schedule question (kind of long)

bieanca

I have been nursing DS to sleep for the past 10 months.  He only started sleeping in his room at 6 months.  He has to be asleep in order for me to put him in his bed.  He DOES NOT nap either unless he is attached to my boob.  I have really created a monster and I am trying to undo all of this before it really.  I really need him to take naps in his bed and go to sleep without it taking over an hour to make sure he is good and asleep before I put him in his bed.  

I got and read the Ferber book.  We started today for his afternoon nap. It took him right at 30 minutes to fall asleep and he only slept 24 minutes. Tonight I nursed him for probably 10 minutes with the lights on.  He was starting to get drowsy.  Once he was done eating (still awake) I put him in his bed, said good night/kissed him, and turned out the lights.  He fussed for a second (done by the time I turned on the video monitor).  Is this considered putting yourself to sleep.  It just seemed to easy.  If he sleeps like normal he will be asleep for 11-12 hours.

Here are my questions (possibly more to come too).

If your LO went to sleep on their own what was your bedtime routine? I am trying to figure out if I need to switch ours up and when I should nurse him.

Do you think he will eventually sleep longer for naps?

Also at 10 months how many naps was your LO taking?  What time would they go down and how long would they sleep?

I understand every baby is different I'm just looking for some guidance.  I need to get things done around the house and my DS needs to sleep better. 

NicoleOSU

My DS is only 7 months, but he has never slept more than about 30-45 minutes since he was about 2 months. He is still taking about 4 naps a day and we are trying to get him to take less and longer naps per day. Our bedtime routine consists of bath, then nursing, then right after putting him to sleep. He may cry for a few minutes, but that's about it. Good luck!!

ibfloridagirl

I know it's not popular on the Nest, but we read Babywise and Secrets of the Baby Whisperer when ike was first born.  We've never really done CIO, but we set up a easy (for us) schedule.  Eat, Activity, Sleep when ike was 6 weeks old.  It has worked wonders for us.  Right now ike's schedule is: 7am wake up and bottle (6-8 oz), walk and playtime, breakfast at 8am, nap at 9ish, wake at 11ish and bottle again (6-8 oz), playtime, lunch 12pm, nap at 1pm, wake sometime around 3pm and another 6-8 oz bottle, snack around 4 or 5, pool and playtime, dinner about 6/6:30, bottle at 7 (6-8 oz) and then bath and bed.  Since we started him at the very beginning of nursing/bottles when he woke up instead of before sleeping i think it has made my life a little easier.  If you are going to MNO next Friday i would be more than happy to loan you both Baby Whisperer books.  My MW highly recommended them and i do too. GL!!

ETA: The times are pretty consistent (that's just how ike is), but every once in a while he will wake up a half hour earlier or later than normal, when that happens i just let him play or whatever to get him back on schedule.  I keep his bottle times consistent and i'm pretty flexible about the playtimes and nap/sleep times so long as the pattern is still Eat, Activity then Sleep.  IE: yesterday ike slept until 11:30a and my mom and i took him to the Outlet mall so he ended up skipping his afternoon nap altogether.  As long as i feed him every 4 hours, he's A okay )

Jessibell

DD is really just now on a schedule and she pretty much dictated it.

Until she was a year old, her crib was in our room. Moving it was the best thing we ever did, she sleeps soooo much better now. I just quit nursing 2 weeks ago and I nursed her to sleep until about a month ago. We did a modifed Ferber. Before there was also a LOT of co-sleeping.

She wakes up at about 7. She has a bottle of milk shortly after she gets up and breakfast about 8. She has her morning nap at about 9:30/10am and is up by about 12. We do lunch right away and then another bottle of milk (all 6oz) sometime before 2, it just depends on her. She usually goes down for nap #2 between 2 and 3pm. Dinner is between 5:30 and 6:30. After dinner we change into jammies, read a couple of books, and then bedtime is around 7pm.

Since we did Ferber and moved her into her own room, she barely even whimpers when we lay her down awake. I highly recommend it. You can even start the intervals at one minute (I was NOT a fan of CIO, so we started super slow).

Sleep is important for all of you! Good luck hon