What's your schedule like?

[wednesdaychild80]

As new parents without a support network nearby, sometimes we feel a bit insecure if we're doing the right thing on a day to day basis. Our baby is healthy, but sleeps poorly. I often wonder how are the schedules of other parents with their baby/ies. So I thought I'd ask here!

I'll start with my own (average) schedule. Would love to hear any comments, advice or anything you feel is missing! If you can, please share yours (add your family situation and baby's age on top please). Thanks!

My schedule (couple with a 18mo baby)

• 9am: wakes up, is fed breakfast (usually yogurt+fruits, sometimes toast+eggs/ham/cheese), then plays/"reads"
• 11.30am: nap (has to be in the pram; requires 30min of rocking)
• 12.30: wakes up, is fed lunch (~200g of rice/pasta,beef/chicken,corn etc.); fruits for desert
• 1pm to 5.45pm: nursery (activities, no nap, two snacks)
• 6pm: back home, relax/play (bath every other day)
• 7.30pm: dinner (similar to lunch), then 200ml whole milk (before sleep)
• The night sleep schedule itself is a mess
• 8.30pm: needs to be rocked in pram, sleeps for around 2h (wakes up a couple times; each time needs to be rocked back to sleep, for 30min or even 1h)
• 11pm: is moved to crib, where baby sleeps a few more hours (wakes up around once every 2h; needs to be rocked back to sleep).
• 6am to 9am: sleeps more deeply, moves occasionally but rarely wakes up

Some notes

• In total, we think baby gets around 9h of solid sleep each day (counting the 1h morning nap). Me and my partner get around 6.5h each.
• Drinks water and/or tea a few times a day (not much; but enough)
• Rarely happy playing by himself - requires direct interaction most of the time (regardless, baby's always supervised)
• And of course, we change nappies as soon as we notice poo or pee :)

Forgot to mention - baby actually sleeps around 11-12h. But I think only around 9h or that is solid sleep.

19 mo here

7:30 Wake/get up

8am Breakfast (porridge and fruit). Mummy has a nice big mug of coffee

9am Housework/outings. Could be errands or library visit etc. Home for 11/11:30

11:30 Lunch (sandwich/omelette/toast)

12:30 Naptime (self-settles in his cot)

14:30 Wakeup (often wakes around 14:00, but he is happy so I tend to leave him until half past). Drink and a snack (yogurt with dessicated coconut or something)

15:00 Outings. Park/walk or something

17:30 Dinner (bolognese, chicken and noodles or pasta, maybe sardines)

19:00 Bedtime milk. In bed by half past and self-settles

He usually plays independantly as long as I'm in the room, though I do interact with him often as I'm doing my things. We also do play together at various points. Sometimes he likes to help load laundry or tidy up. I give him a sippy cup of water while he's playing, so he always has a drink available, but he drinks from an open cup while at the table. Currently spending 5 min a day trying to teach him shapes and colours

Have you tried an earlier bedtime? Maybe that would help with a more settled night. 8:30pm is quite late for a baby/toddler to go to bed. And "sleep breeds sleep" has definitely always proven to be true in our experience, so even with an earlier bedtime you may find that they don't necessarily get up much earlier than they do now.

All of mine have been very different little people who have settled into very different routines as babies and toddlers. We've always tried to just respond to their individual needs rather than forcing a rigid routine but appreciate that depends on the wider family situation.

My eldest would really be a battle to get to sleep for every nap and every nighttime waking. She would nap for only 20 mins or so at a time during the day (from 6m - 2y) and would wake every couple of hours at night. When she got to be about 3/4 she started sleeping better at night but even now in KS2 at primary she still wakes most nights around 10pm and can sometimes struggle to get back off to sleep.

My youngest would do two solid daytime naps from about 3m. He is an earlier riser than his siblings; they will all sleep until 8am whereas he's up at 5:30/6am. He naps at 9:30am for anywhere between 1-3hours, then has another big nap after lunch, again 1-3hours depending on how long he napped in the morning. He goes to sleep at 7pm either being held by me or his dad, or lying beside us on the sofa, then we transfer him to bed (we cosleep) when we go up. We did this with all our kids. We really really value our sleep (who doesn't 😅) and we would rather everyone gets a decent amount of sleep, as much as possible, even if it means we don't have much proper alone time and our bed is very crowded at times! We just love the cuddles and are aware that time flies by. This bit won't be forever and for now we love it.

Nap-wise, my kids have all napped either being cuddled, in the sling, in a pram/pushchair or in the car. Because we coslept with all of them, we never had a cot. Again, appreciate that this is not practical for every family but it's worked for us.

RE the playing, mine have all be different on that front too. Some of them very content to play alone and explore, others needed 1:1 interaction to be content and it was very difficult to get on with anything because I couldn't just leave them to play nearby while I did the chores. They are all individuals 🤷‍♀️ DH and I are a great team and we have always been on the same page with parenting so we just muddle through together and somehow things (mostly) get done!

All sounds normal to me.

Your routine seems a bit odd - is there a reason you put him to bed so late? And then do the only nap so close to the time he wakes up? The reason you have to rock him is because he's not tired!! Or is it all because he has to go to nursery pm? He's almost certainly overtired when you try and put him to bed, which is why he is waking frequently to start with and not settling or sleeping well.

