Sleep "schedule" for 3 mo. old

[lili-chan]

My daughter is now past the newborn stage of falling asleep at random times and is taking less frequent naps. She is sleeping pretty well and is starting to sometimes sleep 6 hours straight at night. Even though she is sleeping well she is needing encouragement to go to sleep (which is usually jiggling/rocking with whitenoise during the day and nursing lying down for night-time). Given that she needs coaxing to fall asleep, I figure that this is an opportunity to start establishing a sleep schedule.

What "schedule" has worked for you with a 3 month old? What sorts of times should I encourage both for naps and going down for the night? How many naps? Sometimes she will nap for 2-3 hours at a time.

[nola79]

My dd fell into her own schedule, but I can tell you what it is. She wakes up around 7:30, takes a quick 30 min nap around 9, takes a long (2 hr) nap around 12:30 or 1, then takes another quick nap around dinner time, which is 4:30 or 5. Her bath time is around 5:30 or 6, then bedtime in between 7:30 and 9pm, depending on what activities we do or don't have (such as ds's ballgame, practice, etc.)
So, you can see this is a loose schedule and she pretty much fell into it on her own, I just keep our day to day activites the same so she knows what to expect. Sometimes the times or length of naps vary, it depends on what kind of day she's having, but the times I wrote out are the average. I didn't get into her nightwakings, those vary as well.

[almadianna]

no schedules, especially not at that age. I just let my kids do what they needed to. They sort of made their own schedule after a while but were nowhere near a real schedule at 3 months.

[HappyMommy2]

I agree with the 9am and 1pm naps. It isn't rigid, but gives you an idea of what to expect in general. It won't work for all kids, but works for many because it is near natural sleep cycles, at least according to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy children.

[AFWife]

My son is 13mo and his schedule STILL fluctuates. When he was 3mo I would have killed for 6 hours a night and 2-3 hour naps. He only naps like that when he's sick!

Just go with her flow. I mean, as adults we don't have a set "sleep schedule" right? We just listen to our bodies.

[blessedwithboys]

my advice is watch the baby, not the clock. i cant imagine either of my kids having a schedule at 3 mos.

[isabchi]

Originally Posted by blessedwithboys

my advice is watch the baby, not the clock. i cant imagine either of my kids having a schedule at 3 mos.