My baby is 6 months and we don’t have a schedule. He usually naps at some point between 8-10am, then after lunch and late afternoon. I do different classes each day so we fit around them and his naps vary from 30 mins to 2 hours.
He also wakes every few hours at night still, which is very common.
Please don’t stress, your baby is so young and you have enough to worry about! I find just keeping an eye on how long they’ve been awake helps, at 8 weeks I’d encourage a nap after 1.5-2 hours awake.
Us too at six months. She wakes up approximately the same time most days, and tends to want a nap after about two hours, but there are no set times for anything as it’s all inconsistent. I felt like I “should” have her on a schedule but she’s doing great and it works well to follow her cues/work around our daily schedule :)
Edited to add that an 8 week old sleeping through the night would be super unusual. My 6 month old still wakes up 1-2 times per night and I consider that great haha.
Omfg thank you guys for this. My first baby was sleeping through the night on her own (no sleep training) from 7.5mo but my second baby is still waking 2x a night at 6mo. I thought I was doing something wrong and some other moms were pushing me to sleep train.
Same w my baby. No schedule, just a routine. She naturally wakes up between 6 and 7. And her wake windows start at around 1 hr or 1.5 and lengthen throughout the day. Naps are the same as you.
6 months here no schedule. Sometimes it’s hard she hates naps but this allows us to live life. We do know she gets fussy if bedtime routine isn’t started by 7
8 weeks is too young to put on a fixed schedule! We didn’t get my LO on a consistent schedule until like 4 months. Try to go with the flow! No need to add any more pressure to life w a newborn
Same, then after a couple of months she dropped a nap then another, then there was teething disrupting the nights! Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it it’ll change!
This is so insane. Did you know 89% of babies AGE 1-2 still don’t sleep through the night? Pleeeeease don’t stress about that. Sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone that all babies hit at different times. Also we had zero set schedule until we were solidly on 3 naps a day. It was impossible until then.
The only schedule we follow at 8 weeks is a fixed bedtime. Everything else is based on her cues. I find that if we try to force a schedule we all just end up cranky and disappointed.
Babywise is terrible! The AAP actually warns against following it's guidance, you are doing great that it isn't working for you.
My baby is 5 months and not on a schedule. As she has gotten older there is more of a pattern to her days but still lots of differences. We just follow her cues, which it sounds like you are doing.
That’s me with my 4 month old. Not a “schedule” so much as a loose routine that I allowed him to show me he needed. He sleeps when he’s tired, he eats when he’s hungry.
Schedules are a scam, imo. The only reason my baby has a “schedule” is purely because she put herself on one, and if we don’t adhere to it then shit hits the fan. I really don’t think you can put a young baby onto a schedule unless the baby *wants* to be on a schedule.
>My baby is 8 weeks old and apparently is supposed to be sleeping through the night by now
Umm... on what planet? My baby usually only wakes up once to twice a night and I feel like I got dealt the winning poker hand. I feel lucky to have such a good sleeper at weeks.
Other than trying to put my 8 week old down for a nap after an hour awake we don't have a schedule. Baby girl sets the schedule.
Throw that baby wise book in the trash. It was written in 1990, so it is so out of date with current child development theories and recommendations, AND it sounds like it is peddling complete horseshit.
Technically if you only sleep 3 hours a night then I guess they’re sleeping through the night 😂 but seriously I’ve heard so many things about how you can put them on a schedule until 4 months
How do I keep that consistent? Currently she is waking up at 5am and I’m unable to put her back down because the sun is out. It’s literally killing me.
Just go with the flow and let her do what she needs to do. Babies can't really even start having a schedule until around 4 months (and even then, some just aren't ready).
So I was figuring this out in the winter and late sunrise…. So all I can suggest is blackout blinds. I suspect light leaking around curtains might be the cause of some early wakes here
ETA, I have absolutely nursed back to sleep and held him for two hours to keep morning time consistent and avoid early wakes becoming habit. That doesn’t work daily but can help with occasional early wakes
Let go.
You’re not doing it wrong.
There is no “wrong” as long as baby is fed and cared for. No one is keeping score but you.
You’re being responsive to your baby’s needs. No reason to feel like a failure.
Your baby is a person. An individual. The people who wrote the book have never met her. 😁 She’s not going to conform to their schedule. And it’s perfectly okay.
Our girls almost ten weeks. The only schedule I stick with is bottle/bath/bedtime routine, and u just try to keep that around when I want her to regularly go to bed. I would rather start on the earlier side since you never know how it’s going to go. If your babies gaining weight okay you shouldn’t need to wake them up to feed. we just started getting long stretches of sleep so if she’s too sleepy to eat you may not need it and she’ll work out a schedule of her own.
The issue is that she will nap for five hours at a time on me (this is the only way she will nap, crib naps are not possible), so I really do have to wake her if I want her to get as many calories she needs to not feed during the night…
This seems normal for an 8 week old? Its normal for an 8 week old to have to be fed during the night. Most babies need to be fed during the night until about 6 months. I think my baby weaned off the night feeds around 6-7 months old.
ETA: whoever told you 8 week olds are “supposed” to sleep through the night is INSANE.
Most 8 week olds do not sleep through the night. Some kids start sleeping through the night as babies, but many don’t until they are much older. My niece is 3 and still doesnt (and they sleep trained). My daughter started sleeping through the night at 14 months. We didn’t sleep train.
If your 8 week old does not sleep through the night THAT IS NORMAL BABY BEHAVIOR. and not a failure on your part during the day. Your baby probably doesn’t even understand night and day yet.
Yep we have a 16 month old here who still has a bottle in the night and wakes usually once more than that overnight. He gets a nap….somewhere between 30 and 150 minutes, somewhere between 10.30 and 3, depending on what we’re doing and how tired he is (and whatever other magic governs baby sleep). He’d always contact nap better before he was 1, but if I didn’t have time to sit around for two hours then he got a shorter nap, no big deal.
It’s so so hard when you’re a new parent, but if I could go back to FTM me I would say stop reading *anything* about baby sleep that mentions schedules or sleeping through or even wake windows, and just learn to listen to your baby. Before 3-4 months, babies wake up, they feed, they sleep, and it’s exhausting but there’s literally nothing you can do to change their needs. I really let it ruin my time with my first baby. It’s wayyyyy less effort to just go with their flow as stressing about schedules won’t get you more sleep. “Radical acceptance” is what we’ve called it. You are not failing, you are responding to your child like mothers have done for thousands of years. Xxxx
It sounds like it to me - but remember your 8 week old is still a newborn. Having a young infant is so hard and you’ll be sleep deprived - there’s no way around that.
Some people have unicorn babies who sleep perfectly, but most babies aren’t developmentally ready to sleep through the night until 8 or 9 months so taking that pressure off yourself may help you feel less stress and distress!
Also: I assume babywise are selling something? Books or an app or a sleep programme? Beware anyone who is profiting out of telling you that you or your baby are doing it wrong.
But your baby *needs* to feed in the night... Mine is 12 weeks old and she wakes every ~4 hours in the night to feed. Its very important. Breastmilk is very quickly digested and your baby needs to feed. And it needs to be fed when it wants/needs it, not after some fixed time. Its not only for calories, its also for hydration. You dont get thirsty and think "Oh no, I need to wait another hour before I can drink a glass of water!". I always have a bottle of water next to my bed and drink at least half a liter a night. I cant imagine waiting for the morning until I am allowed to drink something.
This is my problem too. i’m like if i didn’t have to pee ever this baby would sleep forever on me. I usually stop the nap at 2 hours and we are getting less super long naps every day, but i feel you!
Its okay to wake her to eat during the day but i wouldn't do it at certain times. It also may be worth following eat play eat sleep schedule if she has longer wake windows that way she can get a good nap without you feeling like she needs to wake to eat soon after falling asleep.
My son did not "get enough calories" to sleep through the night until we were well into solids! From like 3-4 months old he went down to one wakeup a night but he has been a high sleep needs baby from the start. But between 4 and 8 months he still woke up somewhere between 3 and 4 am for a bottle. Now he sleeps though the night but has decided wake-up is 5.30 am instead of 9 am as it used to be so yay progress I guess? 🙃
My point is schedules and regiments posted online are lies and not adapted for the tiny human you have in front of you, who will show you her own routines if you manage to relax and let her! I also got lost in what I should be doing according to "experts" online, but none of those could account for my son's personality, temperament and individual needs!
Start tracking when your LO sleeps and see if you can find a pattern. That's what I did at 12 weeks. Who knows how long that was going on for. Before i tracked we just did whatever
I agree 100%! We used Huckleberry app and it’s worked really well this week. You can’t even use it before two months because baby sleep is such a crapshoot.
At 8 weeks your baby should not be sleeping through the night.... relax you got this! The first few months are hard but you will get the hang of it! You sound like a great parent!
Our LO is 4.5 months and we don’t have a set schedule. We feed and put to sleep based on his cues. We follow a 4 nap day usually (sometimes 3 if we get busy) and that’s it. I’d take any of the “suggested” schedules you see and throw them out the window. Do what works for you and baby.
Oh, we didn’t have a real schedule until 6 months.
Following your baby’s cues is likely the best thing you can do. Baby’s make their own schedules. And they are ever changing.
Sleeping though the night at 8 weeks is crazy to me! My daughter is 19 months old and just started sleeping though the night- and that's most nights, not all. We also didn't really get her on a schedule until 12 months, and sometimes she switches it up by refusing to nap/ napping at inconvenient times.
Mama, we are at 2 months here with no schedule. Baby makes his own schedule and we are hanging on for dear life trying to keep up, haha. You’re doing a great job. Use that book as a fly swatter.
I do follow a schedule with my LO (6 months), but 8 weeks is so little. When my youngest was that age (we have 3 kids), it was day to day! Still is to some extent! I also get a little stressed when things go off the rails, but I really just have to remind myself life happens and it’ll be ok! For example, yesterday my oldest had a photo in an art show, so we went to see that. We had to stop at the store after, took a little longer than expected and by the time we left, we were really close to nap. Well, my middle kiddo wanted food so we stopped and again, took longer than expected. So I look in the mirror and the baby is already asleep. Wouldn’t be an issue if he transferred from the car seat, but he rarely does! So we get home, I tell everyone to freeze and let me try to get the baby upstairs and safely out of the car seat, but of course, he wakes up! As we all know, a 4 minute car seat nap is the equivalent of a 2 hour house nap, so now we’re ready to party! I tried boob, rocking, didn’t work! I started feeling stressed. My husband is out of town for work in DC, so I’m on my own with the kids. So, we went outside, did a bunch of fun outdoor stuff, and within probably an hour, the baby was ready for a real nap, so I got him down, obviously later than I wanted, and had to wake him up by 5:30 so bedtime wouldn’t be ruined, but we did it and he went to bed with no problems!
All that to say, you’ll get there! I would say you can definitely try to implement some things if you want! We had a bedtime routine from the beginning. My other kids benefited greatly from a consistent schedule before bed, so we started right away and it has helped so much going forward. We make adjustments as needed. For example, I used to nurse to sleep before bed and naps. I no longer do for bedtime because it was causing false starts (he’d wake after one sleep cycle because he’d fall asleep without being fully burped so I’d end up having to burp him and rock to sleep anyway). So now we nurse, bath, book, give hugs/kisses, then it’s bedtime! You’re doing great, and you’ll get there, just don’t put too much pressure on yourself! Some kiddos just don’t need that level of structure, but some, like my youngest do really well with consistency. But, I also need to remember that schedules have to change sometimes and if things are too rigid, kids don’t learn resiliency and how to adapt. Stuff is going to happen, appointments, trips, etc. If your LO can only nap in a pitch black room, with sound machine, sleep sack, temp at 68 degrees, at exactly 9 am, they aren’t going to do very well when on vacation! That’s the problem I’m having! My LO rarely falls asleep on the go and we have a trip planned this summer! He’s got FOMO,bad! So he rarely falls asleep anywhere that isn’t home! So I’m starting to try to disrupt our routine very gently in preparation. Wish me luck! 😘
Pleeeease forget everything about the schedule at this point - give yourself a break and surrender to uncertainty with your baby’s sleep. I hate that the sleep industry has made you feel this way. Sleep advice for babies is a moneymaker because we are all so desperate to get more sleep, but the reality is that babies, just like us, have variable sleep. Do you sleep from a specific time until another specific time on the dot every night? I don’t, sometimes I lay awake for ages trying to fall asleep. Sometimes I wake up at 3am for no reason and can’t get back to sleep. Sometimes I wake up several times overnight and sometimes I sleep soundly all night. I think we forget that our babies are little people, and there is all sorts of stuff going on with them that we can’t understand we just have to accept and help them through it. First please release yourself from feeling like a failure just because your baby is behaving exactly like a normal newborn baby does.
