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Home › Articles › Sleep Issues › Scheduling Baby

Scheduling Baby

Building an Adult Life Around Baby's Schedule

By Kelly Burgess

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r (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2007), says she didn't bring them into the light at night when they got up for feedings; she kept them in the dark to help program their bodies to a natural circadian rhythm.

"Getting your kids to bed at a reasonable time is a huge thing, in my mind," Meyers, says. "I consider myself a homebody. I don't need to go out a lot in the evening, but just having that time at home with my husband, and for myself to recharge, makes me a better parent when the kids are up and about."

After Four Months

At this time, the shaping of the baby's schedule can begin in earnest. The ultimate goal is a reasonably early bedtime, no more than one waking time at night (and eventually none); one to two naps (depending upon the age of the baby); and a reasonable wakeup time.

Dr. Berman likes the idea of scheduled feedings beginning at this time, if not before. It's an idea she admits some don't agree with, but that she thinks has a lot of merit. This is not only because children thrive on a schedule, but also because it teaches them to begin to listen to their hunger signals rather than to "graze," or to eat for comfort or other reasons besides hunger.

Here are some other important issues to consider when trying to establish a daily schedule for your baby:

  • Naps: By about 4 months, the baby will naturally settle into two naps a day. As he moves toward the 1-year-old mark, Meyers says one nap may begin to push later in the day, thus keeping the child up later at night. When that occurs, it may be time to try to move to one nap a day to keep that important early bedtime intact. Dr. Berman says that a nap doesn't even have to necessarily be a time of sleep for the baby. For schedule purposes, it can be a quiet time for the baby to be alone in his or her crib with a soft-sided book. The bonus in that is that it gets the baby an early exposure to books.

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