Putting Your Baby on a Sleep Schedule
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From the featured blog, Jenna’s Journey
Bringing a new baby home can be daunting to any new parent. No matter how many books you read, nothing can fully prepare you for the unknown territory you are about to enter.
My son spent 5 weeks in the NICU, and when we brought him home, our situation was anything but normal. Brayden came home on a medication for reflux that made him, well, scary! He cried and screamed, and screamed and cried for weeks, until I begged my pediatrician to switch medications or just take him off of that horrible stuff. Once we removed him from the meds, he was a different baby!
It was at the point, when he was about two and a half months old, that we decided we needed to put him on a schedule. My mom had been telling us for months that he needed a schedule, so he would know what to expect from his day. I only wish we had listened to her sooner!
Here are a few things that I learned about schedules. Bear in mind that every child is different, so what works for us, may not work for you. The important thing is to stick with it! Give your schedule a fighting chance before you toss it out the window – and there will be days when you want to do exactly that!
Before you make your schedule ask yourself if your baby follows any certain pattern at this very moment?
Your baby might already be giving you cues as to what they like. Spend a day or two monitoring those cues and make a list. For example, do they get fussier than normal at some point in the day? Are they more playful in the mornings? Jot down a few notes about anything that seems to be consistent, day-to-day.
Step One: Start with Bedtime
We didn’t impose a full on schedule with Brayden right off the bat. We chose to work on his nighttime routine first. As with many new parents, the lack of sleep can be over-whelming and we knew that it was important to us to develop good sleep habits.
First things first – where does your baby go to sleep? Is it set up for a restful night? Or does the morning’s first light come streaming in through the window at 5am ready to wake baby up? Take a look around the room and make adjustments as you see fit in order to make the room more suitable for resting and relaxing. In our case, we bought room darkening shades, installed a light dimmer, made sure the crib was away from any drafty windows and since his room is above our garage, we installed a silent garage door motor so that when my husband goes to work in the morning, he doesn’t wake Brayden up.
Next, comes the actual routine. I’ll use ours as an example for you, that you can copy, or leap off from. We noticed that Brayden usually gets tired around 8pm. So every single night, at 8, we start our routine. Every other night, we bathe him. Actually, I bathe him, while my husband prepares his bottle. Then Chris lotions him and puts him in his PJ’s. We both take him to his room, and dim the light. Then one of us rocks him and gives him his nighttime bottle. We give him and kiss, tell him night-night and put him down.
Consistency is key here. We do the same exact thing, every single night. At the beginning there were definitely nights when he would cry. When he did, we would wait 10 minutes and then go in, pick him up and comfort him and put him back down. We never spoke, just held him and patted his back. Then we’d put him back down. We would repeat that every 10 minutes until he went to sleep. Within three days, he stopped crying all together, and would fall asleep on his own.
NEXT: INTEGRATING NAPTIME INTO YOUR ROUTINE
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Great backyard summer treat for the kids. Frozen fruit pops on a stick. 
Comment by Kendall on Mar 24 2010 12:24:23:
Great article! I love how you emphasize that what works for one may not work for all.
I have three children, my youngest is just a tad over 3 months and we’re about to instill a naptime routine. I’ve been watching her over the past few days to see if a schedule emerges and while I’m not too fond of the one that is, I can work with it to suit my needs.
She already has a bedtime routine, we implement that starting on the day the baby comes home from the hospital. Right now, it’s not a problem getting her to go to sleep at night and most of the time it’s not a problem for naps either. I just need regular napping times instead of hit or miss.
Comment by Laura on Mar 26 2010 01:13:58:
The best advice I ever got came from two sources – my mom and my OB. When my first was about a week old, I was in for a check up, said something about trying to figure out what I was doing, and my OB said, “What you’ve got to know is that babies are much better at training their parents than parents are at training babies.”
Wow! What a true statement. I realized at that moment that I could get her to do what I wanted even then – all I had to do was show her what that was.
When she was almost a month old, I called my mom and held the phone up in my daughter’s room so that my mom could hear her crying. I wanted to know if her crying was normal and how long I should let her cry before picking her up. My mom assured me that she was just fussing a little, not really crying. Then she said, “Look, as long as she’s been fed, been burped, and has a clean diaper, she should be able to go to sleep. So let her fuss a little (up to 45 min) until she does. If she cries so hard that she sounds like she’s making herself sick, pick her up.”
I followed these two pearls of wisdom closely. When both my children were still newborns, I determined that no particular nap was inviolable – except in extreme cases. In other words, when I thought it was time for them to sleep (based on their cues and time of day, etc.), I would lay my infants down for naps in the living room, with the TV going, visitors over, or vacuum running unless they were sick or just really needed a sound sleep for some reason. I didn’t hesitate to fiddle with them when they were sleeping, either. When I started putting them down in their rooms, I would quietly go in to put away laundry or toys. They both learned to sleep when I put them down, not freak out if they are still awake and see me, and to go back to sleep if I have to get them out of bed to change a diaper or something.
Now don’t get me wrong: I know that I have exceptional sleepers. They come by that honestly. Both kids took 2-hour morning and afternoon naps as babies, and I expect that my son will continue until he’s 18 months old, just like his big sister did.
But what happens when the routine needs to change? My mom gave me another helpful insight for that. For adults, changing, breaking or developing a habit takes 21 days. For babies, it generally takes only 3 to 4. So when it was obvious that my daughter no longer needed 2 naps, I decided what I wanted her new nap time to be and adjusted her schedule over the course of a week. The first couple of days I made mistakes, but by the end of the week, she was down to one nap, reliably an hour and 15 minutes.
All this is to say that you don’t have to be at the mercy of your baby’s whims! Your the adult – take charge and set the tone for how you want your life to be, while considering your child’s needs. Your baby can learn the schedule you set for him easier than you can learn the one he will set for himself. Granted there are exceptions to this rule, but that’s what they are – exceptions. Odds are your kid is not.
Comment by Sarah Martin on Mar 29 2010 01:24:15:
Great article! I love all the tips…so practical but I can see where you might take some of this stuff for granted and forget to do it and/or not stick with it. Here’s hoping I can! Thanks for sharing!
Comment by Wyn on Jan 30 2011 12:35:46:
Great advice! I am pregnant with my 3rd–finally a son! My girls (5&12) are very independent. So independent that I feel as if I am a new mom. I can’t remember how anything was accomplished. One of my great concerns is sleep. I need atleast 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep in order to function. I really needed your post to jog my new parent memory. Thank you!
Comment by Deanna Marie Martin Santos on Mar 15 2012 08:46:14:
I found that giving my baby a bath before bed each night gets him good and sleepy and ready for bed! -Resident Mom