When you are staying at home with your baby it’s very easy to loose track of time. The days bleed into each other, you have a hard time regulating your sleep, or sometimes, as baby grows older you wonder, “how can I make sure I don’t have an overtired grouch on my hands?”. You need a routine. And you need to learn how to have stress free baby schedules.
This especially became a problem for me when my baby began to turn into a toddler and started sleeping even less. Don’t get me wrong, the newborn stage was still a struggle. Let’s be honest and admit that we’re truly trying to get to the next nap time then bedtime!
I searched the web to find out how me and my little girl should be spending our day. I loved the hourly break down charts that I found. However, I realized that they did NOT work! I think this was because, I was just so stressed out trying to fit us into the prescribed routines.
After a lot if tries I discovered that they do work if you tweak the way you use them. This is what I found to be the best way to use daily routine baby schedules and make them work.
TAKE Your baby schedules WITH A PINCH OF SALT
Daily routine baby schedules help you structure your day – especially for the first time parent, they give you an idea of what to expect according to baby’s age.
However, if you obsess over them, you will miss your baby’s sleep cues.
Babies sometimes babies just march to the beat of their own drum.
One minute they are wide awake and with no warning the next instant they are fussing and ready to take a nap and will be asleep within minutes. This is mainly the approach that I take:
- Be flexible with the timing (give yourself up to two hours or so of leeway. Every day is NOT the same so don’t expect it to be.)
- Say no to frustration. Closely watch your baby’s cues and just roll with them, so you’re not forcing anything.
- Go to sleep early and wake up before your baby for adequate energy to take on the day.
Prioritize purely enjoying your baby!
don’t panic if you’re way off your baby’s schedule
Give yourself some grace and baby too. I’m still learning this daily. Some days are easier than others, but you need to allow for leeway. For example, there are days when it’s taken AN ENTIRE hour for my little one to fall asleep.
I’m not entirely sure why…but in those times I have to remind myself that she will sleep eventually. She’ll be ok and I will be too.
With my 16 month old, I have also learned about the 5 to 5.5 hour wake window for toddlers. Let’s say, after their first nap, may not apply to my toddler. She will CONSISTENTLY be up for about 7 hours after her nap!
Try as I may to put her to sleep it keeps dragging out and getting stressful for both of us. So, I had to let her have a later bed time. Now, an almost 1-1.5 hour bed time session has become an approximately 20 minute affair! I have been, for the most part allowing her to wake up naturally.
I am curious though, if setting an alarm and getting our day started earlier will help her go to sleep earlier. So that’s next on my list to try.
I’ve discovered that when I don’t panic and get too obsessed about these deviations, I can more calmly troubleshoot to tackle the situation.
Sleep is important for your Baby’s schedule
It was an almost two hour battle before baby girl would finally sleep. I would be so relieved that she was finally asleep! So naturally, I would reward myself with some electronic binge time. Ugh, if I could get that time back!
This would make me to stay up too late. Then inevitably, I would get a second wind. So I would stay up even later because I could not make myself sleep at a decent hour. This ensured that I would not wake up early.
Having your baby wake you up when
- 1. you did not get enough sleep the night before
- 2. you literally spent your entire evening trying to get her to sleep
- 3. you just open your eyes first thing in the morning and there she is wide awake and demanding breakfast…
Needless to say that is just not the ideal set up.
Set up your own sleep schedule
Having personal time is important. An overstretched parent is not ideal for a baby. You need rest to be patient and helpful with your baby. I think perhaps our babies sense our stress as well. Stressed parents make stressed babies.
I recently realized that I actually need personal time in order to just mentally function better. It did not dawn on me earlier on. I found day to day tasks overwhelming.
I didn’t realize that I had the power to dictate how the day should generally go. I thought the day happened to me. Then I realized I had to happen to the day. I had to set the pace.
I had to be more disciplined.
If you’re like me, a single parent without help. Or just a parent that doesn’t get much help. You may think that resting seems more like a luxury. Let me remind you that resting is not a luxury. Resting is a necessity. You need rest. Getting adequate rest actually requires discipline. It requires shutting down your devices and getting to bed at a decent hour.
When you’re the only parent, personal time means – the time that your baby is sleeping and you’re not too tired to function!
I’ve found that waking up before baby helps me get a better handle on the day.
This does a lot for my mental health.
When I’m less stressed because I have some down time, I am able to create a better and more peaceful environment to facilitate sleep.
Regulate sleeping temperature
Baby needs to wear the correct sleep attire.
This is very important for adequate temperature regulation during the night.
You need to make sure baby is comfortable all night long. Sometimes when my baby wakes up at night she feels really warm to the touch. This makes sense because, people generally have a harder time sleeping if when it’s too hot.
When the temperature gets warmer at night, it wakes us up. This in turn makes it so we don’t sleep well. After last night, I realized that’s exactly what is happening to my baby. She kept on waking up periodically and was warm to the touch.
So I keep the temperature cool and layer up little one in a breathable sleeper and zippered blanket (if needed). If her temperature is comfortable, but she doesn’t sleep through the night, she may be overtired from having too long of a wake window. This gives me information that I can use to troubleshoot the next day.
I hope this helps you have more a relaxed approach as you get on with your daily routines.