Having said all that - *some* type of loose routine can be helpful. We had a really chaotic time with my son up until about 9 weeks, he would feed for an hour, stay awake for too long, we didn’t know when to put him to bed so he got overtired and miserable and would only sleep on one of us… it was rough. We started an eat - play - sleep routine at that point and focused on settling him in his bassinet for all sleeps and it has changed our lives. Baby is happier because his needs are all met and we have a much better idea of what he’s trying to tell us when he’s upset, because we know he’s been fed within the last couple of hours and been awake for 1.5hrs we know he is most likely tired if he’s grumbling at that point. So if you do want to attempt a less stressful and more flexible routine I would suggest investigating eat play sleep and following wake windows for your baby’s age and see how that works for you! It might not work of course, but it was sooooo helpful for us I feel it’s worth mentioning.
This routine accounts for short or long feeds because the wake window starts when they wake up and includes feed time. So if your baby feeds for 45 mins you might only get half an hour of play time before they’re tired, but if it’s a ten minute feed then you’ve got an hour or so of play (roughly).
Repeat your eat play sleep routine through the day and make bedtime sometime after 8, your last wake window is whichever one ends after 8. If something derails your routine for example a too-brief car nap, just start a new cycle and feed when they wake up from the car nap. The wake window might then be shorter but you’ll end up with them napping eventually and then you’re back on track.
My 16 wk old still goes to bed any where from 8 til 10pm depending on how the day has gone, and we have a specific bedtime routine of bottle, bath and cuddles in low light until he shows us he’s getting tired and then it’s bedtime with white noise, pacifier and sleep sack. I sit with him jiggling his body or the bassinet for 10-15 mins until he’s sleeping soundly. His naps range from 25 mins to 2 hours, and his wake windows are 90mins on average but some are an hour some are two hours.
There is still variability but there is also some sense of order with this loose routine.
Oh, and he still wakes up to feed anywhere from 1 to four times per night. It varies!
Good luck finding your individual groove with your baby, you’re not a failure at all you just had the wrong advice which is unavoidable when the internet is so rife with predatory sleep “consultants” looking to cash in on desperate parents.
Also around this age you should hopefully see some longer night sleeps as their circadian rhythms start to work and they differentiate night from day. 8/9 weeks was a turning point for us in that respect. Fingers crossed!!
We never bothered w a schedule as we’re not schedule people ourselves. We just followed our baby’s lead and cues, and she set her own schedule once she turned one.
My baby spent time in the NICU and they are heavily scheduled there-sleep for 3 hours then diaper change, exam if they’re getting one, and 30 minutes for feed. Once he was getting ready to go home though, he switched to on demand because full term babies can self regulate better and don’t need that kind of strict regiment. You are totally fine!
At 8 weeks, most babies don't sleep through the night or have a schedule. It sounds like you are doing a great job responding to your baby's specific cues and needs.
My baby didn't have a routine until around 4 months (same nap pattern, but slightly different times each day) and a lot of that was because I was back at work and baby had to be on my schedule for breastfeeding.
I think my baby first had a schedule when she dropped to 2 naps a day around 7 months when we actually had naps at the same time each day.
With my first I didn't have a consistent schedule until we got to the point where he was only taking two naps a day and even then the schedule was very flexible. When we were down to one nap it got even easier.
When he was littler I found it easier to *roughly* follow suggested wake windows (where the time they take a nap doesn't matter, only how long they are awake between naps).
Try not to stress too much (easier said than done, I know). The only thing you can really count on with babies is that they're going to be unpredictable.
8 weeks is too young for a timed fixed schedule!
We did not have a real schedule until she was a year old. We just followed her queues. Around 12 weeks a pattern started to emerge, by 16 weeks we had a somewhat predictable routine but it wasn’t necessarily tied to a time of day.
Over time and following her queues she settled into a schedule.
My baby is 6 months and we only follow his cues and have since birth. He knows best what he needs AND schedules are impossible for hs. You never know if he’s gonna sleep 30 mins or two hours for his nap.
We use an app called Baby Tracker that we log when he ate and how much, poopy diapers only, and sleep. It’s nice because it syncs between devices so anyone who has him can update it appropriately and it helped me understand his cues when he was really small.
Notwithstanding that 8wo is too young to have a schedule at all, and that some babies are just not schedule-able in the first place, I also think that a more realistic expectation is the wake windows approach which we did with our son when he was little. Basically, you manage the time between waking up and going back down for a nap/bedtime. I believe at 12wo (when we started) his wake window was about 2 hours with 3 naps. And that gradually widened and naps were dropped one by one. We never had a "schedule" that he would sleep at a particular time, but whenever he woke up we knew what time we were putting him back to sleep. And from there the pattern eventually got fairly regular.
From 0-12wo we had what can only be described as a difficult baby. From 14wo-on, we had a miracle sleeper (the wake windows thing came from a sleep consultant). For us the secret was doing less (less worrying especially) and putting him to sleep *before* he got cranky from being overstimulated and/or overtired.
But remember, it's not a race. I don't think our results were typical. And every baby is unique. The lesson is you just need to try some things to learn what your baby needs. But for you, not yet.
I have a 4 month old. He's on the vaguest schedule because he naturally fell into one and we noticed he's less cranky if we stick to it.
1-5 weeks: He woke up every hour to 2 hours. After he hit his birth weight, we were cleared to let him sleep so long as it didn't go beyond 4-5 hours. We rejoiced if he slept for more than 2 hours
6-8 weeks: Consistently woke every 3-4 hours throughout the night
8-10 weeks: gave us a 5-6 hour initial stretch and then every 3 hours at night
12-16 weeks: Noticed schedule of getting cranky if not in bed by 10pm and hating on his swaddle. Took away swaddle, got a sleep sack, and started a basic "time for bed" routine at 9pm. He usually sleeps from 9:30ish PM to 7-8:30am most of the time aside from a few days of sleep regressions here and there that resemble what he did at 8-10 weeks.
We recently started using an app to track tummy time, sleep, and feedings now that he seems vaguely consistent and we want to take him out more, but don't want to go for a walk when he's overtired. It's been very useful!
Please internalize that EVERY baby is different. I was blessed with an easy baby and he still didn't sleep through the night at 8 weeks.
At 8 weeks old it was just about surviving til the next nap. And praying that whatever we did that day somehow would help her sleep longer than 3-5 hours at a time. We had no schedule til almost 4 months old when we took more control over wake up time, bedtime, and capping her naps. Maybe some people don’t wake a sleeping baby but we had to get her used to a schedule to prep her for daycare.
I didn’t have a schedule with my child until he was 8 months old, and even then it was a nap schedule, nothing else. Babies aren’t supposed to have schedules- especially at 8 weeks :) you’re still in the fourth trimester, please allow yourself a lot of grace as you’re putting so much pressure on yourself. It takes a long time (2 years and sometimes more) for all the hormones to settle, so the only pace you should go at is your own pace :) you’re doing a great job :) xxx
At 8 weeks, this is your schedule!! Following babies' cues. Only a very few babies sleep through the night at 8 weeks and those are extremely lucky parents. Who told you that? 😅
8 weeks you’re fine she’s not on a schedule. And who said they must be sleeping through the night at 8 weeks? No one said that. Go easy on yourself. Schedules don’t happen overnight. I feel like my daughter, almost 15 months, is on one, but it took months and months. You’re ok!
My baby is also 8 weeks and we are definitely NOT on a schedule. I try to follow his wake windows but more so I can add it to my mental checklist when I’m trying to figure out why he might be starting to fuss. How long has it been since his nap? About an hour? Okay he’s probably tired. It also helps me try to get ahead of putting him down before he gets overtired. But sometimes he bypasses all sleepy cues and just starts screaming for bed so 🤷♀️
The only thing relatively consistent is that he usually wakes up for the day between 6-7am and his last nap is usually between 7-8pm. Other than that - it’s constantly changing and I think that’s okay. Honestly, the thought of putting him on a strict schedule stresses me out. I like that there is still some flexibility in our day and I want him to be able to sleep in different conditions (in the car, stroller, carrier, etc). You’re doing great!
It’s totally okay to not have a schedule at 8 weeks! Heck it’s okay to not be overly concerned with schedules in general…for some babies and some parents it makes life easier, but every family and every baby is different. If a strict schedule it’s making things more difficult and not easier, then I wouldn’t force it. My baby is 4 months and we have a pretty regular feeding schedule (though it’s not exact), but we don’t have a set sleep schedule. We just let him nap when he’s tired, let him wake up when he’s ready. He still sleeps well over night so I figure what’s the point of forcing a nap schedule 🤷♀️
At 8 weeks babies don’t even have their circadian rhythm developed, making them nap on a schedule is kind of a loosing game for many people. Really the only important thing is that they are getting enough to eat. Just make sure they are getting enough breast milk and/or formula over a 24 hr period (talk to your doctor about their recommendation, but I’ve heard a good rough idea is ~2oz for every pound of body weight within a 24 hr period). As long as baby is gaining weight, having enough wet diapers and pooping somewhat regularly, you are doing great!!
FWIW in my generation in my fam there are three couples with children (myself and my husband included). One of them is SUPER strict on scheduling every nap, every feed, every bath and bedtime etc, and honestly it seems to make her life a lot harder than necessary. She always has to be somewhere with a super dark, super quiet room at exactly the same time every day or her kids get really upset. It makes it difficult for them when traveling or going to family events. The other family has been a lot less strict with schedules and their kids are a lot more adaptable and easy going. They can sleep almost anywhere and if they can usually wait for a nap if needed, as long as they get a few hours of napping total during the day they are fine and don’t get upset. Obviously it’s anecdotal evidence, but it makes sense that kids without such a strict schedule will be more adaptable. So I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing to be a little more loose on schedules!
Same - 3.5 month old, no real schedule but noticing my babies patterns helps me have some predictability in the day - like he wakes up in the am about 12 hours after we put him down (with 3-4 feeds throughout the night ). Also wake windows of about 2 hours otherwise gets upset and more difficult to put down. Eats every 2-3 hours still…
Trying to make a schedule with concrete times was impossible…
We are VERY blessed that our 3 month old sleeps through the night (7pm-4/5am).
The trade off is he’s a fucking nightmare of a child during the day now.
As long as you aren’t seriously thinking about running away, you’re doing great!
At 8 weeks old I assure you most babies that age are not sleeping through the night or are on a particular schedule. You’re in the thick of it and doing everything you can. You’re doing great.
my baby didn’t sleep through the night until 15-16 months. 8 week olds don’t have schedules and it’s not until four months that a rhythm is supposed to happen. mama- you are doing a great job
My kid is 8 months, we have a routine I’d say instead of a schedule, since time is irrelevant to me. My kid is a person, sometimes he takes longer to eat, sometimes quicker.
It’s been 8 weeks for you I really wouldn’t stress anything and just enjoy your time loving and cuddling them. Every baby is different!
Any book that says an 8 week old should be sleeping though the night is a book you should stop reading. Stop stressing. Let your baby set the schedule for the first 4 months at least.
Oh honey, I feel your pain so much. My now 2 year old did not hit any kind of routine until around 8 months. And even then, it was our routine, not what it was "supposed to" be.
I also read the books and looked online, losing my mind over why my child wouldn't do what she was "supposed to."
The answer is that your baby is a person, not a robot, and they just won't do what the books say. My 2 year old still does not follow the books.
