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I don't have two yet, but I've been thinking about this and talking to friends about it. Everyone I know tends to favor their older child's schedule until the younger gets on 2 naps, then they have a more predictable pattern. They all prefer to deal with a maybe cranky baby than an extremely bored toddler. I've noticed that the majority of the second children are really good at falling asleep anywhere because they're schlepped around so much.

I homeschool G so even though he's older it was something that was an aspect of our family. That said, we wing it... and we're a non-CIO home. =)

I'm a winger most of the time since my younger one is always asleep. I need to get on a good routine when she sleeps less during the day.

This is something I am nervous about. In hoping to out my LO in preschool by the time I have a second....and I'm hoping my Dad will help out with pick up and drop off since he's retired.

I'm planning to use some advice from momsoncall.com (helped me a ton the first time around). I've read some mom blogs where they said the advice for scheduling a day with a toddler and infant were helpful.

I basically created a "household" schedule when DS was about 4 months old. I based it off of our schedule on days when the kids' went to daycare because they were going two days a week up until December, when we moved. I just wrote out the definitive times (daycare drop-off, lunch, afternoon nap, and daycare pick-up) and then made a little schedule off of that. For a while, DS was taking a quick nap in his carseat (30-60 minutes) during daycare drop-off, and then again in the carrier or stroller when we would go out for a walk before lunch (10/10:30-11/11:30 am). Then he took an afternoon nap at the same time as DD; both of them have to take one nap together, since I am finishing my grad degree and need time to do schoolwork during the day. Pretty quickly after implementing that schedule, DS moved to two long naps a day all on his own, at about 8:30/9 and at 1. And once he moved down to two naps, that made things a lot easier for us.

@Andrea: Ah, that does make it harder! We never did CIO with DS; he was just naturally an easier baby than DD.

His two nap a day schedule, he had naps from about 8:30-11 and then from 1:30-4. So around 2.5 hours twice a day.

@Andrea: Oh gotcha! Yep sometimes one of them cries a litt bit. It happens; no big deal. That's actually how I learned DS could put himself to sleep at night. One night I had to leave him in his crib for a couple minutes to help DD and he was asleep by the time I got back!

@Andrea: I didn't even let DD fuss when she was a baby. But I guess that's the privilege of being the oldest!

@Andrea: When DD was taking 3 naps/day we totally just winged it. Once she got to 2 naps/day it was much easier to set a schedule. So she wakes up at 7am and takes her first nap from 9-11a. That's when we'll leave the house to go some place fun or to run errands. Both of them will usually nap again from 2-3p if we take it perrrrrfectly. Let me tell ya, synchronized naps are the BEST. Lately though, my son hasn't been napping during the weekends so it's usually just DD that takes the 2pm nap (usually in her stroller) for about an hour. Then we all have dinner and I put her down at around 7:30 while my son is finishing up his dinner or fruit dessert. Then my hubs and I will play with my son and give him his bath and then put him down between 8:30-9. This is has been the schedule for us for the past 4 months so it works for us. But yeah, the first 6 months or so were kinda just random. It's hard creating a schedule for 2 kids when there are 3 naps involved because the 3-nap/day hours are all wonky.

@Andrea: I hope your new schedule works! We did switch up our schedule a few times when her naps started getting shorter and shorter. I don't know. It's HARD with two. I just try to do my best to have her sleep as much as possible and eat at designated times. Everything else...i just play it by ear. =\