when does a schedule emerge?

[mommariffic]

My DS is going on 8 weeks, and we still don't have a routine. He kind of nurses/naps whenever he wants. I only had DD 3 years ago but I can NOT remember what a babe is like!

When did you see a sort of rhythm/schedule occur as far as napping?

And on average how much should a 2month old sleep?

[Knitting Mama]

Cecilia is 4.5 months old, and sort of has a schedule. I say sort of because on one hand, she is very clear about her naps-- she naps 2 hours after waking up from the last nap/overnight. What differs is the length of said sleep. Sometimes she will nap for 4 hours, sometimes 2. Sometimes she sleeps through the night for 8 hours, sometimes she gets up halfway through and is awake for 2 hours. I tend to just go with the "oh, you've been awake for 2 hours? Sleep time!" routine since it works so well for her. Of course, she will probably change that up soon on me.

As for how much sleep, I think Cecilia was awake for around an hour, maybe an hour and a half at the most, between naps at 2 months.

[octobermom]

I saw one right from birth honestly. I had a LO who nursed like clock work every 3 hours.. As my milk came in and she gained a bit that increased but it was pretty intresting to see the natural pattern.
Now at 5.5 months she falls naturally into a 2-3-4-5-6 pattern.. As far as sleep
wake
2 hours latter nap
3 hours after waking from that one another nap
4 hours after that bedtime
5hours stretch of sleep and one feeding
6 hours stretch of sleep..

SO like a typical day
6am wake nurse
8am nurse nap (Its 8:34 and I put her down 10 mintues ago)
10am wake nurse
1pm nurse nap
2:15pm wake nurse (she'd likely sleep longer but we have to adjust schedule to pick up my oldest from school)
4-6 cluster feeds
7pm nurse bedtime
12am night feeding (doesn't always but this is where she will if she does)
sleeps till 6ish...


Its her pattern sometimes she breaks it and we just go with that for a bit ussually around a growth spurt mostly adds in night nursing.


Deanna

[rhiOrion]

We have a very loose pattern, but that's mostly because she's in day care.

we do have a pretty good night time sleep pattern, though.

[LadyCatherine185]

With my DS it was around... 6 months? Then it changed about every other week until 8-9 months, then changed again around 10-11 months when he dropped to one nap a day. Then his nap went from an early nap (around 10) to an afternoon nap (around 12-1) about 6 months ago and it has stayed that way since. It was very frustrating for me trying to find his "schedule" and I am planning on not worrying about it and going with the flow more with this baby.

[broodymama]

DS2 is 9 weeks and doesn't really have anything resembling a schedule. He goes to bed for the night around the same time each evening, but that's about it. During the day everything is up in the air, no patterns for daytime sleep yet.

[confustication]

A schedule? What's that?

My 2yo is pretty predictable, though he's beginning to drop his morning nap so that's hit or miss.

My 11 month old is only just now beginning to have a nighttime sleep schedule- driven completely by when the sun goes down. It gets dark here about 9:30, so that's when he wants to be swaddled, and patted to sleep on my shoulder. Other than that one mostly predictable thing- he's still all over the map.

[ErinYay]

A schedule will emerge in a week. It will last for a week. Then a new schedule starts. Lather, rinse, repeat for the next 3-18 years.

[octobermoon]

i think it depends on your baby's personality and also on yours.

[PatioGardener]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

A schedule will emerge in a week. It will last for a week. Then a new schedule starts. Lather, rinse, repeat for the next 3-18 years.

I am just beginning to realize this!

nak

[matthia]

you are all terribly unreassuring for a first time mom...

my lo is 6 weeks and I've so been hoping for a pattern to start emerging...
Night isn't too bad but he DOES. NOT. SLEEP during the day. Unless I wear him AND I'm moving. At least that means I usually go for a walk everyday, but it's really hard to do certain things with a baby strapped to you...like cook, or work out.
*sigh....oh well. he is pretty sweet and I know it won't last forever...


For those of you without routines, do you TRY and enforce one? like, is there a point where I should maybe start REALLY, REALLY trying to get him down for a nap during the day, like lying down together even if he doesn't sleep? right now, I'm just working off his cues, i.e. WIDE awake and nursing every 3.5 minutes...

[mommariffic]

Wishful thinking I guess!

Right now Wyatt is all over the place BUT I can say that his nighttime routine is pretty much around the same. Now it's 8:30 and he's "done for the night" meaning all significant "wake" periods are over, and he will only get up to nurse. Maybe in a few hours [before I go to bed at 11ish] again at 2am - 5am and than 7ish.


It's just DD was a maniac at his age. She slept in 20 minute chunks, NEVER had a routine and everything from a nap to a night-sleep was a HUGE struggle. Wyatt is a much, much better sleeper. Sometimes I think he's napping TOO MUCH. I guess just second mom paranoia mixed with wishful thinking and having a total opposite babe this time.

