Getting baby into daytime sleep routine

[Sappholit]

My baby is nearly 10 weeks and I'd really like her to start having her sleeps at predictable times - ie a lunchtime sleep for two hours would be nice.

How do I go about doing this?!!

No idea I'm afraid. My DS didn't have a predictable sleep time in the day until he was nearly 1. Good luck.

I used the Baby Whisperer's book EASY routine and this worked very well for both my my children.

You start the routine from when baby wakes in the morning I.E even if this is 0600!

E (eat) at 0600
A (activity) for a little while until you see the first yawn
S is for sleep, you swaddle and lay baby down for sleep
Y is time for you to sleep/whatever you need to do

I think when your baby is 3 months old, you aim to do the EASY routine in 3 hours, so the E part is every 3 hours and the rest follows on every 3 hours too. Your baby is 10 weeks to I guess for you, it may be the 2 1/2 hour EASY plan. If I remember correctly, the main aim is for the sleep part to be no more than 2 hours (except at bedtime when there is no waking at all - hopefully!)

By doing this plan for 4 weeks and persevering with it for this amount of time, you should see a predictable routine emerging and also a good amount of nighttime sleep. By 6 months you should expect to be getting a 7pm-6am period of continuous sleep at least a few times a week, and then by 9 months it should be pretty much the norm. Obviously, you have to keep adapting the EASY routine as your baby gets older.

Of course, even without the EASY routine I think your baby will actually start it's own little routine, the thing with that is, what if they like the sleep part in the day and the wake part at night!

ive just been through the same with DD2 5mo, we now have a regular routine: wake up at 7.00, nap from 9.30 - 10.30, nap with DD1 1.00 - 3.00, bed at 6.30. its much easier to get regular daytime naps once they have a regular bedtime, then the trick is to create the same environment as at bedtime, ie. dark, quiet...
babies under 3mo get tired after being awake for 2 hours, so that is the best time to put her down for a nap. try and make sure she isnt overtired as this can stop her settling properly. she might only sleep for an hour at a time and have three naps, but as she gets older and is able to stay awake longer this wil turn into two and then one nap...hopefully!

I agree with not keeping them up more than 2 hours - aim for 1.5 hours awake time before putting her down / soothing her to sleep.

Some babies don't show the yawns etc so if yours is like this and you're waiting for it, you could get to the point of overtiredness without realising it. Watching both the baby and the clock helps IME.

How predictable the routine will be will partly depend on how predictable her wake up time is.

Babies do vary, though. DS is 15 weeks and usually has 4 (sometimes 3) naps a day as he will hardly ever manage to sleep for more than 45 minutes at once.

The book 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' by Marc Weissbluth has some good advice on developing daytime sleep routines. It's not terribly well-organised and is a bit of a huge book, but I found lots of the advice useful, even if you don't agree with all his sleep-training methods (which I don't).

angeldog is right - not all babies yawn when tired; some pull their ears/touch ears and the jerkier their movements are, the more tired they are (cannot remember when the jerky movements stop in babies though so maybe you can't rely on that one)

To be honest, I would expect a 10 week old to be able to manage only 1 hour awake at the most, definately not 1 1/2 or 2.

Yes, I think Jewelsandgems is probably right on timings - DS is an hour and a half but he's 15 weeks now.

Some babies also get quieter / slower & lose interest in objects / people or look away when tired.

bump

Well this won't be popular but I used to Gina Ford recommendation of waking DS at 07:00 every morning and then putting down for a nap when he got tired - at 10 weeks I think it was around 08:30 for one hour and then at around 12 for 2 hours. I followed the exact timings in the book at the beginning as I hadn't yet figured out how to know when he was tired!

I also used the baby whisperer book to help me learn to recognise the signs of tiredness so I could make sure I was putting him down at the point where he was tired.

Later (from 4 months) the baby whisperer book also recommends the pick up put down technique for encouraging the baby to go back to sleep if they wake after one sleep cycle and are still clearly tired. This also worked well for me.

At 20 months DS now just has one nap from approximately 1 - 3 p.m. which works really well for our family. This nap is always at home (or someone else's house) rather than out and about as he doesn't really sleep well in his pram - so these methods might not work for people who want to be able to be out when their baby naps.

Now he is a bit older and only has one nap we are a bit more flexible in the morning at the weekends and it works just fine. The rest of the time we get up at 07:00 anyway because DH and/or I need to go to work.

