) Good luck

The baby creates her own schedule. You can try to fiddle with it a little, but basically, when they are tired, they're tired. You make it up as you go along. If you wait too long to put her down for a nap, she'll let you know by being just impossible. If you try to put her down when she's not tired, she'll let you know by being just impossible. I think you don't remember what you did with your first kid because you just felt your way through it, letting the baby take the lead. A schedule will emerge in time, but you will be noticing it, not setting it. I know it's hard with the second kid because you are trying to work around the rest of the family and the other child, but really, there's not much "training" involved, and you just are not going to make a baby stick to an artificial schedule. Later, after 6 months of age, if she's not sleeping through the night, you can look into sleep training/Ferber. But not now!

I think I did it gradually. During daylight hours, the schedule was eat play sleep, eat play sleep. At night, eat sleep, eat sleep. As baby got older, the playtime got longer and became eat play eat sleep, repeat. Before the ~9PM sleeptime, we would have bath and story to set up the future bedtime routine.

Nighttime was differentiated from day by simply not having the playtime.

you've 'heard' it? from whom?
all i did to 'schedule' my babies was to go about my life. when my life was busy and active, the babies were generally awake. when we slowed down and got quiet, they slept.
my younger was harder to get to sleep sometimes. the car conked him out reliably.
i can't think of any way to make an 8 week old baby stick to an arbitrary schedule.
my babies napped in backpacks and at daycare and on blankets at the barn and in tents and in the car and at home in their cribs and on top of daddy's chest.
don't parent your baby from what you've 'heard' is right.
your baby is part of your life. just make sensible accommodations and go on with it.
khairete
S.

8 weeks seems to young to start a schedule. Most infants will adapt to a schedule once they are older, like 6 months or so and even then it is not easy to keep.

The only schedule I can recall is one about every three to four hours to eat, burp, and a change. Awake for about an hour or so and then back to sleep. So take a nap or two one in the morning and the other in the afternoon if you can. How old is your other child? That will have to be added into your schedule. Housekeeping is at a minimum right now. You will do more later on. About the six month time frame they start to have more of a schedule but then there is teething to throw it off.

Don't force it, it will come. No baby sticks to a schedule as each day is different for them just like it is different for you.

the other S.

PS I loved the time from birth to six months as they were pretty much no mobile except for when they learned how to roll over. They would sleep and you could too. You are healing from birth and they are growing into little people. Enjoy this time as it will be gone oh so quickly.

my son was on a solid routine when my daughter was born. i would carry her when we were out doing stuff and she slept when he was napping too. she just fell right into the routine and kept with it as best as an infant can. i made sure that i stuck to the routine as best i could too. so think of what your routine should be for nap and bed times and attempt to follor that routine. but at your babies age i wouldn't be super strict on it. just try to stick to it. but stay flexible so you don't loose your mind forcing an infant to conform

I personally find the idea of putting a baby on a schedule silly. They are non-verbal so you really can't explain it to them. Instead you feed them when they are hungry and they sleep when they are tired. Since babies can sleep anywhere (you can wear them or take your stroller wherever you go), I don't really see that there is any reason at all they need a schedule. My son never napped in the crib because we were rarely home during the day when he fell asleep. And I certainly wasn't going to pick him up and move him if he fell asleep on the rug. My son started daycare 3 days a week when he was 9 weeks old. They asked what his schedule was. I explained as above and they were fine with it. If he woke in the morning with time to feed, DH or I fed and changed him. If he was asleep, we changed him, popped him in the car and he ate at daycare. We put him in his crib for the night when we went to bed.

I smile when I read "how do I make her stick to it?" You don't. Let the baby tell you when she needs is hungry, needs to change, etc. This is the time for newborn growth. You could try in a few months to keep her up a bit more during the day but right now, let her tell you the schedule.

I had a "friend" that was told and read all about scheduling the baby. She would wake the baby during the day, make the baby wait for feedings if it was not "on schedule"--sorry, ten more minutes till you eat. She started this at 3 weeks. If the baby fell asleep off-schedule, she would give ten minutes and wake him up. Luckily, she did not do the same for changing. We clashed because she would not listen to suggestions about helping the baby adjust . The poor thing would scream because he was hungry.

Give it time and expect several off-schedule periods during growth spurts and teething and illnesses etc. Would be great to have an owners manual.

You can start by stretching the periods of wakefulness during the day and curbing them at night. I agree with my new nick name.

They sleep nearly all the time at this age.

I think babies should sleep when they're tired and not have to worry about it's a certain time and by gosh, even if they're wide awake and happy I am going to make them take a nap...

When they get closer to one they should be on a morning nap and an afternoon nap. Then after they turn one work on getting it down to one nap after lunch. Til around 3 or so.

I think that moms sometimes confuse me. Why have kids then put them to bed right after dinner? Why not have them stay up and have interaction with the family?

I also think that a mom that expects her child to sleep 12-14 hours straight without waking up to eat or have a diaper change is a bit unrealistic. They won't sleep that many hours without food. They should be eating every few hours for months and that includes night time. Keep them up a bit, I think 8pm or 9pm is perfect. They can eat before they go down and maybe they will only wake up once to eat before morning.

So I don't know. I think you have to plan your day around your baby. Not have them plan their naps around your schedule.

j

Hi C.S.,

Mine's 14 so I don't recall any specifics of how we developed a schedule. What I will say is that I think 8 weeks is way too early for this. At this age, you're probably still taking the baby to the ped pretty regularly. If I were in your shoes, I would hold off until the next appt and ask the pediatrician for some guidance on this. My thought is to hold off until he/she is at least a few months older.

Thoughts to you and yours during this first year. :-) S.