Is your baby on a schedule?

goalieamy24

My parents have been riding me about getting Baby Wyatt on a schedule (he'll be 14 weeks Tuesday).  He's definitely on a routine, but not so much a set schedule.  Some times he eats more often then other times and some days he's sleepier than others.  But my parents are making me feel a little badly that Wyatt's not on a set schedule.  I wondered if other people do have their baby's on a schedule.

MeggieChris

DD is thrivng on a schedule. However, I'm a single mom that works odd hours as a retail manager. We NEED a schedule. It helps both of us. It seems most babies will naturally settle into their own routine but you may need to help shape that routine so that it's going to go with the flow of your family, not against it. KWIM?

vanfox

Tell your parents to shove it (nicely!). Babies do fine with vague routines around the same general times, but trying to make inflexible schedule at 14 weeks is just silly.

PAmiler82

No schedule here.  We try to stick to a routine but even that gets thrown out of wack some days.  It was the same with Drew - we didn't get to an actual true schedule (based solely on the clock) until 7 or 8 months. 

CurlGurl1

We have a schedule and LO has been STTN, happy and thriving on it.  We do allow for +/- 30 minutes flexibility, but for the most part LO has been on it herself like clockwork.   It is what works best for us.   

siajara

So how did you go about getting on a schedule??

MrsRoy07

We follow more of a routine, where we do the same things in the same order every day, but they don't happen at the same times every day. She doesn't wake up at the same time every day- and I'm not about to wake her up if she wants to sleep in one morning! Also, sometimes our routine gets interrupted with errands, visits, etc. but she's pretty flexible. She's happy and thriving, so I'm not worried about watching the clock just yet.  

MaggieB0406

I'm on a schedule but DD isn't. I don't think it's all that important now. She gets watched at our house by my mom. Things happen fairly consistently for her and I'm sure will get more schedule-y but for now. I'm happy with how things are.

kje120

No, he isn't.  I kind of wish I did have him on one, but it hasn't happened yet. We have the bedtime routine that is very consistent, but not so much during the day.  He'll be on more of a schedule when he starts daycare next Monday, though.

j1e2n3n4i

We have a set routine, but not a schedule with specific times.

You said that you had a great routine, stick with it and tell your parents to back off.

CurlGurl1

siajara:

So how did you go about getting on a schedule??

 I tracked literally every single cycle since LO was born.  At around 6-8 weeks I started noticing more consistent patterns in terms of what time she would wake up in the morning, how often she would want to feed and what time she would get sleepy for the night.  At around 8 weeks (around the time I had to go back to work) I implemented a wake up time (7am) and a bed time (7:30pm) that was consistent to what her natural rhythms were doing to see where things would fall.  LO pretty consistently wanted to feed every 3 hours, so that is the schedule that we implemented. Of course we allow for flexibility- if she is hungry we feed her, if she is tired, we put her down.  But for the most part, she seems to staying on the schedule without much fluctuation.  She is happy, thriving and seems to enjoy the predictability of our routine.  DH and I are also happy being able to plan around when she is most likely to be awake and asleep so that we can maximize our time with her, activities, visits, etc.  It is what works for our family. 

shaindelr

Not even close. If he's sleepy, he sleeps; if he's hungry, he eats. This works whether we're at home, at a gig with Jared's band, etc, etc. I doubt our ancestors living in caves were obsessed with schedules, and humans have survived all this time.

ITGurl0626

shaindelr:

Not even close. If he's sleepy, he sleeps; if he's hungry, he eats. This works whether we're at home, at a gig with Jared's band, etc, etc. I doubt our ancestors living in caves were obsessed with schedules, and humans have survived all this time.

Shaindel, my sentiments exactly!  By following her cues she practically has herself in a little routine/schedule.  It works for us & she is thriving.

SwissMs99

The only time she is on a remote kind of schedule is at daycare...and it's not because they really put her on one....she just seems to eat & sleep around the same times...and the only way I can tell that is because they have to document it on a half sheet of paper. When she's at home, I just go on cues...like PP said.

GHBEA

No schedule here Olivia is 4 months now.  

KCKappa

We aren't on a feeding schedule, but we've moved toward more of a sleep schedule over the last few weeks. About 3 weeks ago (when I went back to work) we started doing a consistent bedtime of 8 p.m. and wakeup time of 7 a.m. That made bedtime MUCH easier. Then 2 weeks ago I started putting her down for her evening nap a little more consistently at 4:30 p.m. - that way she usually wakes up at about the right time to be ready for bed around 8. Last week, we started trying to get her morning and afternoon naps on more of a schedule too (9 a.m. and noon). All of these are +/- 30 minutes or so depending on when she last woke up, tired signs, etc. We had started having a lot of problems getting her to nap at all during the day and that made her a fussy tired mess, so this seems like it's helping her quite a bit so far. The noon nap has been 2 hours long since we started this, where before it was only 30-45 minutes and now she wakes up from it in the best mood.

ckolak

It's up to you whether or not to put your baby on a schedule. We just sort of observed DDs own routine and made a schedule off of that- bedtime at 7:30/8, so she's asleep when I put DS to bed, she wakes up at about 3 every morning to eat, then we sleep for a while longer, she eats again around 6, and then eats about every 2-3 hours during the day (4 bottles while I'm at work) and naps when she wants. It seems old-fashioned to me to put babies on schedules outside of their natural routines.

nugget0411

i'm not on a schedule but more of a loose routine - morning naps and a longer afternoon nap then a couple later afternoon naps then feed and bath around 7ish then feed again and he's down for the night - up around 2ish and up again around 5ish and feeds then sometimes if i'm lucky he'll sleep again until 7 then start alllll over again!  

tell your parents to piss off (nicely!) but it's your baby and your life!