Creating a Schedule for You and Your Baby

When it comes to sleep, there are many challenges with a baby. Babies not sleeping through the night, taking inconsistent naps, needing a lot of assistance falling asleep and going to bed at a different time every night are just some examples of what might be driving you crazy right now. The good news is that there is one thing that can help even out all the ups and downs: a schedule.

Sounds like a simple thing, doesn’t it? But if you are one of the many parents whose baby didn’t fall into a schedule on his own, the thought of creating one for him can be overwhelming. If your child isn’t sleeping through the night yet or refuses to nap entirely, you’ve got some more work ahead of you but consider building a schedule as a pre-sleep coaching step. If your baby has decent sleeping skills and your only problem is that sleep times aren’t predictable, having a set, daily routine is going to make your life a lot easier.

Creating a schedule can be confusing, so let’s break it down into steps. First step is being aware of your child’s sleep needs. For every age and stage there is an average amount of sleep a child needs, as well as average wakeful windows, meaning how long he can be awake before needing to go back to sleep. Each child is different and an average means that there will be slight variations but, on the whole, these figures can provide some guidance on what is typical for a child at a given age. Keep an eye on your child’s behavior and sleepy cues (signs that show he’s tired) to get a better idea of individual needs.

Most babies are ready for a real schedule from about 6 months old, so let’s start there:

·6-8 month old needs 11 hours nighttime sleep, 3 ¼ hours daytime sleep broken into 2-3 naps and has wakeful windows of approx. 1.5-3 hours.

·9-11 month old needs 11 hours of nighttime sleep, 3 hours of daytime sleep across 2 naps with wakeful windows of 2-4 hours

·12-18 month old needs 11 ¼ nighttime sleep, 2 ½ hours of daytime sleep of 1-2 naps and has a wakeful window of about 4-6 hours.

·2 year old needs 11 hours of nighttime sleep, 2 hours of daytime sleep (1 nap) with a wakeful window of 4-6 hours

·3 year old needs 10 ½ hours of nighttime sleep, 1 ½ hours of daytime sleep and has a wakeful window of 5 1/2-12 hours.

You’ll notice that as you get towards the older end of the toddler years, closer to preschool, there is a wider range of averages. Some 3 year olds will take a solid nap each day without it negatively impacting their nights, while others are ready to drop the nap and switch to quiet time. Once you know how much your child is supposed to sleep and you know how long he can stay awake before getting tired, you’ve got the outline of your schedule.        

Step number two is going to be setting a consistent morning wake up time and bedtime. A good wake up time is anywhere between 6-7:30 am whereas a good bedtime is usually in the 6:30-8 pm range. You want to take into account when your child tends to wake in the morning, as well as what would be a convenient start time for you in regard to leaving the house for work/daycare/carpool for older siblings. Babies aren’t little robots to program, but you do have a hand in shaping the times they wake and sleep! So, for example, if you have a 6-month-old who has been waking at 6:30 am and you know he needs 11 hours of sleep at night, you back up 11 hours from wake up to 7:30 pm. Now you’ve got a bedtime and it’s just a matter of filling in naps. Continuing with the example of a 6-month-old, refer to the information above about daytime sleep needs and wakeful windows and you come up with a schedule of something like this:

·6:30 am wake up

·8:30-10 am nap #1

·12:30- 2 pm nap #2

·4- 4:45 pm nap #3

·7:30 pm bedtime

·Stick in your feedings, playtime, errands, bedtime routine and you are all set.

 Once you’ve got your schedule down on paper, start by being as consistent as possible with bedtime and wake up time. Once you are working with a regular morning wake up, move to a consistent start time for your morning nap and the rest of the day falls into place. Remember that a schedule is meant to be consistent but not rigid. You shouldn’t expect your child to nap for the exact amount of time to the minute each day or take the exact same amount of time to fall asleep each night, but the average child does take quickly to a flexible daily schedule. Occasionally, you may need to wake your child up from a nap because otherwise the schedule will get thrown way off course and that’s okay! It’s not always necessary to wake a child and not a good idea when you’re dealing with minor illnesses or teething etc but getting your child up and out of bed before a nap runs too long and ruins the rest of the day’s and/or night’s sleep is part of structuring your routine.

If you’re reading this and thinking that it isn’t actually helpful because your child never naps when you expect, or even at all, know that you can still keep to a somewhat regular bedtime and morning wake up. Keeping those two things consistent will help even if your baby isn’t sleeping through the night or napping well. A lot of the work you are doing by keeping to a schedule is focused on regulating the body’s circadian rhythms, the internal process which cues sleep and wake cycles. Each time you put your baby down and wake him up within the same half hour time frame, it further trains his brain when it is appropriate to sleep and when to be awake.

As a child gets older and transitions to two naps a day and then one, you will notice his wakeful window growing as well. If you end up stuck because your child’s naps don’t quite get you all the way to bedtime, play around a little with the timing. The windows don’t have to be the same throughout the day (ex: 2 hours awake before 1st nap, 3 1/2 hours awake before 2nd nap, 3 hours awake before bedtime) and the best time of day to stretch a wakeful window is in between two naps or before the one nap. The reason for that is because the wakeful period immediately before bedtime appears to have the biggest impact on the overtiredness that makes bedtime and sleeping through the night a challenge.

The longer you keep to your schedule, the easier it will be to stick to it. Once you’ve got it down for a while, it will also be easier to deviate for vacations, special occasions and other things that throw us off track because you and your little one won’t be starting from scratch. It’s much easier to fall back into a routine than it is to start from square one. Sleep is an ever evolving and changing thing, as is parenthood, but this change in your schedule will be a positive one! Learning how to shape your days (and nights) is all a part of balancing your life as a parent, knowing when you’ll be able to run an errand, sneak in a quick shower or, dare I say it, nap and lay the groundwork for long term healthy sleep habits for your child.