I had never really thought too much about schedules before Amelia was born. I was generally spontaneous and did what ever idea popped into my head. From running off to clothing optional spas in the middle of the night to staying up playing video games til 4am. To an extent I still do that. Parenting hasn’t changed me too much. BUT! My daughter’s schedule is a different story.
I’ve recently become rather protective of her sleeping and eating patterns. From my Florida Mum’s visit and others I’ve found that new people excite my daughter. So much so that it distracts her from her normal sleeping schedules. It’s difficult for her to go to sleep because she wants to participate and interact with what’s going on. Plus with her being so incredibly adorable it ads to the excitement of the people around her. She’s constantly being passed around.
Now on the one hand this is a good thing. I want her to be acclimatised to a variety of people so that when we go out she won’t be upset. So far I think we’ve done a good job on that. But on the other hand if it interferes with her schedule then that’s where things start to get complicated. She’s a bear when she misses her nap times and it becomes a fight just to get her to close her eyes.
So in order to try and starve off these crazy times, we’ve been sticking to a constant schedule. It goes as follows:
7:30am – 8:30am – She wakes up and gets her breakfast. She’s generally only up for about 45 minutes to an hour. From there on she takes a nap anywhere between 3-5 hours.
11am – 12pm – She’s up from her morning nap and ready for some lunch. We play around on her play mat and try to get some tummy time in. She’s normally awake for about 2-3 hours at this point until she tires herself out.
She takes a small afternoon nap for about an hour or two. By that time it’s 5pm and she’s usually awake to greet her Daddy when he gets home. For the evenings she’s up the longest period of time. She gets some dinner and then sleeps for a few minutes around 8pm.
10pm – 11pm – This is her normal bedtime schedule. We give her a bottle and swaddle her and she’s pretty good about falling asleep. Sometimes she sleeps through the night and other times she’ll be up at 4am for some food and then back to sleep she’ll go.
Overall this is what we try to stick to. I’m not going to lie, however, there have been times when I’m working that I let her take longer than usual naps. I figure her body is obviously needing the extra rest and I need the extra time. Most times this doesn’t backfire on me, but it has in a couple of situations when we’ve had plans later on in the day. It can sometimes throw her schedule off and cause her to fall asleep much later than normal. I’ve since learned to try and work around that.
Bedtime Crasher will mess you up if you screw with the baby's schedule!
As parents we’ve learned that Spock is wrong. The needs of the many do not outweigh the needs of the little one. While we have developed the necessary skills to handle her cries, we’d rather do what we can to avoid that situation in the first place. So if you’re ever over at my place and you get the Momma’s Look of Death: Sit Down, Shut Up and wait til she falls asleep. After that you can be as obnoxious as you want, she sleeps like a rock.