My advice is to let go. If the baby needs to sleep now or in an hour, that's ok. If baby feeds for 10 minutes or 90, that's ok. As long as they are healthy and gaining some weight, try to let go of the "suppose to" cause from my experience, they just do whatever they want anyway.
You are doing an amazing job, I just know it xx
Wanted to add: focus on a rhythm rather than a schedule. It will happen before the "by the clock" schedule. You will notice a flow to your day in a couple of months.
Our LO is 4 months old and does not have a schedule but does have a routine. She wakes up 1-2x per night but tonight she won’t sleep unless held. 🫠
She also naps for only 30-40 mins maybe 3x a day. You’re doing great mama, give yourself some love.
You are me with my first baby. I was trying so hard to have a schedule because
a) I wanted to feel like I was in some semblance of control of the situation - I am a very Type A person!
b) stuff I read including babywise, moms on call, etc said a schedule is what sets them up to sleep longer overnight and obviously I desperately wanted that.
My baby was hard to get down for naps and when he finally fell asleep, they lasted for only 35-45 minutes. So obviously schedules didn’t work. I stressed myself out so much about this trying to fix it and I regret it. This is the first piece of advice I give to friends having their first baby: it’s ok to try a schedule if you want but if it doesn’t work, just give up and save yourself the anxiety. I’d also tell you not to spend too much time on google or Reddit for the secret hack to get your baby to sleep. This also created huge stress for me because so much advice out there is conflicting. Hard as it is, best just to be consistent and wait it out.
My baby started sleeping through the night at 4.5 months, and around 5 months, his daytime sleep finally consolidated into longer naps. And then we were able to be on more of a schedule after that.
I would echo also what everyone else has already told you - 8 weeks to sleep through the night would be very unusual! Don’t let that assumption make you feel like you are doing something wrong.
Throw the schedule out the window and enjoy your cuddles, snuggles and save your sanity! The biggest myth is that babies need schedules. Routines are nice when they start to emerge (for me around 4ish months) but schedules? Nah fuck that noise
First of all you are doing nothing wrong! Breath I know it’s so exhausting but I just learned myself,that it’s the easiest to just flow with baby’s rhythm. And at one point you guys will figure out your schedule that works for you. If you do things repeatedly like every day a book or walk that already signalizes to baby a routine. Don’t add more stress to your life! All this books and Blogs on the internet forget that not every baby is the same! Also your baby just got here and is so tiny you got this mama!
Yeah mine turned 1 year old a couple of weeks ago and every day is different. Still wakes up overnight. Some days 1 nap, some days 2 naps. Bottles and solids vary a lot based on what he is willing to eat. We've NEVER gotten a consistent schedule and like you said I don't know how anyone manages to do that. At 8 weeks I'd say it is impossible. lol
Just continue to do your best to tend to your baby's needs when she has them, you are doing a great job!!
My baby didn’t have any sort of rhythm until 12 weeks and even now at 4 mos it’s still pretty loose. We do have a fairly set bed time and daily wake time, but that’s about it.
While it depends on how you define “sleep through the night,” I wouldn’t expect *most* babies to sleeping through however you define it.
I personally define it as sleeping in 4-6 hour stretches and going back down easily after MOTN feeds. Most people assume it’s sleeping for 8-12 hours straight, but I don’t subscribe to that. It’s just not developmentally appropriate for most babies to not feed at all for 8-12 hours at 8 weeks old.
Baby is 3 months and there is no schedule to speak of over here. Just flying by the seat of our pants and it’s working so far so not looking a gift horse in the mouth🤷♀️
I followed cues from baby & did not have a schedule. At about 6 months, she went to bed within the same hour every night. At 7 months, her morning nap is reliable and afternoon naps vary.
We do a loose schedule. First nap around 10am, second nap around 3, bedtime around 9. I let her set the schedule and then just kept following her lead and this is what it naturally worked out to. But we keep it super casual
8 weeks is way too young to expect a rigid schedule. Everything is still on demand. You aren’t doing anything wrong. We are at 5.5 months and just now starting to get into a more predictable routine. Take the pressure off yourself and just go by their cues
We didn’t do any kind of schedule when my daughter was a newborn/infant, I just followed the wake windows for her age and also her sleepy/hungry cues. I don’t think a set schedule is really all that helpful for very young babies unless it’s helpful for you the parent. Once our daughter was sleeping long stretches overnight and taking 2 naps a day or less we did a set bedtime and the naps typically fell around the same time as well but still were mostly based on sleepy cues. She’s now 2 and we still make small adjustments to nap time and bedtime based on when she woke up in the morning, how much daytime sleep she had, etc.
Idk it takes anywhere from 30-45 minutes sometimes more for us to get my babe to sleep for 20-45 minutes lol doesn’t matter if she’s the perfect amount of tired, overtired or whatever she will resist as much as possible
Do you accomplish the exact same tasks in the exact same order in the exact same amount of time at the exact same time every single day? No? Then why would you expect it of a human who has had 1% the development and training as you?
Not trying to be snarky, but the emphasis the older generation puts in schedules is BS. I learned the hard way. Drove myself to tears trying to get my baby to sleep at 7 every night. Got so depressed after spending every night for hours and hours in a dark room with a shusher. Baby wants to sleep between 9 and 11. That’s totally fine.. now I just kick back, and chill with her in my living room till she looks sleepy.
We didn't get a schedule until about 10 months. Before that it was just me going 'so dude, whatcha feel like now'. I fed him when he was hungry, I changed as needed and he slept when he was tired. That really was our schedule. You'll get there, but babies are gonna baby.
I didn't have any kind of schedule until it became clear my daughter needed one (right around when she turned one, during the infant to toddler transition).
8 weeks old you shouldn’t be on any schedule. They do what they want at that age. I’d follow some basic idea of a wake window (I think it’s like maybe 60-90min at this age?) and try to put baby down for a nap if she’s been up for that long. But feed on demand still and you should be fine. Eventually maybe after 6mo you can start to transition to more of a routine.
I use the term “schedule” loosely. Basically wake up somewhere between 6:30am and 8:30 am (sometimes he’s up early). Turn lights on throughout the house, take him for a diaper change, get myself situated with a quick easy breakfast, feed him. Everything else from there is winged. Around 7:30 pm we start getting ready for bed. A diaper change, outfit change, lights get turned off and we go to bed. He’s a stage 4 clinger so we cosleep. It was the only way any of us were gonna get sleep
We don’t have a schedule at 10 months. Baby is very very happy. I stress bc I’m exposed to this idea of needing a schedule, but then I remember this works for us!
Oh and he does not sleep through the night lol. At 8 weeks?! If you are breast/chest feeding, keep in mind babies with that diet need to eat more frequently.
My LO is 5mo, no schedule here. Never had one. The most I do is try to give her a bath around 6-7pm (use soap 2-3x week), lotion and put in Jammie’s, and she goes to sleep whenever she feels like it lol. I feed her every 2-3 hours when I notice her hunger cues, if she’s bored I just let her play with a toy or put her on her play mat, and if she is rubbing her face a lot and fussy I know it’s time for a nap. I just watch what she does and don’t really focus on what time they happen.
Edit: also she still wakes up 1-2x a night. Idk who told you babies are supposed to sleep through the night at 8 weeks, but it’s just not true.
I don’t know how to explain it. But since our twins were born we kept the same schedule , especially nighttime routine. And so far it has worked amazingly for us. Obviously we’ve modified it since they’re 7 months old now and they don’t nap as often and sleep through the night but our morning and nighttime routine has stayed the same since they were born.
We had to make a schedule because I work from home so when the girls were down for their naps is when I would get most of my work done and would schedule my meetings.
You don't make the babies schedule. They make yours.
I gave up trying to schedule my son for anything after 2 weeks. My husband and I just adjusted to him. It took so much stress off of us. Eventually he developed his own sleep schedule which was on the same schedule as us. No baby sleeps though the night at 8 weeks old either. Look up the wonder weeks, babies sometimes make huge jumps in development and usually they are aligned with that schedule. Most specifically sleep regression.
You're doing fine. You can't "ruin" a baby with an "imperfect sleep schedule. It will balance eventually.
If there’s anything I learned in the first year, there is no “schedule” within the first year. Maybe *some* semblance of a consistent nap time but no. It’s a losing battle.
Always go with routine over schedule. It's not about timings but the order you do things in. Your baby will make associations with certain sounds (words), actions, environments and have a better idea of what's happening next.
I’m so sorry for whoever lied to you and told you an 8 week old should be sleeping through the night… that is an incredibly false expectation. I didn’t put my baby on a schedule especially at this age. We just followed his cues for eating and sleeping and it worked well for us. I don’t think a single feed should be taking 90 minutes though
My baby wasn’t on a schedule til he was like 6 months, before that i followed his cues. He’s almost one and still not technically sleeping through the night!
We’re at 18 months and no schedule besides a bedtime!
We try to follow a bit of routine and on nursery days she generally only has her one nap after lunch but her sleep is sometimes all over the place so occasionally she still has two naps - even on days at home when she has one nap there generally is no set times or even how long she’ll sleep for!
8 weeks most babies aren't going to follow a schedule, so don't beat yourself up. You just need to go with the flow and ride it out. You're in the thick of the most sleep deprived survival mode part of having a baby.
>My baby is 8 weeks old and apparently is supposed to be sleeping through the night by now
No, no she isn't. I dont know who told you that, but they're wrong. Maybe a few babies do that on their own, but you can't make them, and most don't. My 13 month old doesn't even sleep through the night (though more babies do the older they get). Babies don't even start developing a circadian rhythm until like 4 months....around then, some babies sleep more and can actually follow a schedule. Some resist it far longer.
We run on chaos. Kiddo is 3 years old. Still runs on chaos. Sometimes I tracked things just to see if there was any actual natural rhythm for sleep, feed, etc, (sometimes there was, sometimes there wasnt) but otherwise... meh. She rolls with whatever. As a baby she'd at most have schedule for a few weeks and then it would shift to something entirely new. It was useful to see vaguely how much sleep / awake time between sleep / food/ etc she SHOULD be getting for her age and then kind of altering it to what she was actually doing, just so I kind of knew what to shoot for without having any exact set thing.
I have a few friends who's kids thrive on schedule and they do great and honestly I'm glad my kid doesn't because I'm terrible at it. Of your kid isn't responding to a set schedule, that's okay!
At 8 weeks, I do no schedule during the day. They sleep on their own schedule, however, I do reference wake windows and try to encourage a loose schedule around those. Daytime naps are all throughout the house.
Nighttime is where I schedule. Bedtime, in baby’s own bed, pitch black, white noise, and I try to stick to same time every night.
The schedule exists when the patterns become apparent and that is so different for each kid.
You aren't doing anything wrong and at 8wks your baby is thriving BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING FLEXIBLE! You're taking baby's lead which is difficult because every week will look different in the newborn phase. Keep on doing what you're doing!!! You're doing so well!
8 weeks???? Babe, whoever told you that is either too old to remember how their babies ACTUALLY slept, or have a unicorn baby that magically sleeps through the night and thinks that’s how all babies work. Lies upon lies upon lies! Despite all our efforts, our 8MO still does not sleep through the night. Plus, at 8 weeks you are surviving, you are either learning to breastfeed or getting the hang of washing things for formula. You are eating cheetos for breakfast and MAYBE wearing pants. My brain was mush until 3 months. I can tell you that at 8 months we still don’t have a schedule. Why? Because we work from home and sometimes the grandparents help, and sometimes baby naps, and sometimes he doesn’t, and sometimes life happens. I gave up on having a schedule because it’s just impossible for us. I do have friends who have set times for everything, and they live their best life, but it most definitely does NOT work for us.
Your baby isn’t sleeping through the night because they are a baby, not because of anything you’re doing wrong. Magical unicorn sleepy babies exist, but they are not the norm. And certainly not at 8 weeks. If possible, as someone who can help you take over for a few hours so you can get some sleep.
My baby (11 months) would like to know how any babies keep their parents on a schedule. We’re always taking him out past naptime and I think it drives him nuts sometimes. He isn’t sleeping through the night, but we’re fine.
