Calihan is almost two years old (6 more days!!) and I am just now writing out his sleep schedule from when we were able to get him to sleep through the night. I had quite a few requests for this because I have family members and friends having babies now. We were really lucky in the sleep department with Calihan and so we get asked “how we did it” quite frequently. To be honest we are not fully sure if we just lucked out or if this schedule works, but so far everyone that has tried it has said it helped!
Lyall and I looked up different schedules online to find one that would work best for us when we moved to Texas. I combined a few ideas and made the biggest change of when I fed him. We used to feed him and then burp him and put him down for his nap. We changed it to feeding when he wakes up and it made a big difference. Within two days he was sleeping almost 12 hours every single night. Hopefully you can take away some tips from this schedule – just know every baby is different! We know if we have a second we might not be so lucky but at least this info is here just incase!
Also remember that each day the times will be slightly different because life is happening. These are rough estimates and we just tried to follow it the best we could.
3-4 month Schedule
6:30-7am: wakes up and feeds 5-7oz
7-9am: lots of play time including tummy time and looking at age appropriate activity books
9-11:30am: Cal would go down for his first nap. The amount of time he sleeps is normally around 2-2.5 hours. This is normally the longest nap he will take.
11:30-1:30pm: feed another 5-7oz and then play time + bonding time again!
1:30-3:30pm: second nap of the day – can also vary in length. If his nap is short then we would just keep him attached to us or cuddle for a bit. If the nap is really short the amount below would be 5-7oz instead of 5oz since it is further away from the night feed.
3:30-4pm: if Cal takes the full two hour nap – feed no more than 5oz so he is hungry when it is time for his bed time routine. (of course if your child wants more don’t deprive them) we used bottles so I would just put 5oz in the bottle and he was just fine!
4-6:45pm: We would keep him awake – play. Around 6:30pm ish we would start the bedtime routine so can do bath time (we gave Cal a bath every other night), read a book, etc. I would spend this time with him on me if needed as well when making dinner. Keeping him learning – active is helpful until the bedtime routine so there is a transition to let things slow down.
6:45-7:15pm: feed him 7-8 oz so he’s full for bed! We would burp him, make sure he’s changed and then put him down for bed in his crib. We love our white noise machine so that came in handy every night. Some nights we would have to rock him to sleep and others he would just fall asleep on his own.
Another tip is to purchase booster pads that go into their diaper. This helps keep them from leaking or getting uncomfortable and having that wake them up. My cousin mentioned this and it helped as well! These can be purchased at Target or Walmart, etc.
Then do it all over again the next day 🙂
The first night he woke up at 5am and then the second he woke up at 6am. After the routine was put into place he was sleeping until 7am! We do travel a lot so we are not normally in a routine but this was fairly simple to keep going even when out and about. We would just try to get him to take naps around the same time even if it’s in the car or in the stroller. I hope this can be useful for those that are trying to get more sleep or expecting mamas!
Thank you for reading! xo
