Do you set your baby's nap schedule by the clock? There is a pretty big range in times that my 10-month old tends to wake up...5:30 - 7:30 am. I've been timing his two naps based on when he wakes up but I'd really like for there to be more consistency time-wise. What do you do? A certain number of hours of awake time? The same time no matter what?
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That is a pretty big range ... it might be hard to have set times in that case. I would just go by # of awake hours then. My daughter always got up around 7 am so we could have set nap times.
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I used momsoncall.com to help me with a schedule...and I found that my 2 month old adapted really well. I watch the clock but also go off of her sleepy cues. Now she is 3 months and gets up between 7:00 and 7:30...I used to go in and feed her when I heard her around 6:00 but when I just left her she would go back to sleep after 20 minutes and after a few days she stopped waking so early. Healthy sleep habits, happy child and momsoncall says try not to have a wake up before 6:00 bc baby may start waking earlier to enjoy your company...I don't know if that's true but I found when I left her she eventually started sleeping past her 6 am wake up
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Lo also wakes up at different times every day, so I just keep track of how long she's been awake and her tired cues
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i would move the nap depending on when they woke up (by number of hours). but that can also have the effect of reinforcing the inconsistent wake-up times. you can try putting him down for naps at the same time no matter what time he wakes up, and that might actually improve his wake up time.
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I keep an eye on the clock but go more on LO's tired cues. I can't force LO to nap if they are not ready.
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@cupcakemama: Wouldn't it be great if you could, tho?
Kidding of course. Sort of.
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@mrbee: Life would be so much easier!
Not kidding. Atall!
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LO is 6.5 months old and she wakes up anywhere between 6-7:30am (mostly around 6:45, though). Her naps are based on when she wakes up.
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LO's schedule is pretty set these days. Sometimes she'll wake up earlier than usual and sometimes she's more tired than usual. She usually has 2-3 hours of wake time before she needs a nap.
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Thank you guys! I'm going to try putting him down at the same times and see if that helps his wake up schedule (thanks @Mrs. Bee!)
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LO is weird- he seems to nap pretty consistently (though in my mind, inadequately) at daycare, regardless of when he wakes up, but it's all over the place with us. Luckily, he's incredibly chill and can easily sleep in the car or the Ergo, so we don't worry too much about making plans around naptime. We tend to just watch for his cues, and put him down when he seems tired, whether that's 2 hours after he wakes up, or 4. It works for us
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@ohapostrophe: charlie had early wake-ups for a long time until we started limiting his daytime naps. how long does finn nap in the day?
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@Mrs. Bee: He's never been a long napper. A normal nap is about an hour, and occasionally he'll do two but never longer unless he's sick. We can't figure the early wakeup thing out. He used to always get 12 hours of overnight sleep, even if that meant he woke up for a feeding or two at some point in the middle of the night. We've tried moving his bedtime (typically 7:30-7:45) up or back a little but haven't figured out anything that works. This morning he was up at 4:45 playing and singing in his crib! I did let him play for about 15 minutes and then fuss for about 15 minutes though and he fell back asleep until 6:45 thank goodness!
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@ohapostrophe: crying it out for early morning wake-ups also worked for us if it was before 5. he never cried long -- a couple minutes or he just whined, and then he'd go back to sleep until 7 or so.
but after waking up at 7:30 for a long time, the past couple weeks charlie has been waking up at 5:30-6:00am. Their sleep is just ever changing!
It could be that Finn's little mind is working on mastering some skill. When Charlie was around 1, he was getting his molars and working on walking, and that affected his sleep for the first time since we sleep trained (at 4 1/2 months).
The one thing you can probably bet on though is that it's a phase.
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@Mrs. Bee: Thank you for your thoughts! He is actually getting very close to taking his first steps... we thought it was going to happen this weekend! Maybe that's it. You're right though, no sense getting too worked up about it because the only thing you can count on is that it will change!
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@sandy: how did you like momsoncall? i want to check it out and want to see if it's worth the $30 lol...
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@tequiero21: I really liked momsoncall and highly recommend it for first time moms (that's me!)...i didn't start it until LO was about 10-11 weeks but it helped me get her on a really good schedule for the day which led to giving me the confidence to basically sleep train...she didn't really cry much at all so I'm reluctant to call it sleep training...it gave me the confidence to give her a few minutes to fall asleep...and when I let her do that she would sleep 10 hr stretches...now she sleeps 13-14 hrs at night. I didn't follow it so strictly but mostly as a guideline and it really helped me. I think it was so worth the $30
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