It probably took about 5 months before the lunchtime nap was truly consistent but we had an extended long-haul trip in the middle which disrupted our routine - so it might not take that long.

Good luck!

Baby Whisperer all the way - whatever you do, never let them cry it out and be wary of waking them up for the sake of a schedule.

Oh - and lower your expectations!

A vote for Baby Whisperer here

I tried a bit of baby whisperer from about 11 weeks. Problem is that DD isn't always ready for a feed when she wakes from a nap, so I don't push it until she's acting hungry (so we often do A-E-A-E-S-Y, rather than EASY...). She can also be a bit random about how long she'll be awake for - anything from 1.5 hours to 3.5 hours - and rarely sleeps for more than 45 minutes for a day time nap (unless we're in the car). So, learn your baby's cues and try to keep to regular feeding times.

BTW, in saying that she's a bit random with timings I'm not complaining - I'm happy not to be strictly ruled by the clock, myself. Works for us.

Angeldog I love Marc Weissbluth's book too. Didn't use his sleep training method. I used baby whisperer PUPD sleep method myself but loved Marc's book otherwise. At this stage though, I wouldn't sleep train yet OP, just soothe to sleep in whichever way works for you and your baby. Just to point that out. They're still a little too young IMO.

Also my two LO's were never awake for more than 1 and a half to 2 hours at this stage as well. And also only slept for 45 minutes roughly. Neither moved to a 10.30am nap and 3pm nap until weaning time really. Once weaned and on two naps a day things got easier and much much better for length of morning sleep. But neither of my babies was ready to move to two naps a day any sooner than 6 months sadly. If I kept them awake too long, it was defcom 5!

I always (and still do) wake mine by 7am, as otherwise the rest of the day goes to pot sleep wise as well

Probably forgotten something in this rambling post of mine but you've got some great advice here. You're doing really well, it's a tough time at this stage.

Just to warn you - some babies just don't sleep predictably (mine didn't!). I thought EASY sounded like a great idea, and now look back with a hollow laugh - by 10 weeks it was still masses of cluster feeding and colic which meant she wouldn't sleep except when being held. We never left her to cry it out, which might have made things go differently, but it seemed too high a price to pay. It does get better - by 10 months she was starting to get into a good sleep routine, and now at 15 months her sleep is excellent. Not that this is much help to you at 10 weeks. I suppose my point is, don't feel bad if your baby just doesn't adopt a routine for a while yet - lots of good advice here to try, hopefully some of it will work for you. Good luck!

Don't drive yourself mad over it would be my advice. Their internal routines change so much over the first year. Every developmental leap will throw them out. Basically, as they lengthen the time they can stay awake for and become more mobile (which makes them physically tired), they are gradually able to take longer more predictable naps.

Eventually (by 18 months at the latest usually), most go down to one long nap in the middle of the day.

You might find this helpful as a guide but no 2 days are likely to be the same at 10 weeks!

what kwaker5 said...

I didn't even TRY to do a firm daytime routine with DS. Someone said to me that they had one rule in their house, that baby went to bed by 7.30pm to allow a bit of an evening. At about 10 weeks I did this with DS, and he started to sleep through; 7-7, from about 16 weeks. He's always been a great nighttime sleeper, but the day routine has changed SO much as milestones and activities changed.

But you have to do what is right for you (and your baby of course).

DS has started having day time nap routines that I can rely on of sorts, about 2 weeks ago. He is 21wks.

I tried vaguely to get a routine earlier but he was having none of it, sorry to not be much help but good luck!

I know she isn't popular on mumsnet but I used Gina F's methods. With twins I needed them to have predictable daytime naps from an early age otherwise I would never have been able to rest myself, and would never have been able to breast feed, also leaving the house would have been very tricky.
I just used her routines as a guideline and didn't stick rigidly, but they did work. I found I did need to 'backdate' them as my 2 always needed a bit more sleep than she recommended.
My 2 have done very well on it and have only just dropped their lunchtime sleep at aged nearly 3, they still do at least 12 hours a night.
Also I have always found that good daytime sleeps led to good night time sleep also. You'd think that if they hadn't slept well in the day they would really conk out at night and I didn't find that this was so.