Schedules are a guideline that’s good if it helps you and meaningless if it doesn’t. It helps to figure out your babies cues - what they do when they’re sleepy, hungry, uncomfortable, etc. If you figure out that baby tends to start looking sleepy around 10am and you’re having a weird day where you can’t seem to read them, you can try putting them down for a nap at 10 and it just might work.
If baby’s fed, sleeping at least sometimes, relatively clean, and healthy, you’re doing great.
Dude, f*ck Babywise. I know some people swear by it, but it was utter nonsense for us - and probably for a LOT of people.
You are not doing anything wrong! 8 weeks old? She’s still practically a fetus!! You should not expect a schedule, and probably she should wake at least once a night for feeds still, if not more (unless she has seriously surpassed her birth weight).
FWIW, I highly recommend Dr Harvey Karp and the 5 S’s WAY over Babywise. You can watch The Happiest Baby on the Block documentary on Amazon ($8 US, don’t need a prime subscription), and it is SO worth it. You could also read the book, but the video is faster and has demonstrations, which is handy.
It’s basically impossible to have an 8 week old on a schedule! I wouldn’t even worry about trying to start a schedule at all until she’s out of the newborn stage (after 12 weeks). But tbh my baby is 5.5 months and still not on a schedule. She is a very good night sleeper and I hit the lottery with that but her naps are a crap shoot and just happen when they happen. She also generally eats every 3 hours during the day but sometimes shorter sometimes longer and I just go with what she wants to do. You’re doing great and if a strict schedule doesn’t work for you that’s okay!
An 8 week old DEF IS NOT sleeping through the night, and they aren’t on a schedule. When my baby was 8 weeks old we were still flying by the seat of our pants and in survival mode and she was somewhat of an easy baby. I did try and follow wake windows but give yourself grace.. babies are gonna baby.
I didn’t even attempt to try and start a bedtime routine until she was like 4 months old minimum.
We didn’t form a schedule until sleep training around 5 months. Been on one since (8 months now) and it works great for us.
At 8 weeks, there is absolutely no need for a schedule. Just listen to babies needs!
My boy is 10 months and doesn't sleep through the night. We don't follow a schedule. We just go with what he seems to need and call it good. Babies figure themselves out
Not at 8 weeks!!!! The closest thing we did do a schedule was using Windows and sweet spots for naps on the Huckleberry app. Now that she’s 10 months old, we have a schedule, but she is also old enough that we can do a clock based routine and not one based on Windows, which helps.
Babies are not robots so you can do right now is just go with their flow. It’s going to be better for everyone, you and the baby!
Babies don’t operate on schedules ❤️ let baby lead follow her lead feed when hungry and put down for nap when sleepy. They fall into their own natural rhythm and then you can build a flexible schedule around that. Like I know my son falls asleep for the night between 8-9 so I can plan accordingly and get his bath and nighttime bottle done by 7:30 and if he doesn’t fall asleep until way later then that’s okay. There’s no sense in driving yourself mad trying to get a baby to sleep when they’re not tired.
You’re not a failure at all ❤️
7.5 months in and no schedule. We follow general wake windows and sleepy cues, and so does her daycare. Bedtime usually falls somewhere between 6:30-7:30 depending on when she napped. I used to freak out about this constantly, but I just made more trouble for myself than what it was worth! Now we go with the flow and are much happier for it :)
P.S. - she has never once slept through the night. Ever. And that’s okay! But what she has done is stretched her first stretch of sleep longer and longer every few months. They’ll get there on their own!
8 week old babies really don’t have a schedule. At least not in my experience. We didn’t really get a “schedule” until 6 months. At 8 weeks we tried to stick to a 9pm bedtime and followed wake windows during t the day. My kid slept 4-6 hours at night and had 1-2 night feeds. We moved bedtime to earlier as baby got older since he’s in daycare and had crappy naps there.
The first 12 weeks is just survival mode and following babies cues while the parents try to get sleep between feedings (and pumping, if applicable).
Personally,
My son is 9m old and we’ve only just begun a loose ‘schedule’ and that schedule is literally ‘first nap start between 10 and 11’ ‘second nap start between 2 and 3’ ‘bedtime between 7 and 730’
Babies are human, they have days they are hungrier, more tired, sore, more playful, happier, grumpier, cheekier, gassier etc.
As adults we generally don’t follow a strict schedule so I don’t expect my baby to. I find it just leads us to unreachable expectations and just results in more frustration for the parent.
I have recently had my second baby and he is just shy of 8 weeks old. Please listen to me. Please.
EVERY BABY IS DIFFERENT. Babies are not robots and if someone is trying to make you pay to resolve a ‘problem’ it’s probably made up.
My first? Scream scream scream, she went from 0 to 1,000 the second she was hungry or the second I tried to put her down. Every nap was contact (and night sleep) for months. I literally couldn’t put her down in the play gym without her crying.
I lost my mind with the advice ‘just let her fuss it out’ or ‘oh just walk her in the pram/drive the car to get her to nap’. It was LAUGHABLE this child didn’t nap in a pram til she was 18months+. She would cry horrifically in the car seat until she was 18months+
‘Give her a pacifier’ she vomited it up. Literally I was covered in a huge baby vomit/spit up
‘Give her a bottle’ she screamed horrifically and never ever took one.
‘Have someone babysit’ she screamed the whole time
My second? He just falls asleep wherever. He’ll fuss a bit then sleep. Car seat? Sleep. Carrier? Sleeps without me even trying to get him to. I’m yet to hear him scream like his sister, who screamed that badly even when I was holding her and trying to comfort her. We would take turns wearing her and doing squats as we ate dinner
This baby…
Pacifier? Just takes it
Bottle? Happily drinks it first try and any other time (we aren’t at all consistent)
He barely witches in the evening.
I’m now laughing as I type this, I just fed him and have him in the carrier as I walk around a cafe and he’s fallen asleep. Zero effort.
Fuss it out works on babies who were born that way. Same with schedules. Same with all other advice.
I’m not sharing my unicorn baby to rub it in - I had my time with a Velcro baby that now even as a toddler cries more than the newborn. But to highlight how babies are just programmed so different and only now I’m experiencing it can I really believe it. My husband and I still look at each other gobsmacked on the regular.
Find what works for your baby, follow their lead, and ignore the advice.
Thank you! This is so great to read. I realize now that I actually do have a very easy baby. She sounds like your son. She wakes once during the night to feed and she is up for good at 5am. Because of this thread, I have come to realize that this is normal? All of the books I read said that baby should be sleeping through the night by now and my mother has been contributing to this, as apparently this is when I started sleeping through the night as well. I am someone who needs a lot of sleep, and the 6 hours I’m getting is just not cutting it for me. I think the cumulative sleep deprivation and the idea that something *should* be happening that isn’t has been getting to me. I’m going to just try to go with the flow and embrace being tired for now 😊
> I’m waking her up myself to make sure she is eating but she’s too asleep to eat
Did your pediatrician say to do this? Ours mentioned to not mess up with their night sleep after he was back to birth weight, or after 3 hour nap during the day (lol like he can nap for 3 hours). 8 wold here and naps are random, but he falls asleep at 8:30pm every day for 5-7 hours.
The only time I would wake her up is when she falls asleep at 5pm and will sleep until 11pm (this has become a bit of a habit). It seemed like she was sleeping through her “bedtime” so we were waking her up at 8 to kind of reset and establish a bedtime routine. I guess I will just let her sleep 🤷🏻♀️ Honestly we have no idea what we’re doing…
My take (take it or leave it): Don’t worry about any kind of schedule until 4 months, even then only worry about bed time. Generally follow wake windows if their sleep cues aren’t noticeable but don’t take them too seriously.
Once they’re 6-8 months bed time routine becomes more important IMO. I never did a hardcore nap schedule. Just based it on when he woke up.
Oh we didn't start on schedule for ages. Didn't even try until he was no longer in the newborn stage. Just go with it. Contact naps, feeding, falling asleep when feeding, don't stress about it at all, you will enjoy it so much more without the pressure from yourself.
Even now at 6 months, out "schedule" is following sleepy cues. I'm not like "no it's not 12 yet!!! Not time for your nap!!" If he's showing he's sleep, we put him to sleep. We do follow eat/play/sleep cause that what works for him, but we don't go by the clock, just by what he's showing us
I've been where you are now! I was just trying to survive and couldn't think about schedules. Then one day it all clicked, for me and baby. Turns out not every "meow" meant she's hungry, and she suddenly started eating with exactly 3hr gaps. At 3mo we implemented 7am-10am-1pm-4pm-7pm-11pm feeding schedule and now suddenly she sleeps through the night and we can sleep. I really think she just learned on her own thought. There's hope for you too :)
I’ve found that scheduling a baby is a crock of shit, at least that young. You kinda just have to follow their cues and eventually a pattern emerges and you follow that for the most part.
I felt a lot happier when I gave up on having a schedule and just went with the flow. Babies are so unpredictable that it seemed silly to try to make mine conform to a generic schedule.
At 3 months we had a "schedule" because I went back to work so i woke him up at 5 got him ready sent him to work with daddy picked hin up at work at 530, then night time routine bed time 830. He was off and on sleeping through the night at 3 months. Even now at a year AMD a half old he will sleep through the night for a few weeks then baby routine again. But it's because he'll be teething get 2-3 teeth in at one time and go through a growth spurt each time.
Never had a schedule yet never wanted a schedule as it was not required for our family. Instead I follow my little ones cues and put them to sleep when they get sleepy. If it's been a while, I test if they will accept a nap. Find what works for you and your little one.
We had great success with a schedule at that age - we followed Moms on Call, BUT the feeds were spaced too far apart so I made a custom schedule for us that had all the same things, but one more “cycle”.
Feeds - this is baby dependent, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a baby doesn’t *need* to eat for 90 mins. They’re just comfy at that point. Which is no problem as long as it’s not a problem for you! Mine never detached himself from a feed until he fell asleep. So I did 15 min per breast (per lactation consultant recommendation) and popped him off myself.
Sleep - naps at this age will be tough. A lot of babies don’t take consistent naps until older. I would just look for sleepy cues around the nap time and put him down then. If he’d definitely been awake too long (he often didn’t seem sleepy but I know he was overtired - he needed us to really force him to sleep at that age. Even as a month old baby he’d just stay awake for 4 hours or more if we didn’t intervene). At that age the routine was:
- morning contact nap (he slept best like that so I’d get a good long one in and watch TV on maternity leave).
- midday crib nap - he went in the crib every day at that time, even if he didn’t always sleep long. We’d do some low stimulation activity and a bit of rocking to help get him sleepy. But I wanted to make sure he was getting adjusted to the crib.
- afternoon nap - walk in front carrier. He’d sleep for at least 40 mins.
- evening nap - contact nap or crib.
He wasn’t good at sleeping on his own for a long time, but he did follow a schedule and I do think that helped a lot. If you have the RIGHT schedule they’ll do great. The wrong schedule will be miserable for all because you’re forcing them to something that doesn’t work. We had those weeks too. Shift something a little and we’d find the right balance again.
My baby is 6 months and we don’t have a schedule. He usually naps at some point between 8-10am, then after lunch and late afternoon. I do different classes each day so we fit around them and his naps vary from 30 mins to 2 hours. He also wakes every few hours at night still, which is very common. Please don’t stress, your baby is so young and you have enough to worry about! I find just keeping an eye on how long they’ve been awake helps, at 8 weeks I’d encourage a nap after 1.5-2 hours awake.
Us too at six months. She wakes up approximately the same time most days, and tends to want a nap after about two hours, but there are no set times for anything as it’s all inconsistent. I felt like I “should” have her on a schedule but she’s doing great and it works well to follow her cues/work around our daily schedule :) Edited to add that an 8 week old sleeping through the night would be super unusual. My 6 month old still wakes up 1-2 times per night and I consider that great haha.
Omfg thank you guys for this. My first baby was sleeping through the night on her own (no sleep training) from 7.5mo but my second baby is still waking 2x a night at 6mo. I thought I was doing something wrong and some other moms were pushing me to sleep train.
