Expecting our Little Brother in November!

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Monday, April 25, 2011

Our Schedule/Nap Update

So as you might recall, my original goal was: "I'm hoping by the time he's 6 months old, I can get him into a 3-naps-of-at-least-an-hour-at-specific-times sort of daily routine." So I wanted to give an update on how we are doing compared to when I set that goal when he was 4 months old (about 6 weeks ago) . . .

Well, we definitely have him napping at pretty specific times, which seems to work for him. This is how our day usually goes:

-Wake up around 6/6:30, nurse in bed, Daddy changes and plays with and then puts in his swing about an hour later.
-Take this first early morning nap in his swing from 7:30-8:30. Wakes up at 8:30, we get up and get dressed, nurse, play, etc.
-Second nap, we start doing the routine (change, read books, nurse, rock) around 9:30 and he falls asleep between 10-10:30.
-Third nap we start the routine at 12:30 and he falls asleep between 1-1:30.
-Fourth nap, routine and then asleep around 3-3:30. (But sometimes he skips this one and won't fall asleep).
-Fifth nap, asleep anytime between 5-6:30 (and this one is usually short, like a half hour, and he sometimes skips this one, too, on days that he doesn't skip the other one, hehe).
-Down for the night around 7:30/8.

Sooo, let's see:
-I wanted 3 naps, right now we've got 5. HOWEVER, you could sort of consider the first wakeup as sort of a false one. He nurses for a LONG time, gets changed, and then wants to play for like 10 mins and then is tired again. So we're sort of only on 4. AND he is definitely transitioning the last two naps into one big afternoon nap, I think, since sometimes he skips one or the other.
-I wanted them to be at least an hour, and I can report (nearly) relative success on this front! Typically he does nap for right around an hour--at least 45 mins and sometimes like an hour and a half. Except for that last nap, as I mentioned which can be kind of short (and if it was longer he'd be up too late anyway).
-I wanted them to be at specific times, and again, we've had great success on this front!! The only nap that can vary is the last one probably because he's going to drop it. He's definitely able to be kept awake even when he's tired, and the schedule can shift if he randomly sleeps longer or wakes up earlier, but it's basically pretty regular!

So this is my progress on the goals I'm working toward by james' 6 month birthday and I think we're doing great so far!

3 comments:

Amy said...

Yay good progress!!

Alyssa said...

Great!

Have you been doing anything specific, or is this just his self-imposed schedule?

(sorry for deleting the first comment - I wanted to get comments emailed to me in case you answer here!)

justadrienne said...

Alyssa--Well, I tried out a 9:30, 12:30, 3:30, 6:30 schedule (after a friend told me her baby was on a similar schedule) but he absolutely needed that first super early nap and then the other ones evolved from there. And I think the routine helps because I can gauge his tiredness and spend more or less time reading books before I put him to sleep.

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