Baby Sleep Schedules: What you need to know about routines, schedules, and the difference
When I do sleep Q&A sessions with parent groups, one of the most common questions I get is around baby sleep schedules.
“Does my baby need a schedule?”
“When can I get my baby on a schedule?”
“What is the best schedule?”
“Should I do an eat, play, sleep schedule?”
These questions come up over and over again from parents of newborns through older babies. It’s easy to understand the appeal of getting your baby on a schedule. Schedules promise predictability and control over something that feels very out of control, your babies feeding and sleeping. Strict schedules, however, are generally not the best approach for children of any age, but especially babies.
Routines vs. Schedules
I often recommend routines rather than schedules. So, what’s the difference between a routine and a schedule?
Schedules generally involve precise timings and lengths of activities. For example, baby always wakes at 7am, feeds for 15 minutes, is awake for 2 hours, and then naps at 9am for 45 minutes. These strict schedules often use strong language for why they must be followed as closely as possible. They are based on someone else’s idea of what optimal sleep, awake, and feeding intervals should be.
Routines focus on the general order of activities and are less time focused. They recognize that we need to adapt to the changing needs of the baby on that day. They do involve a rhythm to the day or a series of activities. There is a general predictability, but also flexibility. An example might be a baby generally wakes up around 7am give or take a bit. Most days they are up for around 2 hours. When baby starts showing tired cues, baby naps. This nap is often 30-45 minutes. Baby nurses when baby shows hunger cues alongside some more predictable feeds. These general times will vary based on the day and baby’s needs.
You can dive more into this concept in this article from Evolutionary Parenting.
The impact of strict schedules
Besides the fact that routines fit baby biology better, there are true negatives to focusing on strict schedules for parent and baby. A study by Harries and Brown (2017) explored the impact of baby care books that promote strict schedules on parenting confidence and well-being in the first year. They found that over half of parents said the books made them feel more anxious, frustrated, or misled, and 80% found them ineffective. Only 20% said they felt the books worked well and made them feel more confident.
Reading about strict routines can undermine confidence for the majority of parents, and that’s in part because strict routines go against what’s biologically normal and adaptive for human babies. They don’t work for a reason. Additionally, struggling to force a baby into a schedule that doesn’t match their needs can actually undermine sleep. Scheduling feeds when breastfeeding can negatively impact your milk supply, baby’s growth, and also negatively affect sleep.
What about that 20% of parents and babies? Those are your really easy-going, laid back babies who can adapt to a schedule not created around their needs. They are the minority, not the goal.
How routines work differently
Babies do best when we follow their cues. This means cue-based feeding, especially important for nursing parents, and providing sleep opportunities based on tired signs. In the first 6 months, sleep and feeding are often unpredictable. Even if you see a pattern, it changes quickly. Some babies’ temperament means they are naturally more predictable and their eating and sleep naturally fall into a pattern. This is different than trying to force your baby into a parent led strict schedule.
I particularly dislike eat, play sleep schedules because they sound gentle, but put a lot of rules around responsive, cue-based feeding. This can be really frustrating and stressful with no actual benefit.
Balancing routines, predictability, and flexibility to your child’s needs
You might be wondering how the advice that children do well with predictability fits into this picture. Or maybe you are asking yourself if there’s ever a point when you can influence your little one’s patterns. These are important points.
Around 6 months sleep generally starts to get more predictable and also more influenceable for many babies. Older babies still do best when we use their cues to create a rhythm to the day. You can still nurse on cue. You can use your baby’s cues to give you a rough pattern to their naps. This is a great time to work towards a roughly set bedtime and trying to support a general pattern to their naps can help this.
What I’m describing is not a strict schedule, however. It is a balance between following your baby’s cues and providing some structure if you want. There should always be flexibility around sleep timings and amounts because every day is different. Adults do not sleep the exact same each day so why do we often expect more consistency from children than we do from ourselves?
You can extend this concept of balancing predictability and consistency with flexibility and cue base care into the toddler years. The predictability of routines, rather than schedules, can help toddlers feel safe when they know what to expect. Routines can provide the structure to decrease struggles and increase cooperation.
So, while I never recommend strict schedules, that doesn’t mean there will never be some level of predictability in your baby’s patterns. It’s a balance. It’s something that will change as baby develops. The level of predictability is influenced in part by their temperament. And in part by the routines of the family. The focus of predictable schedules as soon as possible is not only unrealistic, but often not helpful. Use your baby’s cues, your family’s general rhythms, and your intuition to create routines. Sometimes you just need to give it time for sleep to mature.
Need help getting into a better sleep routine?
If you are struggling and want help creating more predictability with sleep, or maybe support managing the unpredictability, let’s talk about how I can help.