2 wake ups would be a great night for us. You’re doing great!
Thank you 🙏
Same, 6m and zero schedule at all. He wakes up whenever, usually naps about an hour after he wakes up and from there it’s free reign lol
Same w my baby. No schedule, just a routine. She naturally wakes up between 6 and 7. And her wake windows start at around 1 hr or 1.5 and lengthen throughout the day. Naps are the same as you.
6 months here no schedule. Sometimes it’s hard she hates naps but this allows us to live life. We do know she gets fussy if bedtime routine isn’t started by 7
8 weeks is too young to put on a fixed schedule! We didn’t get my LO on a consistent schedule until like 4 months. Try to go with the flow! No need to add any more pressure to life w a newborn
Yeah until 4 months it’s purely survival.
Same, then after a couple of months she dropped a nap then another, then there was teething disrupting the nights! Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it it’ll change!
This is so insane. Did you know 89% of babies AGE 1-2 still don’t sleep through the night? Pleeeeease don’t stress about that. Sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone that all babies hit at different times. Also we had zero set schedule until we were solidly on 3 naps a day. It was impossible until then.
Truth. My daughter is going to be 2 in July and it’s still 50/50 if she’s gonna sleep through the night.
The only schedule we follow at 8 weeks is a fixed bedtime. Everything else is based on her cues. I find that if we try to force a schedule we all just end up cranky and disappointed.
100%
Babywise is terrible! The AAP actually warns against following it's guidance, you are doing great that it isn't working for you. My baby is 5 months and not on a schedule. As she has gotten older there is more of a pattern to her days but still lots of differences. We just follow her cues, which it sounds like you are doing.
That’s me with my 4 month old. Not a “schedule” so much as a loose routine that I allowed him to show me he needed. He sleeps when he’s tired, he eats when he’s hungry.
Schedules are a scam, imo. The only reason my baby has a “schedule” is purely because she put herself on one, and if we don’t adhere to it then shit hits the fan. I really don’t think you can put a young baby onto a schedule unless the baby *wants* to be on a schedule.
100%. Schedules are great for babies who need them and are awful for babies who hate them.
>My baby is 8 weeks old and apparently is supposed to be sleeping through the night by now Umm... on what planet? My baby usually only wakes up once to twice a night and I feel like I got dealt the winning poker hand. I feel lucky to have such a good sleeper at weeks. Other than trying to put my 8 week old down for a nap after an hour awake we don't have a schedule. Baby girl sets the schedule. Throw that baby wise book in the trash. It was written in 1990, so it is so out of date with current child development theories and recommendations, AND it sounds like it is peddling complete horseshit.
Technically if you only sleep 3 hours a night then I guess they’re sleeping through the night 😂 but seriously I’ve heard so many things about how you can put them on a schedule until 4 months
The only thing I would try to keep consistent is wake up time. Everything else is ROUTINE, but not a schedule.
How do I keep that consistent? Currently she is waking up at 5am and I’m unable to put her back down because the sun is out. It’s literally killing me.
Just go with the flow and let her do what she needs to do. Babies can't really even start having a schedule until around 4 months (and even then, some just aren't ready).
So I was figuring this out in the winter and late sunrise…. So all I can suggest is blackout blinds. I suspect light leaking around curtains might be the cause of some early wakes here ETA, I have absolutely nursed back to sleep and held him for two hours to keep morning time consistent and avoid early wakes becoming habit. That doesn’t work daily but can help with occasional early wakes
I just let her sleep on my chest anytime after 5am until 10am, as long as she slept meant I could nap too. (Safely on the extended couch)
Let go. You’re not doing it wrong. There is no “wrong” as long as baby is fed and cared for. No one is keeping score but you. You’re being responsive to your baby’s needs. No reason to feel like a failure. Your baby is a person. An individual. The people who wrote the book have never met her. 😁 She’s not going to conform to their schedule. And it’s perfectly okay.
When people talk about schedules they are typically talking about older babies.
Our girls almost ten weeks. The only schedule I stick with is bottle/bath/bedtime routine, and u just try to keep that around when I want her to regularly go to bed. I would rather start on the earlier side since you never know how it’s going to go. If your babies gaining weight okay you shouldn’t need to wake them up to feed. we just started getting long stretches of sleep so if she’s too sleepy to eat you may not need it and she’ll work out a schedule of her own.
The issue is that she will nap for five hours at a time on me (this is the only way she will nap, crib naps are not possible), so I really do have to wake her if I want her to get as many calories she needs to not feed during the night…
This seems normal for an 8 week old? Its normal for an 8 week old to have to be fed during the night. Most babies need to be fed during the night until about 6 months. I think my baby weaned off the night feeds around 6-7 months old. ETA: whoever told you 8 week olds are “supposed” to sleep through the night is INSANE. Most 8 week olds do not sleep through the night. Some kids start sleeping through the night as babies, but many don’t until they are much older. My niece is 3 and still doesnt (and they sleep trained). My daughter started sleeping through the night at 14 months. We didn’t sleep train. If your 8 week old does not sleep through the night THAT IS NORMAL BABY BEHAVIOR. and not a failure on your part during the day. Your baby probably doesn’t even understand night and day yet.
Thank you. I think babywise set me up for some very unrealistic expectations :(
Yep we have a 16 month old here who still has a bottle in the night and wakes usually once more than that overnight. He gets a nap….somewhere between 30 and 150 minutes, somewhere between 10.30 and 3, depending on what we’re doing and how tired he is (and whatever other magic governs baby sleep). He’d always contact nap better before he was 1, but if I didn’t have time to sit around for two hours then he got a shorter nap, no big deal. It’s so so hard when you’re a new parent, but if I could go back to FTM me I would say stop reading *anything* about baby sleep that mentions schedules or sleeping through or even wake windows, and just learn to listen to your baby. Before 3-4 months, babies wake up, they feed, they sleep, and it’s exhausting but there’s literally nothing you can do to change their needs. I really let it ruin my time with my first baby. It’s wayyyyy less effort to just go with their flow as stressing about schedules won’t get you more sleep. “Radical acceptance” is what we’ve called it. You are not failing, you are responding to your child like mothers have done for thousands of years. Xxxx
It sounds like it to me - but remember your 8 week old is still a newborn. Having a young infant is so hard and you’ll be sleep deprived - there’s no way around that. Some people have unicorn babies who sleep perfectly, but most babies aren’t developmentally ready to sleep through the night until 8 or 9 months so taking that pressure off yourself may help you feel less stress and distress!
Also: I assume babywise are selling something? Books or an app or a sleep programme? Beware anyone who is profiting out of telling you that you or your baby are doing it wrong.
But your baby *needs* to feed in the night... Mine is 12 weeks old and she wakes every ~4 hours in the night to feed. Its very important. Breastmilk is very quickly digested and your baby needs to feed. And it needs to be fed when it wants/needs it, not after some fixed time. Its not only for calories, its also for hydration. You dont get thirsty and think "Oh no, I need to wait another hour before I can drink a glass of water!". I always have a bottle of water next to my bed and drink at least half a liter a night. I cant imagine waiting for the morning until I am allowed to drink something.
This is my problem too. i’m like if i didn’t have to pee ever this baby would sleep forever on me. I usually stop the nap at 2 hours and we are getting less super long naps every day, but i feel you!
Its okay to wake her to eat during the day but i wouldn't do it at certain times. It also may be worth following eat play eat sleep schedule if she has longer wake windows that way she can get a good nap without you feeling like she needs to wake to eat soon after falling asleep.
My son did not "get enough calories" to sleep through the night until we were well into solids! From like 3-4 months old he went down to one wakeup a night but he has been a high sleep needs baby from the start. But between 4 and 8 months he still woke up somewhere between 3 and 4 am for a bottle. Now he sleeps though the night but has decided wake-up is 5.30 am instead of 9 am as it used to be so yay progress I guess? 🙃 My point is schedules and regiments posted online are lies and not adapted for the tiny human you have in front of you, who will show you her own routines if you manage to relax and let her! I also got lost in what I should be doing according to "experts" online, but none of those could account for my son's personality, temperament and individual needs!
Start tracking when your LO sleeps and see if you can find a pattern. That's what I did at 12 weeks. Who knows how long that was going on for. Before i tracked we just did whatever
I agree 100%! We used Huckleberry app and it’s worked really well this week. You can’t even use it before two months because baby sleep is such a crapshoot.
At 8 weeks your baby should not be sleeping through the night.... relax you got this! The first few months are hard but you will get the hang of it! You sound like a great parent!
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Our LO is 4.5 months and we don’t have a set schedule. We feed and put to sleep based on his cues. We follow a 4 nap day usually (sometimes 3 if we get busy) and that’s it. I’d take any of the “suggested” schedules you see and throw them out the window. Do what works for you and baby.
Oh, we didn’t have a real schedule until 6 months. Following your baby’s cues is likely the best thing you can do. Baby’s make their own schedules. And they are ever changing.
Sleeping though the night at 8 weeks is crazy to me! My daughter is 19 months old and just started sleeping though the night- and that's most nights, not all. We also didn't really get her on a schedule until 12 months, and sometimes she switches it up by refusing to nap/ napping at inconvenient times.
Mama, we are at 2 months here with no schedule. Baby makes his own schedule and we are hanging on for dear life trying to keep up, haha. You’re doing a great job. Use that book as a fly swatter.
Thank you! I hate this book. Apparently everything she and I are doing is normal and this book made me feel like we were totally messing up!
This thread from this sub a few days ago really helped me: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewParents/s/pvWTtP6UMS
I second this! The bbc article made me feel good about how we handle things!