If the nursery time is fixed and you like him getting up at 9am I would do breakfast at 9.30, lunch at 12.30 and then take him to nursery for 1pm with nap at 14.00 for 1.5-2 hours. Snack/tea at 4pm. Then bring him home at 5.45, dinner at 7.30. Bedtime 9ish with a bottle of milk if he likes that.

Personally I couldn't cope with that schedule as you basically get no time to yourself with him not napping at home and going to bed so late.

Our schedule for comparison (18 months) is:

7am up (wakes from 6.30 ish), small amount of milk
8am breakfast
9.30 snack
11.30 lunch
12.15 nap for 2-2.5 hours
3pm snack
5.30pm tea
6.30pm bedtime routine (bath, milk, story)
7.15 bed, asleep by 7.30

That's a very very odd time for a nap.
You've got a wake window of just 2.5hrs, and then one of 8hrs!

He'll be not sleepy for the nap and very overtired for bedtime (which makes it much harder). With a 9-8 schedule, I'd be looking at a nap around 1pm.

20mo here

6am wake
7am breakfast
10am snack
12pm lunch
Nap (self settle in cot) 1230-1400/1430
3pm milk
5pm dinner
6pm milk
7pm bed. Self settle usually sleeps through till 6am

I agree bedtime is too late and naptime is in the wrong place for a late bed. Would also advise sleep training so they learn to sleep alone, especially before they move to a bed!

I agree. Bed is very late and waking up quite late in the morning. Our routine used to be like MGee123’s is at that age.

Why are you giving him tea? I would stick to water or milk at that age.

I would say not enough sleep for him- we did 7-7 and a 2-3 hour nap at 12 at that age. Bedtime too late and food too close to it.
And always goes down badly on Mumsnet, but not do some gentle sleep training methods for a few days and get out of the rocking habit? Thats all it is, a habit, but the longer you do it, the harder it is to break.

I wouldn't be giving a baby tea. Tea has caffeine in unless it's fruit tea you're giving them.

I have an 18mo and we tend to do morning naps too. No idea why but all 3 of my kids have preferred them - if they napped in the afternoon they wouldn't go down until really late at night.

This is our weekday home routine - weekends and nursery days look slightly different but bedtime etc the same.

He wakes approx 7am. Has some breakfast and plays, coming back for cuddles/milk/reassurance on and off until approx 9.30

Then I tend to do some cleaning jobs etc around the house, he follows me around, or we go out, he will start getting tired around 10.30 and I might let him feed to sleep or fall asleep in the buggy. If we are at home I put him down in his cot once he has fallen asleep (unless in buggy then would just leave there).

Wakes up 11.30 - 12ish, he's a bit cuddly after sleep, I make us both lunch. After lunch we might play together or go for a walk.

From around 3pm he plays with TV on, I have computer time because I have an energy dip at this time. Or if big brother needs collecting we leave to do that.

Start making dinner around 4 ready for brother to get back around 4:30, they eat, we try to feed them no later than 5.

After dinner general play/chill time with DH, I might do something like a jigsaw with older one, sometimes run a bath.

Then from 6:30 tidy up / teeth / pyjamas / story and I bring him back into the living room with dimmed lights to feed to sleep. Usually asleep by 715 and I can put him in cot.

During the night he typically wakes around 10pm / 1am / 4am for milk and goes back to sleep. If he's ill/teething/some other complaint it will be more frequent and I bring him into our bed (but trying to be stricter with myself!) - before I started resettling him in his own bed he would wake every 1-2 hours.

I don't change nappy after every wee. Just on waking, before/after nap, and mid afternoon. If he poos I change straight away but disposable nappies can hold a few wees.

Many cultures give babies fruit/herbal teas, not usually caffeinated ones. It's quite possible OP is from a culture that does that.

OP I'd count your sleep time as 12 hours overnight + nap. You don't need to count the time that you're soothing them back to sleep as awake time, only if they are walking and talking kind of awake. (DS2 used to do this quite frequently.) I agree that rocking for up to an hour sounds unsustainable though - how is this for you?

I do tend to find when they won't settle and play without adult input for me it usually means tiredness (or teething, coming down with a cold etc)

Thanks everyone! Very useful.

Will be parsing all that, and trying out some new things :)

Quick update in case it might be helpful to others.

Things are much better now, which I believe is mainly due to:

• Moving the schedule back a couple hours (now baby wakes around 7.30am) - thanks all for pointing that out!
• We gave up trying to make baby sleep in cot (at least for now) - we co-sleep, which makes things easier for everyone. Baby still wakes once or twice sometimes, but can be put back down much quicker/easier. I realize co-sleeping isn't great, but for now it's been a blessing - we're still quite tired, but much less than before

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with co sleeping OP, as long as you and baby are happy and getting rest that’s all that matters :)

glad to hear things are better!

id also just like to point out to ignore those that class rocking a baby to sleep as a bad habit. It isn’t, if that’s what helps and soothes your child and you’re happy to do it then that’s all that counts. Comforting your child is not a bad habit