- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Multiples
nikinikinine
member
3 meals and 3 naps - schedule?
nikinikinine
member
in Multiples
Our day currently looks like this.
6:30 a.m. wake/bottle/play
9 a.m. nap
10 a.m. wake / bottle / play
11 a.m. breakfast / bath / play
12:30 nap
2:30 p.m. wake / bottle / play
4:30 p.m. nap
5:30 wake / bottle
6:30 dinner / play
8 p.m. bedtime
At 8 months we are adding in a 3rd meal. So I will probably do breakfast between wake up and the first nap and keep the 11 a.m. meal and make that "lunch" and then keep the 6:30 meal as "dinner".
But when I look at this it feels like all we'll be doing is sleeping and eating except for two hours in the late afternoon.
Did you find that your LO was able to drop their third nap around this time (8 months)? Will the added meal help them sleep at naps a little longer and maybe extend the day differently?
I'm wondering if I should try to move them to 2 naps with the third meal, and if so does that mean that the first nap (9 a.m.) should happen later? As it is it's sometimes a struggle to get DD to 9 a.m. but I make her stick it out.
TIA!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: 3 meals and 3 naps - schedule?
By the time we added the third meal, we were on a 2-nap a day schedule. I may have given this to you before, but here is the schedule we've operated on:
5am: Bottle and back to bed
6:30am: Wake up
8am: Bottle
8:30am: Breakfast solids (you could combine this with the 8am bottle, but we always gave bottle first until recently since the solids were just for practice and the bottle is for their nutrition)
9:30am-11:30am: Nap (sometimes it would be 10am-12pm)
12pm: Bottle
1pm: Lunch solids
2:30pm-4pm: Nap
4pm: Bottle
5:30pm: Dinner solids
6:15pm-6:45pm: Bedtime, where we offer a bottle to fill them up, but once we started doing exclusive finger foods at 11 months, they've pretty much given up this bottle
We found that adding their third meal REALLY helped their sleep. It's when they both started STTN. Moving to two naps did make their morning nap later, but it also meant we had to move their bedtime up a little bit. Where you are doing an 8pm bedtime and they are already waking at 6:30am, I suspect your LOs may want a bedtime closer to 7pm too.
By 7.5 months or so we dropped the 3rd nap ad I think that's when we added the 3rd meal. This was our schedule.
7:00a Wake up, get dressed, bottle (although usually it was more like 7:30 by the time they ate)
8:00a Breakfast (fruit and oatmeal
9:00a Nap
11:00a Up from morning nap, bottle
12:00 Lunch (usually a veggie or fruit)
1:00 Nap
3:00 Up from nap, bottle
6:00 Dinner, bath, bottle
7:00 Lights out.
Pretty much all we did was sleep and eat. We had the long stretch of awake time in the late afternoon to get out, and that's still the only time we really get out for more than a few minutes. I'm in the process of moving bottles and meals closer together just to give us more play/outing time, but, yeah, the days are lots of eating and sleeping.
Here's our current schedule at 8.5 months
730a wake / bottle / play
830a breakfast (fruit & cereal, when we start dairy, yogurt)
930a Nap (1.5 hrs)
11a wake / bottle / play
12p puff practice (transition into lunch ~9 months)
130p Nap (1.5 hrs)
3p wake / bottle / play
530p Dinner (vege & fruit)
630p bottle
Most days, they will do 1.5 hrs nap in the am & any where from 1-1.5 hrs in the afternoon. If they only get 1 hr, they are pretty tired by 530p, so fussyness is high, but we deal with it. Hopefully the ped says we can start dairy & meats and we will continue finger food practice mid-day until we add a full meal.
I think ours dropped their 3rd nap (which was really just a catnap around 5pm) around 7 mos. Once we were at 3 meals, this was our schedule. It also seemed to be a good amt of time in between bottles/meals so that they were still hungry and wanted to eat (that took forever to get right). Our day starts a bit later since they stay home w/ a nanny.
7:15-7:30 wake
7:45 bottle
8:45 breakfast
10:00 nap
11:30ish wake/bottle
12:45 lunch
2:00 nap
3:30ish wake
3:45 snack (yogurt)
5:45 dinner
7:00 baths
7:30 bottles
8:00 bed
I also read somewhere about the "2,3,4" hour nap routine....where, after they first wake up, they should be awake for 2 hrs before first nap, 3 hrs before second nap, and 4 hrs before bedtime. Ours have generally done this +/- 30 min.
we started 3 meals at 6 mos. per pedi and we didn't drop the 3rd nap until about 7.5mos. My girls have always (even now) been ready for their first nap 2 hrs after waking, but they usually take 1.5-2hr morning nap and we always do breakfast about 1/2 hr before our 1st nap. Maybe having a full belly helps them nap longer, but I'm not sure.
When it seemed like they might be ready to drop the 3rd nap, I'd try to take them out if I was off so they could get out of the house for a bit so they weren't bored and stretch it to 3 hrs before their 2nd nap. Bedtime ended up being earlier, but their wake time stayed the same. They have pretty much been on a 2-3-4 schedule since then.
Good luck - 3 meals and 3 naps + bottles made me feel like a hermit on the wknds!
thanks ladies.
I just adjusted their schedules to have bedtime at 8 p.m. when they were 6.5 months (before we were 7:00/7:30 with a 5:30/6 a.m. wake up - too early for mama in the morning and bedtime meant that daddy missed the kids some nights....) so I'm really hoping we can keep the 8 p.m. bedtime and just sleep in a bit more.
We'll see.
I've been trying that 2-3-4 thing with them. DS can do it and is okay without nap #3 (depending on how his first two naps went) but DD is still a sleep every 2-2.5 hours kind of kid.
I am ready to see the great outdoors again. Especially since winters are so long. Right now I consider it a success if we get out once a day so I'm dreading this third meal.