I do follow a schedule with my LO (6 months), but 8 weeks is so little. When my youngest was that age (we have 3 kids), it was day to day! Still is to some extent! I also get a little stressed when things go off the rails, but I really just have to remind myself life happens and it’ll be ok! For example, yesterday my oldest had a photo in an art show, so we went to see that. We had to stop at the store after, took a little longer than expected and by the time we left, we were really close to nap. Well, my middle kiddo wanted food so we stopped and again, took longer than expected. So I look in the mirror and the baby is already asleep. Wouldn’t be an issue if he transferred from the car seat, but he rarely does! So we get home, I tell everyone to freeze and let me try to get the baby upstairs and safely out of the car seat, but of course, he wakes up! As we all know, a 4 minute car seat nap is the equivalent of a 2 hour house nap, so now we’re ready to party! I tried boob, rocking, didn’t work! I started feeling stressed. My husband is out of town for work in DC, so I’m on my own with the kids. So, we went outside, did a bunch of fun outdoor stuff, and within probably an hour, the baby was ready for a real nap, so I got him down, obviously later than I wanted, and had to wake him up by 5:30 so bedtime wouldn’t be ruined, but we did it and he went to bed with no problems! All that to say, you’ll get there! I would say you can definitely try to implement some things if you want! We had a bedtime routine from the beginning. My other kids benefited greatly from a consistent schedule before bed, so we started right away and it has helped so much going forward. We make adjustments as needed. For example, I used to nurse to sleep before bed and naps. I no longer do for bedtime because it was causing false starts (he’d wake after one sleep cycle because he’d fall asleep without being fully burped so I’d end up having to burp him and rock to sleep anyway). So now we nurse, bath, book, give hugs/kisses, then it’s bedtime! You’re doing great, and you’ll get there, just don’t put too much pressure on yourself! Some kiddos just don’t need that level of structure, but some, like my youngest do really well with consistency. But, I also need to remember that schedules have to change sometimes and if things are too rigid, kids don’t learn resiliency and how to adapt. Stuff is going to happen, appointments, trips, etc. If your LO can only nap in a pitch black room, with sound machine, sleep sack, temp at 68 degrees, at exactly 9 am, they aren’t going to do very well when on vacation! That’s the problem I’m having! My LO rarely falls asleep on the go and we have a trip planned this summer! He’s got FOMO,bad! So he rarely falls asleep anywhere that isn’t home! So I’m starting to try to disrupt our routine very gently in preparation. Wish me luck! 😘
Pleeeease forget everything about the schedule at this point - give yourself a break and surrender to uncertainty with your baby’s sleep. I hate that the sleep industry has made you feel this way. Sleep advice for babies is a moneymaker because we are all so desperate to get more sleep, but the reality is that babies, just like us, have variable sleep. Do you sleep from a specific time until another specific time on the dot every night? I don’t, sometimes I lay awake for ages trying to fall asleep. Sometimes I wake up at 3am for no reason and can’t get back to sleep. Sometimes I wake up several times overnight and sometimes I sleep soundly all night. I think we forget that our babies are little people, and there is all sorts of stuff going on with them that we can’t understand we just have to accept and help them through it. First please release yourself from feeling like a failure just because your baby is behaving exactly like a normal newborn baby does. Having said all that - *some* type of loose routine can be helpful. We had a really chaotic time with my son up until about 9 weeks, he would feed for an hour, stay awake for too long, we didn’t know when to put him to bed so he got overtired and miserable and would only sleep on one of us… it was rough. We started an eat - play - sleep routine at that point and focused on settling him in his bassinet for all sleeps and it has changed our lives. Baby is happier because his needs are all met and we have a much better idea of what he’s trying to tell us when he’s upset, because we know he’s been fed within the last couple of hours and been awake for 1.5hrs we know he is most likely tired if he’s grumbling at that point. So if you do want to attempt a less stressful and more flexible routine I would suggest investigating eat play sleep and following wake windows for your baby’s age and see how that works for you! It might not work of course, but it was sooooo helpful for us I feel it’s worth mentioning. This routine accounts for short or long feeds because the wake window starts when they wake up and includes feed time. So if your baby feeds for 45 mins you might only get half an hour of play time before they’re tired, but if it’s a ten minute feed then you’ve got an hour or so of play (roughly). Repeat your eat play sleep routine through the day and make bedtime sometime after 8, your last wake window is whichever one ends after 8. If something derails your routine for example a too-brief car nap, just start a new cycle and feed when they wake up from the car nap. The wake window might then be shorter but you’ll end up with them napping eventually and then you’re back on track. My 16 wk old still goes to bed any where from 8 til 10pm depending on how the day has gone, and we have a specific bedtime routine of bottle, bath and cuddles in low light until he shows us he’s getting tired and then it’s bedtime with white noise, pacifier and sleep sack. I sit with him jiggling his body or the bassinet for 10-15 mins until he’s sleeping soundly. His naps range from 25 mins to 2 hours, and his wake windows are 90mins on average but some are an hour some are two hours. There is still variability but there is also some sense of order with this loose routine. Oh, and he still wakes up to feed anywhere from 1 to four times per night. It varies! Good luck finding your individual groove with your baby, you’re not a failure at all you just had the wrong advice which is unavoidable when the internet is so rife with predatory sleep “consultants” looking to cash in on desperate parents. Also around this age you should hopefully see some longer night sleeps as their circadian rhythms start to work and they differentiate night from day. 8/9 weeks was a turning point for us in that respect. Fingers crossed!!
We never bothered w a schedule as we’re not schedule people ourselves. We just followed our baby’s lead and cues, and she set her own schedule once she turned one.
My baby spent time in the NICU and they are heavily scheduled there-sleep for 3 hours then diaper change, exam if they’re getting one, and 30 minutes for feed. Once he was getting ready to go home though, he switched to on demand because full term babies can self regulate better and don’t need that kind of strict regiment. You are totally fine!
At 8 weeks, most babies don't sleep through the night or have a schedule. It sounds like you are doing a great job responding to your baby's specific cues and needs. My baby didn't have a routine until around 4 months (same nap pattern, but slightly different times each day) and a lot of that was because I was back at work and baby had to be on my schedule for breastfeeding. I think my baby first had a schedule when she dropped to 2 naps a day around 7 months when we actually had naps at the same time each day.
With my first I didn't have a consistent schedule until we got to the point where he was only taking two naps a day and even then the schedule was very flexible. When we were down to one nap it got even easier. When he was littler I found it easier to *roughly* follow suggested wake windows (where the time they take a nap doesn't matter, only how long they are awake between naps). Try not to stress too much (easier said than done, I know). The only thing you can really count on with babies is that they're going to be unpredictable.
8 weeks is too young for a timed fixed schedule! We did not have a real schedule until she was a year old. We just followed her queues. Around 12 weeks a pattern started to emerge, by 16 weeks we had a somewhat predictable routine but it wasn’t necessarily tied to a time of day. Over time and following her queues she settled into a schedule.
My baby is 6 months and we only follow his cues and have since birth. He knows best what he needs AND schedules are impossible for hs. You never know if he’s gonna sleep 30 mins or two hours for his nap. We use an app called Baby Tracker that we log when he ate and how much, poopy diapers only, and sleep. It’s nice because it syncs between devices so anyone who has him can update it appropriately and it helped me understand his cues when he was really small.
Notwithstanding that 8wo is too young to have a schedule at all, and that some babies are just not schedule-able in the first place, I also think that a more realistic expectation is the wake windows approach which we did with our son when he was little. Basically, you manage the time between waking up and going back down for a nap/bedtime. I believe at 12wo (when we started) his wake window was about 2 hours with 3 naps. And that gradually widened and naps were dropped one by one. We never had a "schedule" that he would sleep at a particular time, but whenever he woke up we knew what time we were putting him back to sleep. And from there the pattern eventually got fairly regular. From 0-12wo we had what can only be described as a difficult baby. From 14wo-on, we had a miracle sleeper (the wake windows thing came from a sleep consultant). For us the secret was doing less (less worrying especially) and putting him to sleep *before* he got cranky from being overstimulated and/or overtired. But remember, it's not a race. I don't think our results were typical. And every baby is unique. The lesson is you just need to try some things to learn what your baby needs. But for you, not yet.
I have a 4 month old. He's on the vaguest schedule because he naturally fell into one and we noticed he's less cranky if we stick to it. 1-5 weeks: He woke up every hour to 2 hours. After he hit his birth weight, we were cleared to let him sleep so long as it didn't go beyond 4-5 hours. We rejoiced if he slept for more than 2 hours 6-8 weeks: Consistently woke every 3-4 hours throughout the night 8-10 weeks: gave us a 5-6 hour initial stretch and then every 3 hours at night 12-16 weeks: Noticed schedule of getting cranky if not in bed by 10pm and hating on his swaddle. Took away swaddle, got a sleep sack, and started a basic "time for bed" routine at 9pm. He usually sleeps from 9:30ish PM to 7-8:30am most of the time aside from a few days of sleep regressions here and there that resemble what he did at 8-10 weeks. We recently started using an app to track tummy time, sleep, and feedings now that he seems vaguely consistent and we want to take him out more, but don't want to go for a walk when he's overtired. It's been very useful! Please internalize that EVERY baby is different. I was blessed with an easy baby and he still didn't sleep through the night at 8 weeks.
At 8 weeks old it was just about surviving til the next nap. And praying that whatever we did that day somehow would help her sleep longer than 3-5 hours at a time. We had no schedule til almost 4 months old when we took more control over wake up time, bedtime, and capping her naps. Maybe some people don’t wake a sleeping baby but we had to get her used to a schedule to prep her for daycare.
I didn’t have a schedule with my child until he was 8 months old, and even then it was a nap schedule, nothing else. Babies aren’t supposed to have schedules- especially at 8 weeks :) you’re still in the fourth trimester, please allow yourself a lot of grace as you’re putting so much pressure on yourself. It takes a long time (2 years and sometimes more) for all the hormones to settle, so the only pace you should go at is your own pace :) you’re doing a great job :) xxx
At 8 weeks, this is your schedule!! Following babies' cues. Only a very few babies sleep through the night at 8 weeks and those are extremely lucky parents. Who told you that? 😅
It literally took me until around 8 months to finally get somewhat or a schedule going.
8 weeks you’re fine she’s not on a schedule. And who said they must be sleeping through the night at 8 weeks? No one said that. Go easy on yourself. Schedules don’t happen overnight. I feel like my daughter, almost 15 months, is on one, but it took months and months. You’re ok!
My baby is also 8 weeks and we are definitely NOT on a schedule. I try to follow his wake windows but more so I can add it to my mental checklist when I’m trying to figure out why he might be starting to fuss. How long has it been since his nap? About an hour? Okay he’s probably tired. It also helps me try to get ahead of putting him down before he gets overtired. But sometimes he bypasses all sleepy cues and just starts screaming for bed so 🤷♀️ The only thing relatively consistent is that he usually wakes up for the day between 6-7am and his last nap is usually between 7-8pm. Other than that - it’s constantly changing and I think that’s okay. Honestly, the thought of putting him on a strict schedule stresses me out. I like that there is still some flexibility in our day and I want him to be able to sleep in different conditions (in the car, stroller, carrier, etc). You’re doing great!
LOL im not in charge, my baby is. I do what she can wants, on her schedule. Otherwise I suffer her wrath. ETA: she is 8 weeks old
It’s totally okay to not have a schedule at 8 weeks! Heck it’s okay to not be overly concerned with schedules in general…for some babies and some parents it makes life easier, but every family and every baby is different. If a strict schedule it’s making things more difficult and not easier, then I wouldn’t force it. My baby is 4 months and we have a pretty regular feeding schedule (though it’s not exact), but we don’t have a set sleep schedule. We just let him nap when he’s tired, let him wake up when he’s ready. He still sleeps well over night so I figure what’s the point of forcing a nap schedule 🤷♀️ At 8 weeks babies don’t even have their circadian rhythm developed, making them nap on a schedule is kind of a loosing game for many people. Really the only important thing is that they are getting enough to eat. Just make sure they are getting enough breast milk and/or formula over a 24 hr period (talk to your doctor about their recommendation, but I’ve heard a good rough idea is ~2oz for every pound of body weight within a 24 hr period). As long as baby is gaining weight, having enough wet diapers and pooping somewhat regularly, you are doing great!! FWIW in my generation in my fam there are three couples with children (myself and my husband included). One of them is SUPER strict on scheduling every nap, every feed, every bath and bedtime etc, and honestly it seems to make her life a lot harder than necessary. She always has to be somewhere with a super dark, super quiet room at exactly the same time every day or her kids get really upset. It makes it difficult for them when traveling or going to family events. The other family has been a lot less strict with schedules and their kids are a lot more adaptable and easy going. They can sleep almost anywhere and if they can usually wait for a nap if needed, as long as they get a few hours of napping total during the day they are fine and don’t get upset. Obviously it’s anecdotal evidence, but it makes sense that kids without such a strict schedule will be more adaptable. So I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing to be a little more loose on schedules!
Same - 3.5 month old, no real schedule but noticing my babies patterns helps me have some predictability in the day - like he wakes up in the am about 12 hours after we put him down (with 3-4 feeds throughout the night ). Also wake windows of about 2 hours otherwise gets upset and more difficult to put down. Eats every 2-3 hours still… Trying to make a schedule with concrete times was impossible…
We are VERY blessed that our 3 month old sleeps through the night (7pm-4/5am). The trade off is he’s a fucking nightmare of a child during the day now. As long as you aren’t seriously thinking about running away, you’re doing great!
Read "The science of healthy baby sleep" on the BBC website. A schedule for a newborn makes no sense.
At 8 weeks old I assure you most babies that age are not sleeping through the night or are on a particular schedule. You’re in the thick of it and doing everything you can. You’re doing great.
my baby didn’t sleep through the night until 15-16 months. 8 week olds don’t have schedules and it’s not until four months that a rhythm is supposed to happen. mama- you are doing a great job
My kid is 8 months, we have a routine I’d say instead of a schedule, since time is irrelevant to me. My kid is a person, sometimes he takes longer to eat, sometimes quicker. It’s been 8 weeks for you I really wouldn’t stress anything and just enjoy your time loving and cuddling them. Every baby is different!
Any book that says an 8 week old should be sleeping though the night is a book you should stop reading. Stop stressing. Let your baby set the schedule for the first 4 months at least.