[octobermoon]

Originally Posted by matthia

you are all terribly unreassuring for a first time mom...

my lo is 6 weeks and I've so been hoping for a pattern to start emerging...
Night isn't too bad but he DOES. NOT. SLEEP during the day. Unless I wear him AND I'm moving. At least that means I usually go for a walk everyday, but it's really hard to do certain things with a baby strapped to you...like cook, or work out.
*sigh....oh well. he is pretty sweet and I know it won't last forever...


For those of you without routines, do you TRY and enforce one? like, is there a point where I should maybe start REALLY, REALLY trying to get him down for a nap during the day, like lying down together even if he doesn't sleep? right now, I'm just working off his cues, i.e. WIDE awake and nursing every 3.5 minutes...

i have followed my baby's cues (he's 11mos tomorrow) and then i have also tried to get him on some sort of a sleep schedule without CIO. as far as the nursing thing goes you really shouldn't try and schedule. this must be baby led. the more the baby nurses the more milk you will produce and if you try to schedule that it could really prove to not be a good thing for your supply or your baby, but you probably already know this! my baby nursed pretty much every hour for the first 4 mos. then it was 1.5 hours and now he is nursing about every two. the nap/bedtime thing well that kinda emerged to i think by listening to cues. right now he is on some sort of a schedule without too much effort on my part.

[tzs]

well, nursing whenever....but i think we were pretty "regular" and not randomly cluster feeding at like 2 months. the sleep thing really fell into place at around 3 or 4 months. i think at that point it was nap every 2 hours and she went to sleep for the night pretty late....around 10 or 11.
since about 6 months we've been very regular with 2 long naps and an 8 or 9 bedtime.
now at 11 months we're getting at the age where they might drop a nap and i'm also starting back to work and she'll be at school with me in a one afternoon nap room so i guess we're going to be forced to drop the morning nap. too bad cause i was loving our schedule.

[Asiago]

At six months I noticed my son was starting a pattern of three naps/day.

[tzs]

Originally Posted by matthia

For those of you without routines, do you TRY and enforce one? like, is there a point where I should maybe start REALLY, REALLY trying to get him down for a nap during the day, like lying down together even if he doesn't sleep? right now, I'm just working off his cues, i.e. WIDE awake and nursing every 3.5 minutes...

i've had a routine but it took a while and at 6 weeks i'm pretty sure i dd was napping 20 minutes every so often. ugh!

i think at the earlier ages it IS more important to try to follow a routine just because you have to catch the babe when they are tired but before they are overtired and it's really hard to tell when they are so tiny. the books all say to look for cues but i never saw them when dd was small...and i tried to spot them! so i think at that point it's important to watch the clock and keep track of 1.5-2 hours and then nap (or try to nap!)

i found when my babe got older her sleep cues got way easier to read (the tired shriek in our case along with ear rubbing and writhing around on the ground pretty much out of nowhere) so now i follow her cues but they tend to follow a schedule so i know to take note of the time she wakes up in the am and that her first nap is going to be about 2 hours later...just so i can start watching for the signs.

[SeattleRain]

Schedules don't emerge, they are created. If you really want to get some kind of "order" to your day you have be pretty purposeful about it. I'd suggest taking a day to observe him and write down his "natural" patterns of sleeping, waking, and eating and general fussiness and try to see a pattern. My 6 week old is a great sleeper and is into a pretty regular pattern and I attribute it to making this kind of log... and being REALLY careful about putting Daniel into a sleep mode after only 2 hours of wakefulness. I know Dr. Weissbluth is really big into CIO in older kids so ignore him on that front, but I've found his writings about how to deal with infants under 4 months to be really awesome. If babies can only be awake for 2 hours (INCLUDING feedings) that sort of establishes a schedule. Once your baby starts showing ANY signs of drowsiness, BEFORE they start crying, swaddle them up or do whatever you do to soothe them to sleep.

I don't know if that makes any sense, its about 20 minutes until my OWN bedtime, but I didn't want to not answer. Getting my baby on a schedule has been a lifesaver for me.

[cloudbutterfly]

We finally stumbled upon a schedule at about 7 months, but it takes a lot of work to keep it going and I only spotted it because I'd been graphing on Trixie Tracker for a couple months.

[SeattleRain]

I wanted to add one thing...

I read the WORST book ever before I got pregnant (On Becoming Babywise, it was horrific) but the ONE thing I got out of it that I have always remembered is to make note of your "first" feeding of the day. If you can try to do that "first" feeding within a half an hour everyday, you'll really easily start to see patterns emerging and it will help you develop a schedule.

[texmati]

11 months and no schedule here! hopefully once he start's work, he'll be able to get himself to bed on time.