motherhood: all about owen's schedule

Back with another post about Owen (if you missed my feeding post, you can read it here). Many of you asked for information about his schedule and what his day to day looks like.

Let me preface this by saying that no day is exactly the same. Even now one day can vary quite a bit from the next depending on teething, growth spurts, illness, etc.

I found that stressing about trying to keep Owen on a specific schedule just wasn’t worth it for me. I didn’t (and still don’t) let him fully lead the day, but I do take his cues. If he seems hungry early for lunch, I’ll feed him. If he seems like he needs a bedtime on the earlier side, I’ll start the bedtime routine early.

I DO try to keep nap time consistent day to day (and for the most part it is). He doesn’t alway nap (or nap the whole time), but I’ll put him in his crib regardless and if he wakes early, I let him quietly play or look at books in his crib until he’s been up there at least an hour. This gives me time to eat a quick lunch or do a quick run and allows him some down time, even if he’s not asleep.

Okay, so let’s take a step back now and go through his schedule from the start!

0-4 MONTHS SCHEDULE:

For the first probably 3-4 months of Owen’s life there really was no schedule. He took a really long time to sleep through the night (I think it was like 4 or 5 months when we finally got longer stretches at night and that only increased and became more consistent once we started supplementing with formula…poor thing was probably hungry & couldn’t sleep!). For months 0-4 my husband and I were basically zombies just doing whatever we could to survive day to day.

5 – 8 MONTHS SCHEDULE

By 5 months we were getting a lot more full nights of sleep and by 6 months he was consistently sleeping through the night (again, I believe thanks to the supplementation). It was really by 6 months that we were able to get more on a schedule because everything else became more consistent once he stopped waking/feeding during the night.

If you’re familiar, you’ll notice our schedule was pretty consistent with the Moms on Call recommendations (though not exactly). I got their book on my Kindle app and found it to be really helpful (though a bit more rigid than my personal parenting style in some aspects).

6:15 – 6:45 am: Wake up & bottle (6-8 ounces)

7 – 8am: Playtime/books/walk in the stroller

8 – 8:10 am: Snack (fruit pouch, puffs, etc.)

8:15/8:20am: Started nap time routine (books, songs, in the crib)

8:30/9am: Nap (on a good day, about 1 – 1.5 hours, on a bad day, 30-40 minutes)

10/10:30am: Breakfast (see my feeding post for more detail). Beginning around 6 months, I also offered him a sippy cup containing about 2 oz. of formula, just to try to get him used to it (he rarely took much from it), which I think I forgot to mention in my 9 month post that I wrote!

10:45 – 11am: Playtime

11am: Bottle (6-8 ounces)

11:20 – 12/12:30: Playtime/books/walk or run in the jogging stroller

12 – 12:30pm: Nap time routine (books, songs, in the crib) & nap (2 hours on a good day; 45 minutes on a bad day)

2pm: Lunch (see my feeding post for more detail) + sippy cup starting at 6 months

3pm: Bottle (6-8 ounces)

3:30-5pm: Playtime/books/walk or run in the jogging stroller

5pm: Dinner (see my feeding post for more detail) + a sippy cup starting at 6 months

6pm: Bath time (we do bath every night as part of the bedtime routine. 3 nights a week it’s a full bath with soap; the other 4 nights are just a hot water soak just to start to set the calm tone before sleep)

6:30-7pm: Bottle (8 ounces) – we did this in the rocking chair in his nursery

7-7:30pm: Bedtime routine (books, song, in the crib) & bed if he didn’t fall asleep with his last bottle

9 – 11 MONTHS SCHEDULE

Around 9 months I wrote a post on Owen’s schedule. You can read that here.

We followed that same schedule until around 10 or 11 months when we cut back on bottles. Rather than 4 feedings a day we did 3 (the goal our pediatrician set for us was a max of 20 ounces of milk per day since Owen was eating solids really well).

I started this around 10 months and cut the 11am and 3pm bottles to a consistent 6 ounces, increased the morning bottle to 8 ounces and kept the night bottle at 8 ounces. Once he did okay with that (I also noticed his solid food intake increased when this happened), I cut the 11am bottle back to 4 ounces, keeping the 3pm bottle at 6 ounces and the morning and evening bottles at 8 ounces. I noticed a big uptick in his solid food intake at this point and finally cut out the 11am bottle and decreased the 3pm bottle to about 4 ounces. Once that bottle was cut out, his schedule shifted to the following:

6:15 – 6:45 am: Wake up & bottle (8 ounces) – we started to introduce the sippy cup in lieu of the bottle at this point but it was met with a lot of resistance!