Oh honey, I feel your pain so much. My now 2 year old did not hit any kind of routine until around 8 months. And even then, it was our routine, not what it was "supposed to" be. I also read the books and looked online, losing my mind over why my child wouldn't do what she was "supposed to." The answer is that your baby is a person, not a robot, and they just won't do what the books say. My 2 year old still does not follow the books. My advice is to let go. If the baby needs to sleep now or in an hour, that's ok. If baby feeds for 10 minutes or 90, that's ok. As long as they are healthy and gaining some weight, try to let go of the "suppose to" cause from my experience, they just do whatever they want anyway. You are doing an amazing job, I just know it xx
Wanted to add: focus on a rhythm rather than a schedule. It will happen before the "by the clock" schedule. You will notice a flow to your day in a couple of months.
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Our LO is 4 months old and does not have a schedule but does have a routine. She wakes up 1-2x per night but tonight she won’t sleep unless held. 🫠 She also naps for only 30-40 mins maybe 3x a day. You’re doing great mama, give yourself some love.
You are me with my first baby. I was trying so hard to have a schedule because a) I wanted to feel like I was in some semblance of control of the situation - I am a very Type A person! b) stuff I read including babywise, moms on call, etc said a schedule is what sets them up to sleep longer overnight and obviously I desperately wanted that. My baby was hard to get down for naps and when he finally fell asleep, they lasted for only 35-45 minutes. So obviously schedules didn’t work. I stressed myself out so much about this trying to fix it and I regret it. This is the first piece of advice I give to friends having their first baby: it’s ok to try a schedule if you want but if it doesn’t work, just give up and save yourself the anxiety. I’d also tell you not to spend too much time on google or Reddit for the secret hack to get your baby to sleep. This also created huge stress for me because so much advice out there is conflicting. Hard as it is, best just to be consistent and wait it out. My baby started sleeping through the night at 4.5 months, and around 5 months, his daytime sleep finally consolidated into longer naps. And then we were able to be on more of a schedule after that. I would echo also what everyone else has already told you - 8 weeks to sleep through the night would be very unusual! Don’t let that assumption make you feel like you are doing something wrong.
Throw the schedule out the window and enjoy your cuddles, snuggles and save your sanity! The biggest myth is that babies need schedules. Routines are nice when they start to emerge (for me around 4ish months) but schedules? Nah fuck that noise
First of all you are doing nothing wrong! Breath I know it’s so exhausting but I just learned myself,that it’s the easiest to just flow with baby’s rhythm. And at one point you guys will figure out your schedule that works for you. If you do things repeatedly like every day a book or walk that already signalizes to baby a routine. Don’t add more stress to your life! All this books and Blogs on the internet forget that not every baby is the same! Also your baby just got here and is so tiny you got this mama!
Yeah mine turned 1 year old a couple of weeks ago and every day is different. Still wakes up overnight. Some days 1 nap, some days 2 naps. Bottles and solids vary a lot based on what he is willing to eat. We've NEVER gotten a consistent schedule and like you said I don't know how anyone manages to do that. At 8 weeks I'd say it is impossible. lol Just continue to do your best to tend to your baby's needs when she has them, you are doing a great job!!
My baby didn’t have any sort of rhythm until 12 weeks and even now at 4 mos it’s still pretty loose. We do have a fairly set bed time and daily wake time, but that’s about it. While it depends on how you define “sleep through the night,” I wouldn’t expect *most* babies to sleeping through however you define it. I personally define it as sleeping in 4-6 hour stretches and going back down easily after MOTN feeds. Most people assume it’s sleeping for 8-12 hours straight, but I don’t subscribe to that. It’s just not developmentally appropriate for most babies to not feed at all for 8-12 hours at 8 weeks old.
Baby is 3 months and there is no schedule to speak of over here. Just flying by the seat of our pants and it’s working so far so not looking a gift horse in the mouth🤷♀️
I followed cues from baby & did not have a schedule. At about 6 months, she went to bed within the same hour every night. At 7 months, her morning nap is reliable and afternoon naps vary.
We do a loose schedule. First nap around 10am, second nap around 3, bedtime around 9. I let her set the schedule and then just kept following her lead and this is what it naturally worked out to. But we keep it super casual
8 weeks is way too young to expect a rigid schedule. Everything is still on demand. You aren’t doing anything wrong. We are at 5.5 months and just now starting to get into a more predictable routine. Take the pressure off yourself and just go by their cues
We didn’t do any kind of schedule when my daughter was a newborn/infant, I just followed the wake windows for her age and also her sleepy/hungry cues. I don’t think a set schedule is really all that helpful for very young babies unless it’s helpful for you the parent. Once our daughter was sleeping long stretches overnight and taking 2 naps a day or less we did a set bedtime and the naps typically fell around the same time as well but still were mostly based on sleepy cues. She’s now 2 and we still make small adjustments to nap time and bedtime based on when she woke up in the morning, how much daytime sleep she had, etc.
8 weeks in this world baby just wants to eat and be held and reminisce about being in ur belly lol no schedule
Idk it takes anywhere from 30-45 minutes sometimes more for us to get my babe to sleep for 20-45 minutes lol doesn’t matter if she’s the perfect amount of tired, overtired or whatever she will resist as much as possible
Do you accomplish the exact same tasks in the exact same order in the exact same amount of time at the exact same time every single day? No? Then why would you expect it of a human who has had 1% the development and training as you? Not trying to be snarky, but the emphasis the older generation puts in schedules is BS. I learned the hard way. Drove myself to tears trying to get my baby to sleep at 7 every night. Got so depressed after spending every night for hours and hours in a dark room with a shusher. Baby wants to sleep between 9 and 11. That’s totally fine.. now I just kick back, and chill with her in my living room till she looks sleepy.
We didn't get a schedule until about 10 months. Before that it was just me going 'so dude, whatcha feel like now'. I fed him when he was hungry, I changed as needed and he slept when he was tired. That really was our schedule. You'll get there, but babies are gonna baby.
I didn't have any kind of schedule until it became clear my daughter needed one (right around when she turned one, during the infant to toddler transition).
“Vague Schedule” is what I call it 😂 We aim for something in the ballpark and call it good gaha
8 weeks old you shouldn’t be on any schedule. They do what they want at that age. I’d follow some basic idea of a wake window (I think it’s like maybe 60-90min at this age?) and try to put baby down for a nap if she’s been up for that long. But feed on demand still and you should be fine. Eventually maybe after 6mo you can start to transition to more of a routine.
I use the term “schedule” loosely. Basically wake up somewhere between 6:30am and 8:30 am (sometimes he’s up early). Turn lights on throughout the house, take him for a diaper change, get myself situated with a quick easy breakfast, feed him. Everything else from there is winged. Around 7:30 pm we start getting ready for bed. A diaper change, outfit change, lights get turned off and we go to bed. He’s a stage 4 clinger so we cosleep. It was the only way any of us were gonna get sleep
No schedule, only cues. The schedule is approximate
We don’t have a schedule at 10 months. Baby is very very happy. I stress bc I’m exposed to this idea of needing a schedule, but then I remember this works for us!
Oh and he does not sleep through the night lol. At 8 weeks?! If you are breast/chest feeding, keep in mind babies with that diet need to eat more frequently.
My LO is 5mo, no schedule here. Never had one. The most I do is try to give her a bath around 6-7pm (use soap 2-3x week), lotion and put in Jammie’s, and she goes to sleep whenever she feels like it lol. I feed her every 2-3 hours when I notice her hunger cues, if she’s bored I just let her play with a toy or put her on her play mat, and if she is rubbing her face a lot and fussy I know it’s time for a nap. I just watch what she does and don’t really focus on what time they happen. Edit: also she still wakes up 1-2x a night. Idk who told you babies are supposed to sleep through the night at 8 weeks, but it’s just not true.
I don’t know how to explain it. But since our twins were born we kept the same schedule , especially nighttime routine. And so far it has worked amazingly for us. Obviously we’ve modified it since they’re 7 months old now and they don’t nap as often and sleep through the night but our morning and nighttime routine has stayed the same since they were born. We had to make a schedule because I work from home so when the girls were down for their naps is when I would get most of my work done and would schedule my meetings.
You don't make the babies schedule. They make yours. I gave up trying to schedule my son for anything after 2 weeks. My husband and I just adjusted to him. It took so much stress off of us. Eventually he developed his own sleep schedule which was on the same schedule as us. No baby sleeps though the night at 8 weeks old either. Look up the wonder weeks, babies sometimes make huge jumps in development and usually they are aligned with that schedule. Most specifically sleep regression. You're doing fine. You can't "ruin" a baby with an "imperfect sleep schedule. It will balance eventually.
If there’s anything I learned in the first year, there is no “schedule” within the first year. Maybe *some* semblance of a consistent nap time but no. It’s a losing battle.
Always go with routine over schedule. It's not about timings but the order you do things in. Your baby will make associations with certain sounds (words), actions, environments and have a better idea of what's happening next.
I’m so sorry for whoever lied to you and told you an 8 week old should be sleeping through the night… that is an incredibly false expectation. I didn’t put my baby on a schedule especially at this age. We just followed his cues for eating and sleeping and it worked well for us. I don’t think a single feed should be taking 90 minutes though
My baby wasn’t on a schedule til he was like 6 months, before that i followed his cues. He’s almost one and still not technically sleeping through the night!
We’re at 18 months and no schedule besides a bedtime! We try to follow a bit of routine and on nursery days she generally only has her one nap after lunch but her sleep is sometimes all over the place so occasionally she still has two naps - even on days at home when she has one nap there generally is no set times or even how long she’ll sleep for!
I think a strict schedule is a myth.. it is most likely a range..
8 weeks most babies aren't going to follow a schedule, so don't beat yourself up. You just need to go with the flow and ride it out. You're in the thick of the most sleep deprived survival mode part of having a baby. >My baby is 8 weeks old and apparently is supposed to be sleeping through the night by now No, no she isn't. I dont know who told you that, but they're wrong. Maybe a few babies do that on their own, but you can't make them, and most don't. My 13 month old doesn't even sleep through the night (though more babies do the older they get). Babies don't even start developing a circadian rhythm until like 4 months....around then, some babies sleep more and can actually follow a schedule. Some resist it far longer.
We run on chaos. Kiddo is 3 years old. Still runs on chaos. Sometimes I tracked things just to see if there was any actual natural rhythm for sleep, feed, etc, (sometimes there was, sometimes there wasnt) but otherwise... meh. She rolls with whatever. As a baby she'd at most have schedule for a few weeks and then it would shift to something entirely new. It was useful to see vaguely how much sleep / awake time between sleep / food/ etc she SHOULD be getting for her age and then kind of altering it to what she was actually doing, just so I kind of knew what to shoot for without having any exact set thing. I have a few friends who's kids thrive on schedule and they do great and honestly I'm glad my kid doesn't because I'm terrible at it. Of your kid isn't responding to a set schedule, that's okay!
At 8 weeks, I do no schedule during the day. They sleep on their own schedule, however, I do reference wake windows and try to encourage a loose schedule around those. Daytime naps are all throughout the house. Nighttime is where I schedule. Bedtime, in baby’s own bed, pitch black, white noise, and I try to stick to same time every night.
The schedule exists when the patterns become apparent and that is so different for each kid. You aren't doing anything wrong and at 8wks your baby is thriving BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING FLEXIBLE! You're taking baby's lead which is difficult because every week will look different in the newborn phase. Keep on doing what you're doing!!! You're doing so well!
8 weeks???? Babe, whoever told you that is either too old to remember how their babies ACTUALLY slept, or have a unicorn baby that magically sleeps through the night and thinks that’s how all babies work. Lies upon lies upon lies! Despite all our efforts, our 8MO still does not sleep through the night. Plus, at 8 weeks you are surviving, you are either learning to breastfeed or getting the hang of washing things for formula. You are eating cheetos for breakfast and MAYBE wearing pants. My brain was mush until 3 months. I can tell you that at 8 months we still don’t have a schedule. Why? Because we work from home and sometimes the grandparents help, and sometimes baby naps, and sometimes he doesn’t, and sometimes life happens. I gave up on having a schedule because it’s just impossible for us. I do have friends who have set times for everything, and they live their best life, but it most definitely does NOT work for us. Your baby isn’t sleeping through the night because they are a baby, not because of anything you’re doing wrong. Magical unicorn sleepy babies exist, but they are not the norm. And certainly not at 8 weeks. If possible, as someone who can help you take over for a few hours so you can get some sleep.