Similar to what others have said, really - it can be pretty hard to get a sleep routine at that age, but don't despair - it doesn't mean they'll never sleep well. From about 3 months I found it quite easy to get DS to go down for a nap, but he would wake up without fail after about 20-30 minutes, and wouldn't go back to sleep. Then, suddenly, around 7-8 months, he just started staying asleep for longer - and in the space of a fortnight or so, he was sleeping for 2 hours every lunchtime, plus an hour in the morning and afternoon (can't quite remember when he dropped the afternoon nap).

So, even though I know how frustrating it is not to have a daytime routine, sometimes it just can't be helped. Everyone's different, but I personally don't think it's worth the trauma of leaving them to cry themselves to sleep to see if that works. Small sample, I know, but those mums I know who have tried controlled crying still have children who don't sleep well at all. I never left DS to cry - he just learned how to sleep without help, when he was ready.

Having said that, I do think your DD is getting to the age now where a bedtime routine is worth starting - so that when she learns to sleep in the day, she's already got some sort of framework. Just start doing bath, book and bed (putting her down upstairs, not downstairs with you) at around the time you'd eventually like her to go to bed - even if she's still up and down again after 'bedtime' at the moment.

Good luck - and as someone else said, try not to put too much pressure on yourself or her - she's still very little.

I id the same as MiniMarmite
Gina Ford times

7am wake up and 9am nap. It worked brilliantly and instantly for us, but of course every baby is different, I just found it really useful as, also MM I had no idea how to 'read his clues' and he never ever fell asleep

Just try a few things, you will find a system that works for you, or your DC wil find their own routine- just DONT believe that
a) all babies fall asleep when they are tired or
b) if you leave them to it they will make their own routine- if a doesnt happen b cant, so dont feel bad for trying advice from a book!! I mean your baby might- lots of babies do, but mine didnt and yours may not either

My baby got into his own routine himself, without me realising it I noticed it when he was 3 months and 2 weeks old
Your baby might decide to do the same too!

i did star routine about 8 weeks. my baby didnt just drop off to sleep and got over tired, so i wanted to give her what she needed, plus was finding it hard to go with the flow!!

it took a while, but i followed the gina thing loosely. my LO has always woken up at 6, not 7 ( or even 5.30 ) so didnt stick to anything rigidly.

i did bed time routine first, then figured out that day needs sorting to get a regular bedtime. worked to 3 hourly feeds first off ( now on 4 hourly at 20 weeks) and sleep around that.

it worked for me ( but have been stressed about sleeps not happening etc and have tried to chill out a bit!) but did take a good month for her to sleep longer in the day than bits and bobs. maybe she would have found her rythm - but not all babies are like that and my little one craved structure as her mummy was all over the place!!

it sured helped. did read, gina, baby whisperer and alison scott wright and they all helped. took bits from each that worked for me

This is interesting by little girl is 18 weeks (but effectively about 14) and doesn't really have a set routine. She only naps for about 45 mins at a time which isn't really long enough I think.

Can anyone give me a quick guide to the pick up it down technique? I'll try and go the library later to find the book as we're kinda trying to follow some of the EASY pattern.

Gina Ford worked really well for me when I wanted my first baby to get a predictable routine - I put off doing it until he was 5 months and then after 3 days I had a predictable lunch time nap (still doing 2 hour nap at 19 months!) AND a predictable bedtime of 7pm. I'm starting GF now with my second baby at 2 weeks.

You DON'T have to leave them to cry - this is a myth about GF - and the baby does not sleep in a darkened room for every nap - I just use the eat and sleep times. They mean that when you put the baby down to sleep he is ready for it, and will fall asleep very quickly instead of hours of rocking/jogging/finger sucking.

Liskey pick up put down goes something like this:

• baby wakes up and cries out
• pick up baby and comfort until crying stops
• as soon as crying stops put baby back down in cot
• if baby starts crying on the way down into cot put all the way down but then pick up again straight away
• basically you repeat picking up when crying starts and putting down as soon as crying stops and eventually the baby goes back to sleep.

On day 1 it can take a while to get the baby back down again - we were using at night at one point and it took about 40 minutes. Day 2 takes much less time and then we found DS slept through after about 3 days (but can take around 5 according to the book I think).

Goes without saying really, but make sure it is habitual waking rather than a problem before trying this .

We found all sorts of things disrupted the routine, especially in the relatively early days - teething, a trip, illness etc but the technique always seemed to work provided the source of disruption had passed.