7 – 8am: Playtime/books/walk in the stroller

8am: Breakfast (see my feeding post for more detail)

8:30/9am: Nap time routine & nap (on a good day, about 1 – 1.5 hours, on a bad day, 30-40 minutes; on a terrible day, no sleep at all!)

10/10:30am: Snack (puffs, finger foods, fruit pouch)

11am – 12pm: Playtime/books/walk or run in the jogging stroller

12 – 12:30pm: Lunch (see my feeding post for more detail)

12-1:30pm: Playtime/books/walk or run in the jogging stroller

1:30 – 2:30/3pm: Nap time routine & nap (on a good day, about 1 – 1.5 hours, on a bad day, 30-40 minutes)

3pm: Bottle/sippy cup (4 ounces)

4pm: Snack (puffs, finger foods, fruit pouch)

4 – 5pm: Playtime/books/walk or run in the jogging stroller

5/5:30pm: Dinner (see my feeding post for more detail)

6pm: Bath time (we do bath every night as part of the bedtime routine. 3 nights a week it’s a full bath with soap; the other 4 nights are just a hot water soak to start to set the calm tone before sleep)

6:30pm: Bottle/sippy cup (8 ounces) – around 10 or 11 months we made a concerted effort to give his last feed downstairs so that he would not be dependent on it to fall asleep, but would rather associate the bedtime routine with sleep. He did great with the transition!

6:30-7/7:30pm: Playtime as a family

7-7:30pm: Bedtime routine (books, song, rocking, in the crib) & bed

12 MONTHS – PRESENT DAY

Around 12 months is when Owen started consistently only taking about a 15-30 minute nap in the morning so we cut back to one nap per day.

We also switched from formula to whole cow’s milk and took away bottles completely and replaced with sippy cups. Here’s what his schedule looked like by 12 months (and what it continues to be today):

7 – 7:30am: Wake up & sippy cup of cow’s milk (8 ounces)

7 – 8am: Playtime

8am: Breakfast (see my feeding post for more detail)

8:30 – 11am: Playtime/activity (we go to The Little Gym and my try swimming lessons in the spring. Otherwise we play in the backyard, go to the park, take walks or just read books & play with toys inside)

11am: Lunch (see my feeding post for more detail)

11:30am – 12pm: Anywhere between 11:30am and 12pm we go upstairs and start the nap time routine (books & songs). I go with how he’s seeming. When we transitioned to one nap I had to WORK to keep him awake. He wanted to go to sleep every day around 10:30 (a couple days I did actually just put him down but it was a 30 minute nap only and then the rest of the day would be thrown off). I read that it takes some adjustment when switching to one nap, and it turned out to be true for us. About 2 weeks in, he adjusted and now easily makes it until 11:30/12 every day.

12 – 2:30pm: Nap (2-3 hours on a good day, 1.5 hours on an okay day and 45 minutes on a really bad day)

2:30pm: Snack (just something small – a slice of bread with hummus, cream cheese, nut butter or some fruit or cheerios)

3pm: Sippy cup if he didn’t have a dairy-based snack at 2:30 (4 ounces max)

3:30 – 5/5:30pm: Playtime/walk

5/5:30pm: Dinner (see my feeding post for more detail)

6pm: Bath time (we still do bath every night as part of the bedtime routine. 3 nights a week it’s a full bath with soap; the other 4 nights are just a hot water soak to start to set the calm tone before sleep)

6:30pm: Sippy cup (8 ounces)

6:30-7/7:30pm: Playtime as a family

7-7:30pm: Bedtime routine (books, song, rocking & in the crib) & bed

I hope this helps give some clarity to all you moms and moms to be out there! My biggest piece of advice would be not to be too hard on yourself about a schedule. A schedule is SO nice to have, and it will come with time but in my experience, you can’t force it and trying to do so only makes you even more stressed out! And don’t compare yourself to me or other mom friends/kids. Every kid is so different and requires something a little different. I provide this only because it was requested and because seeing how others structured their days helped me a lot during the first year!

Happy to answer any and all questions that you may have (I’m sure I’ve left out some details)!