To not have a sleep schedule

[Thirdfloor]

I hear lots of mum talking about wake windows and their baby's sleep schedule. Am I being completely unreasonable to not control my baby's sleep?

DD is 8 months old. I've always just let her sleep when she gets tired. At the moment she wakes early (about 5am, which works with my schedule) and goes to bed at about 6:30pm(she wakes up briefly at about 10pm when I go to bed, we usually have a story and a quick cuddle, maybe a little milk before she goes properly down.) Apart from that naps are just as and when, it depends on what we are doing. Is this bad? Am I missing something? I think I would find tracking and trying to control nap times unnecessarily stressful.

I think you have missed my point slightly. I admire those mums who can stick to a tight schedule, to me they seem completely on it. I was worried I've been too laid back) borderline irresponsible by not giving my DD a schedule and being more on top of sleep/feeds etc

I have a routine (we do similar things each day eg. Go for a run, baby class, read stories, go for a walk, dinner, bath time and bed. But they aren't scheduled ie. There is no specific time when these things happen, they just do.

I see. The language you use of "control" and taking babies away to sleep when they were happily playing, makes it sound like you think you have the right idea and the other mothers are forcing something upon their children. Some PPs have joined in with these types of comments.

All that matters is that you and your child are getting enough sleep and are happy. Most babies need some kind of routine and schedule. If you are following roughly the same kind of routine every day and responding to sleep cues, your baby has a schedule too. She's not deciding one day not to nap at all, or the next that 8 hours at night will do fine, or the next that she's going to sleep all day and stay up through the night. No one is setting an alarm for their slacker babies and then sticking them in cots at arbitrary times and expecting them to sleep when they're told.

All babies have a routine of some description. Some just respond better to a more obviously stable and consistent routine than others.

Yes this - we didn't have a schedule with our daughter either but she ended up being a horrendous sleeper and we had problems for years with multiple night wakes/cosleeping until 2.5years and fighting bedtime to the extent that she was going to sleep at 9pm (after we had both been at work full time all day).

We have worked to more of a schedule with my son and he has been much better, sleeping through 7.30-7 from 12 months. We can still be flexible if he falls asleep in the car but generally the schedule has been really important for us and has helped us to establish sleep foundations, and for us parents to get some down time as well.

I had no idea about wake windows with the first, but we used them with the second and they make a lot of sense.

I never had a sleep schedule but my kids were generally tired after a set amount of time so eventually got into a bit of a routine regardless. They generally napped in the buggy or car seat so I could still have a bit of a life without their sleep preventing me from leaving the house. Worked well for me!

I think also I have been influenced by social media as there are lots of people trying to sell information about wake windows, tracking feeds, nap routines etc. and glamourising that approach. I am glad to hear that this isn't the be all and end all. I think a schedule will be important when she is older and in nursery but at the moment I think it would stress me out unnecessarily

Just like there are different babies there are also different mothers. Some parents thrive off tracking feeds, I had one friend who tracked every feed and nappy until 1 year old. I was getting stressed writing stuff down after 3 days.

I think I would have felt similar to you with my first but in reality he wasn't getting sufficient sleep and we were all exhausted. We now understand (at 7!) What he needs to get a good sleep but the first 1.5 years was him waking up every 39 minutes day and night and constantly comfort feeding. He stopped napping just after 1 and it was all a bit miserable.

2nd DS was a 'routine baby' set by himself but he was so consistent I could set a clock by him. He was a much more pleasant baby and we were all getting appropriate rest.

If you get stressed with such things there seems to be little benefit for you in doing it. I would recommend getting of social media, it doesn’t seem to be helping you. As a previous poster said, be careful of the language you use with other parents as it does come across as ‘my way is better, why are they forcing a child to sleep when in my opinion they shouldn’t’.

It’s good to recognise things that will stress you out, not everyone is laid back, and it means you can avoid them. You know what is easier for you and your baby, and the other mums are just doing the same thing - it’s not a competition, just try and relax a bit and get off social media!!

You're doing great op. It's what all second and third babies get anyway as they just have to fit in and they turn out fine!

I really didn't mean it to come across in that way. I could substitute "controlling sleep" with "being more proactive about sleep", just generally being more on it.

No one’s telling you should? Some people find it stressful, some people find it helpful. Just carry on with whatever you want to do.

Your posts are tinged with a bit of condescension towards parents who choose to use schedules. I hope that’s not the case.

The go with the flow method didn’t work with my kid. If I didn’t enforce naps he’d be up all day even as a handful of months old baby. He’d get overly tired although wouldn’t nap and that would result in one- two really rough days for all of us until he got back on schedule. Even now at almost 6 he has massive FOMO and if he can avoid sleep, he will.

If it works for you then I really wouldn't worry about it.

I obsessed about this with my first baby and it made zero difference. Eventually he went to the childminder and later nursery and they sorted it out. But for a long time we continued to have lazy contact naps as and when at weekends.

With my second baby I didn't bother. I just let her sleep whenever she wanted to until I went back to work and she went to nursery. When she was in the baby room they let her sleep when she wanted to and she eventually got herself into a routine of taking herself off for a nap once a day. Now she's in the toddler room and they all go off for a nap after lunch. We still do a contact nap at weekends.