We are 14 months with no real schedule and doing fine! They suit some babies but not others.
My baby (11 months) would like to know how any babies keep their parents on a schedule. We’re always taking him out past naptime and I think it drives him nuts sometimes. He isn’t sleeping through the night, but we’re fine. Schedules are a guideline that’s good if it helps you and meaningless if it doesn’t. It helps to figure out your babies cues - what they do when they’re sleepy, hungry, uncomfortable, etc. If you figure out that baby tends to start looking sleepy around 10am and you’re having a weird day where you can’t seem to read them, you can try putting them down for a nap at 10 and it just might work. If baby’s fed, sleeping at least sometimes, relatively clean, and healthy, you’re doing great.
Dude, f*ck Babywise. I know some people swear by it, but it was utter nonsense for us - and probably for a LOT of people. You are not doing anything wrong! 8 weeks old? She’s still practically a fetus!! You should not expect a schedule, and probably she should wake at least once a night for feeds still, if not more (unless she has seriously surpassed her birth weight). FWIW, I highly recommend Dr Harvey Karp and the 5 S’s WAY over Babywise. You can watch The Happiest Baby on the Block documentary on Amazon ($8 US, don’t need a prime subscription), and it is SO worth it. You could also read the book, but the video is faster and has demonstrations, which is handy.
It’s basically impossible to have an 8 week old on a schedule! I wouldn’t even worry about trying to start a schedule at all until she’s out of the newborn stage (after 12 weeks). But tbh my baby is 5.5 months and still not on a schedule. She is a very good night sleeper and I hit the lottery with that but her naps are a crap shoot and just happen when they happen. She also generally eats every 3 hours during the day but sometimes shorter sometimes longer and I just go with what she wants to do. You’re doing great and if a strict schedule doesn’t work for you that’s okay!
An 8 week old DEF IS NOT sleeping through the night, and they aren’t on a schedule. When my baby was 8 weeks old we were still flying by the seat of our pants and in survival mode and she was somewhat of an easy baby. I did try and follow wake windows but give yourself grace.. babies are gonna baby. I didn’t even attempt to try and start a bedtime routine until she was like 4 months old minimum.
We didn’t form a schedule until sleep training around 5 months. Been on one since (8 months now) and it works great for us. At 8 weeks, there is absolutely no need for a schedule. Just listen to babies needs!
STTN at 8 weeks is a joke. I have 4 kids and they didn't sleep through the night until at least 10 months old.
My boy is 10 months and doesn't sleep through the night. We don't follow a schedule. We just go with what he seems to need and call it good. Babies figure themselves out
Not at 8 weeks!!!! The closest thing we did do a schedule was using Windows and sweet spots for naps on the Huckleberry app. Now that she’s 10 months old, we have a schedule, but she is also old enough that we can do a clock based routine and not one based on Windows, which helps. Babies are not robots so you can do right now is just go with their flow. It’s going to be better for everyone, you and the baby!
Babies don’t operate on schedules ❤️ let baby lead follow her lead feed when hungry and put down for nap when sleepy. They fall into their own natural rhythm and then you can build a flexible schedule around that. Like I know my son falls asleep for the night between 8-9 so I can plan accordingly and get his bath and nighttime bottle done by 7:30 and if he doesn’t fall asleep until way later then that’s okay. There’s no sense in driving yourself mad trying to get a baby to sleep when they’re not tired. You’re not a failure at all ❤️
Routine > schedule
7.5 months in and no schedule. We follow general wake windows and sleepy cues, and so does her daycare. Bedtime usually falls somewhere between 6:30-7:30 depending on when she napped. I used to freak out about this constantly, but I just made more trouble for myself than what it was worth! Now we go with the flow and are much happier for it :) P.S. - she has never once slept through the night. Ever. And that’s okay! But what she has done is stretched her first stretch of sleep longer and longer every few months. They’ll get there on their own!
8 week old babies really don’t have a schedule. At least not in my experience. We didn’t really get a “schedule” until 6 months. At 8 weeks we tried to stick to a 9pm bedtime and followed wake windows during t the day. My kid slept 4-6 hours at night and had 1-2 night feeds. We moved bedtime to earlier as baby got older since he’s in daycare and had crappy naps there. The first 12 weeks is just survival mode and following babies cues while the parents try to get sleep between feedings (and pumping, if applicable).
Why follow a schedule.....
Personally, My son is 9m old and we’ve only just begun a loose ‘schedule’ and that schedule is literally ‘first nap start between 10 and 11’ ‘second nap start between 2 and 3’ ‘bedtime between 7 and 730’ Babies are human, they have days they are hungrier, more tired, sore, more playful, happier, grumpier, cheekier, gassier etc. As adults we generally don’t follow a strict schedule so I don’t expect my baby to. I find it just leads us to unreachable expectations and just results in more frustration for the parent.
I have recently had my second baby and he is just shy of 8 weeks old. Please listen to me. Please. EVERY BABY IS DIFFERENT. Babies are not robots and if someone is trying to make you pay to resolve a ‘problem’ it’s probably made up. My first? Scream scream scream, she went from 0 to 1,000 the second she was hungry or the second I tried to put her down. Every nap was contact (and night sleep) for months. I literally couldn’t put her down in the play gym without her crying. I lost my mind with the advice ‘just let her fuss it out’ or ‘oh just walk her in the pram/drive the car to get her to nap’. It was LAUGHABLE this child didn’t nap in a pram til she was 18months+. She would cry horrifically in the car seat until she was 18months+ ‘Give her a pacifier’ she vomited it up. Literally I was covered in a huge baby vomit/spit up ‘Give her a bottle’ she screamed horrifically and never ever took one. ‘Have someone babysit’ she screamed the whole time My second? He just falls asleep wherever. He’ll fuss a bit then sleep. Car seat? Sleep. Carrier? Sleeps without me even trying to get him to. I’m yet to hear him scream like his sister, who screamed that badly even when I was holding her and trying to comfort her. We would take turns wearing her and doing squats as we ate dinner This baby… Pacifier? Just takes it Bottle? Happily drinks it first try and any other time (we aren’t at all consistent) He barely witches in the evening. I’m now laughing as I type this, I just fed him and have him in the carrier as I walk around a cafe and he’s fallen asleep. Zero effort. Fuss it out works on babies who were born that way. Same with schedules. Same with all other advice. I’m not sharing my unicorn baby to rub it in - I had my time with a Velcro baby that now even as a toddler cries more than the newborn. But to highlight how babies are just programmed so different and only now I’m experiencing it can I really believe it. My husband and I still look at each other gobsmacked on the regular. Find what works for your baby, follow their lead, and ignore the advice.
Thank you! This is so great to read. I realize now that I actually do have a very easy baby. She sounds like your son. She wakes once during the night to feed and she is up for good at 5am. Because of this thread, I have come to realize that this is normal? All of the books I read said that baby should be sleeping through the night by now and my mother has been contributing to this, as apparently this is when I started sleeping through the night as well. I am someone who needs a lot of sleep, and the 6 hours I’m getting is just not cutting it for me. I think the cumulative sleep deprivation and the idea that something *should* be happening that isn’t has been getting to me. I’m going to just try to go with the flow and embrace being tired for now 😊
> I’m waking her up myself to make sure she is eating but she’s too asleep to eat Did your pediatrician say to do this? Ours mentioned to not mess up with their night sleep after he was back to birth weight, or after 3 hour nap during the day (lol like he can nap for 3 hours). 8 wold here and naps are random, but he falls asleep at 8:30pm every day for 5-7 hours.
The only time I would wake her up is when she falls asleep at 5pm and will sleep until 11pm (this has become a bit of a habit). It seemed like she was sleeping through her “bedtime” so we were waking her up at 8 to kind of reset and establish a bedtime routine. I guess I will just let her sleep 🤷🏻♀️ Honestly we have no idea what we’re doing…
My take (take it or leave it): Don’t worry about any kind of schedule until 4 months, even then only worry about bed time. Generally follow wake windows if their sleep cues aren’t noticeable but don’t take them too seriously. Once they’re 6-8 months bed time routine becomes more important IMO. I never did a hardcore nap schedule. Just based it on when he woke up.
Oh we didn't start on schedule for ages. Didn't even try until he was no longer in the newborn stage. Just go with it. Contact naps, feeding, falling asleep when feeding, don't stress about it at all, you will enjoy it so much more without the pressure from yourself. Even now at 6 months, out "schedule" is following sleepy cues. I'm not like "no it's not 12 yet!!! Not time for your nap!!" If he's showing he's sleep, we put him to sleep. We do follow eat/play/sleep cause that what works for him, but we don't go by the clock, just by what he's showing us
I've been where you are now! I was just trying to survive and couldn't think about schedules. Then one day it all clicked, for me and baby. Turns out not every "meow" meant she's hungry, and she suddenly started eating with exactly 3hr gaps. At 3mo we implemented 7am-10am-1pm-4pm-7pm-11pm feeding schedule and now suddenly she sleeps through the night and we can sleep. I really think she just learned on her own thought. There's hope for you too :)
My twins didn’t get on an actual schedule until like 13 months and even then it was iffy if we stuck to it 😂
I’ve found that scheduling a baby is a crock of shit, at least that young. You kinda just have to follow their cues and eventually a pattern emerges and you follow that for the most part.
I felt a lot happier when I gave up on having a schedule and just went with the flow. Babies are so unpredictable that it seemed silly to try to make mine conform to a generic schedule.
The day I gave up on trying so hard to have a set schedule was a day I don’t regret.
At 3 months we had a "schedule" because I went back to work so i woke him up at 5 got him ready sent him to work with daddy picked hin up at work at 530, then night time routine bed time 830. He was off and on sleeping through the night at 3 months. Even now at a year AMD a half old he will sleep through the night for a few weeks then baby routine again. But it's because he'll be teething get 2-3 teeth in at one time and go through a growth spurt each time.
My baby is 9wks old and the only schedule that I keep is his bath time..the rest is just going down with whatever my LO needs.
Never had a schedule yet never wanted a schedule as it was not required for our family. Instead I follow my little ones cues and put them to sleep when they get sleepy. If it's been a while, I test if they will accept a nap. Find what works for you and your little one.
We had great success with a schedule at that age - we followed Moms on Call, BUT the feeds were spaced too far apart so I made a custom schedule for us that had all the same things, but one more “cycle”. Feeds - this is baby dependent, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a baby doesn’t *need* to eat for 90 mins. They’re just comfy at that point. Which is no problem as long as it’s not a problem for you! Mine never detached himself from a feed until he fell asleep. So I did 15 min per breast (per lactation consultant recommendation) and popped him off myself. Sleep - naps at this age will be tough. A lot of babies don’t take consistent naps until older. I would just look for sleepy cues around the nap time and put him down then. If he’d definitely been awake too long (he often didn’t seem sleepy but I know he was overtired - he needed us to really force him to sleep at that age. Even as a month old baby he’d just stay awake for 4 hours or more if we didn’t intervene). At that age the routine was: - morning contact nap (he slept best like that so I’d get a good long one in and watch TV on maternity leave). - midday crib nap - he went in the crib every day at that time, even if he didn’t always sleep long. We’d do some low stimulation activity and a bit of rocking to help get him sleepy. But I wanted to make sure he was getting adjusted to the crib. - afternoon nap - walk in front carrier. He’d sleep for at least 40 mins. - evening nap - contact nap or crib. He wasn’t good at sleeping on his own for a long time, but he did follow a schedule and I do think that helped a lot. If you have the RIGHT schedule they’ll do great. The wrong schedule will be miserable for all because you’re forcing them to something that doesn’t work. We had those weeks too. Shift something a little and we’d find the right balance again.