Routine - don’t know when he wakes up!

[Panda12345]

Hi. My DS is now over 4 months old and I’m eager to try to regulate his nap and feeding times a bit. Problem is I don’t know what time he wakes up on a morning! He’s in his own room now and on a morning he happily just lies there 🤷🏼‍♀️ This morning he was still asleep at 7:30 but sometimes the activity on his monitor suggests he may have been awake at least an hour just wriggling around. This means his first nap varies every day and impacts the rest of the day. What should I do? Do I need to set an earlier alarm for myself to try to get him up at the same time every day?

If he's content being awake for a bit great! You can overthink all this. I'd decide when you want to start your day and go and get him. Wake him up if you need to - if you were needing to go out to work your have to do this. During the day I let baby pretty much dictate when they needed a nap - this may be at home or they may fall asleep in the pushchair. But I wouldn't let them sleep indefinitely - wake them up after an hour and a half or two. Sone days your baby might not need a morning nap for example, but theres usually a pattern and you can rei force this by putting him down around the same time each day. Then make sure there are a few hours between nap and bedtime and stick to a getting ready for bed routine.
Consistency is key. Keep doing it and your baby will adapt. Of course there are times when your baby is poorly/overtired/grumpy etc which may require a change but routine routine routine worked for mine.

I get my kids up at 7. By that I mean that's when I go into their rooms, wake them if I need and get them dressed etc. Sometimes they are already awake but they just play in their rooms / cot.

To start routines I focused on feeds rather than sleep. I found starting the first feed at 7 helped those timing regulated

Good point re the feeding. He’s quite happy to nap out and about so don’t feel the need to structure that so much. But I feel like I’d like his feeding to be more regular. Especially going into the weaning stage soon.
No worries about napping more then 90 minutes! I get an hour out of him maximum! He’s a great sleeper at night though so can’t complain

There are an awful lot of things that are going to unsettle any routines you put in place, teething, growth spurts and illness mainly.

Unless you have to put him in a solid routine I wouldn't worry too much just yet some babies need more sleep than others and if you had other children the baby's routine would have to fit in with everyone else's it's easy to focus on the small stuff too much with a PFB, I know I did. If he's up and awake but happy then I'd use that opportunity to get myself ready for the day. If you go for a walk midmorning and mid afternoon, chances are that he'll fall asleep.

Forget about routines and stuff. I'd say as long as he's awake by 7.30 you're fine and just take his napping cues and feeding cues from him rather than a timing point.