Infant schedule--Eat, play, sleep

amother

Sienna

Sat, Sep 16 2017, 4:30 pm

I can't find the original thread I saw this on, but several posters posted their babies' schedules, and it was something like this: Wake up, eat, play, nap for an hour, wake up, eat, play, nap for an hour, etc.

I'm no sleep expert and don't claim to have any training in this field. But as a mother who recently sleep trained her 11th child, I was surprised at first to notice that 6-month-old babies are napping for only an hour each time while my own babies tend to nap longer than that at that age. I do realize that babies come in all varieties and sleep patterns, but I was still surprised to see that that seemed to be the norm. Then I looked over the schedule again and saw that most of these babies are eating when they wake up and then playing and going to sleep without eating again before nap time. I usually nurse my babies right before their naps so they should have a longer stretch before waking up to eat again. It made me think that perhaps that's why other babies are only sleeping an hour.

All that rambling is just to suggest to those who are interested in their babies sleeping longer during the day that perhaps a quick feeding again before nap time might help attain that goal. It might not, of course, but I'm just sharing my experiences and observations in case anyone wants to give it a try.

Thanks for listening. Smile

pesek zman

Sat, Sep 16 2017, 5:22 pm

True that feeding (breastfeeding especially) tires them out (and so you are getting a nice long nap) but the rationale behind eat play sleep is to get baby out of habit of needing to be fed I order to go to sleep and to eliminate that association. That is a big part of sleep training for a lot of people

amother

Sienna

Sat, Sep 16 2017, 5:25 pm

pesek zman wrote:

I admit to not knowing much about eat, play, and sleep. I can hear that, but I wasn't referring to nursing the baby to sleep. When I finish nursing my baby, he's still wide awake. And he doesn't necessarily go straight from breast to bed. I might put him in 5-10 minutes later. He's still well fed and puts himself to sleep on his own.

amother

Sienna

Sat, Sep 16 2017, 5:27 pm

amother wrote:

Yes, what she said
Also feeding baby right away after waking means when they get fussy ik it's tiredness not hunger
It might have been my thread - going batsht crazy?

But do you really know that? Say baby wakes up at 7:30 a.m. and naps at 10. If my baby eats at 7:30, he might want to eat again at 9:45. If he would get fussy then, I would nurse him and then put him in for a nice long nap.

I don't remember the name of the thread, but it's possible that was it.