Neither of my children slept through the night until they were about 18 months old but having a schedule or not having one made zero difference.

Your schedule would've never worked for me, getting up at 5am every day sounds awful

I'm too old to have even heard of a wake window or sleep schedule but Im also reading judgement in your posts. All babies and families are different, why not let others do them and you do you?

One thing does stand out to me though, ime not to have a set bath and bed time routine is quite unusual, you might find thats something that you introduce as your baby gets older

My first was like this- she slept through from 2 months and her daytime sleep never affected this so I would just let her nap whenever. I have pictures of her conking out in the middle of the living room floor in hilarious positions. My second however- totally different story. She needed naps at precise times in the day or bedtime would take 3 hours and she'd be up several times a night. She didn't sleep through properly till 10 months. It's much easier now she's 14 months and on one nap, but I still have to be careful about the timings and she will still only go to sleep on one specific blanket on the sofa with me sitting next to her.

Sounds like you're just doing what your baby needs you to do- all the wake windows stuff can be useful particularly in the early months, but interestingly neither of mine have ever followed those, they've always been able to stay awake much longer than they were 'supposed' to and both dropped down to one nap much earlier than the Internet said. No point stressing over any of it, you're clearly doing a great job!

I'm the same, absolutely no routine/schedule here, I have a nearly 3 year old and 5 month old. Wake ups can be between 5am and 8am, bedtime between 5pm and 8pm. Naps are whenever. We cosleep but without that I'm sure they'd be 'bad' sleepers, my 2 year old still doesn't sleep through the night.

I'd read that kids put themselves in a routine but that never happened with mine so we just continued to wing it every day. In a way I wish we did have a routine as it would be nice to know the structure of my day. But IME you can't make a child to wake up at the same time each day, or be tired at the same times each day. Trying to make them sleep when they're not tired, or keep them awake when they're exhausted, just doesn't work.

I am a SAHM and my husband works shifts so we've never had a proper structure to follow, I'm sure once my eldest starts school wake ups/bedtime will fall into more of a routine.

Oh and my 5 month old will still only contact nap - as soon as I put him down he wakes up within 5 minutes, if not straight away. So he just has to nap when I have the chance to hold him! If I'm doing things then he just has to stay awake

I have an antenatal friend who is similar about sleep.

Whenever one of the rest of us talks about "time for their nap" etc she trots out "you girls with your schedules, I just follow her lead".

But the rest of us ARE following our baby's lead. It just happens to be that our babies benefit from a routine amount and frequency of sleep.

The mothers you are seeing taking their child away to have a nap are responding to their child's sleep cues that you aren't seeing.

Big yes to this too! MIL is always telling me my son "seems fine to keep going" when I say he's heading towards nap time, then five minutes later he's rubbing his eyes and grousing and yawning. She refuses to accept that by virtue of spending most of every day with him I just might understand his cues better, even if I can't articulate it.

But the baby is only 8 months old, baby led is fine at that age. Babies are fed on demand, we don't force them to have 3 meals a day because they will go to school at some point and that's what it will be like so why would we do that with sleep?

Sorry but this comes across as condescending too. I think she's been quite clear she's not judging them.

I have noticed this too Op. I joined several FB groups for June babies 24 and it's constant posts about wake windows, nap schedules, feeding schedules, everything is tracked to within an inch of its life and Huckleberry graphs are shared every day for analysis.

On top of that there's constant talk of developmental leaps, sunshine phases and grumpy phases, sleep regressions etc. to the point where mums are posting things like "dreading next week the next grumpy phase is coming my way so scared of sleep regression!" Then other mums comment things like "buckle up cause it's gonna be terrible! We're surviving on 1 hr sleep a day over here!"

I thought I should be doing the same thing as everyone else was doing it but it's really hard work tracking and planning everything so I gave up after a few days and just let her sleep when she wants to.

I find it all incredibly stressful so just left all the groups as they were starting to make me worry about hard times in my babies development that actually never came as well as constantly worrying that I wasn't being organised enough or "doing it properly" like you are.

I don't think social media is good for new mums personally as it is such a delicate time and we're all feeling very sensitive. Quit social media, if you're happy and baby is happy it doesn't matter.

If you find it stressful that’s fine, you are doing what works for you and they are doing what works for them.
There is definitely an air of you thinking your way is better under the guise of ‘oh no am I doing something wrong’ the taking babies away for a nap who are happily playing is very telling and ironic considering you also say you try to get your baby to nap before she’s overtired so I don’t really see the difference?
They know their baby and you know yours.

As that works for you it's fine. I would not want to be woken at 5am (though my son was always an early riser and at 21 still is up with the larks).
My kids were born during the Gina Ford era where sleeps were on a military schedule! But while I was strict with bedtime routine days were more baby led, though never let them sleep too close to bedtime or overly long. Consequently had two kids who went to sleep without fuss and I had a child free evening with my husband and a decent nights sleep.

My baby was in schedule, and hour sleep in the morning 2.5 hours in the afternoon then 12 hours on a night

The morning sleep dropped then the afternoon one at 3 or so

It worked for us but each child is different