To have little routine?

[Missy450]

My DS is almost 7 months and we hardly have a routine at all really. He wakes anywhere between 5-6am but his naps are all over the place. I just go by 2 hour awake time.
He does have a 7pm bedtime though.

Should I start introducing more of a stricter routine for naps? If so, I’d have to be less flexible with daily activities as the only way to guarantee he naps is at home in a dark room after he’s fed to sleep.

Did introducing more routine make your baby sleep better at night? I’m getting a bit sick of getting up before 6am 🙁

I'll watch this thread with interest OP. We're very similar here. Start the day anywhere between 6am and 8am. The only remotely fixed thing is bed between 6:30 and 7pm.

Having said that, in the past week or so I think a nap routine (albeit flexible timing) of a morning nap 2 hours after waking then another nap around 3pm.

I don't want to let routine take over our plans so DD just has to sleep in the car/carrier/pushchair if we're out when she gets tired.

I meant to say that rather than me designing a routine it just seems to be happening of its own accord.

Instead of giving bedtime, it is more useful to fix mining wake up and then allow the glexibiluty to come at the other end of the day, depending on how naps went.

For example if you set a time you will wake baby at, you then get a set time for first nap (based on 2h awake time). You then also get a fairly regular second nap time, if first nap is always at the same time. The rest of your routine will develop from that.

...fixing* bedtime...

Probably going against the grain here - my DC are now adults, but I did have a routine when they were small and it worked. If it means having a full night's sleep versus some daytime activity, I'd go for the full night's sleep and regular naps at home. It doesn't last forever but they responded well to a structured day.

I'd suggest no nap before 9am so you're not rewarding the early wake up.

At 7 months we were doing 2/3/4 so awake at 7, nap at 9-10.30 awake for 3 hours then nap from 1.30-3 and then awake for 4 hours and sleep at 7.

Does he sleep at night? If so I wouldn’t worry about routines during the day. I find they set and change their own nap schedule. By 12 months he’ll prob be dropping the morning nap anyway

My DD is also 7 months, we have a firm bedtime of 7.30 and she’s up between 7 to 8.30 depending on what kind of night she’s had. I tried introducing proper nap times and working to get her to nap 1-1.5 hours at a time but after a couple of weeks I found it made no difference to night wakings and just made me miserable as it took over my day and I wasn’t going out. We vaguely the 2,3,4 routine with her napping 2 hours after she first wakes up then 3 then 4 hours but I don’t stress if she falls asleep in the car or pram as that was putting me off going out.
I treat any wake ups before 7am as night wake ups, we don’t leave the bedroom, no lights, no talking etc and usually she eventually falls back to sleep

I let them find their own routine, until they were school age and I had to wake them up earlier.

At that age we went with an 8-830 bedtime- DD would sleep until 730-8 in the morning usually then. I suspect for a 7pm bedtime you need to accept an earlier morning wake up.

I was generally guided by her for naps. She never napped for longer than 45mins at that age (she dropped to one nap at only 10months and that was a lovely long one). I hated being tied to the house so naps in sling/buggy on the go suited us well. She was a happy baby who happily slept in the noisiest of places though.

I’ll have to read up on the 2/3/4 thing as I always go by 2 hour awake time so depending on his nap length, he can still have 4 naps per day.

I’ve also read on a thread yesterday that making morning nap later can make wake up time later so also going to try that. Maybe do a set time for first nap, say 8am. But surely 4 hours before bed time leads to over tiredness which also leads to sleep problems??

My DS has 2 wake ups a night, same time every night and also looking at weaning off these if they’re just a habit.

I’d second boiling - I would always prioritise sleep over activities / classes etc. I’ve found having a routine really helpful as I can know roughly what to expect day to day. And I will only ever book into classes that fit around nap times.

Working backwards, I’d imagine that an 8am nap would result in a 6am wake up.

I think when you stretch the awake time, you get longer naps. Bit of a chicken and egg scenario, not knowing what comes first. Waiting for longer naps so you can have less of them and longer awake times.

You can do a 3 hour wake time too, naps at 10am and 2.30 for example