Schedule Adjustments

Putting James on a schedule has been going much more smoothly than I originally anticipated, though I did need to make a few adjustments to the initial schedule. Apparently, I underestimated how much sleep James would need once he stopped nursing around the clock and taking cat naps on the Boppy after each and every nursing session. So, the first nursing session of the day has been pushed back to 7am and breakfast has been moved to 8am to allow James more time to sleep.

His morning nap has been moved up to just after his 10 am snack. It became evident that this was necessary when he started falling asleep in his highchair mid-bite. His afternoon nap has been moved up to 1:30pm because waiting until 2pm to go down was making him very cranky. Basically, what this means is that for the first time in his life, he is napping alone in his crib during the day. And, he doesn't just nap once a day. No. He takes two beautiful, long naps that last 1 1/2 to 2 hours each.

Early on, it was a bit of a struggle to get him to go down. The first couple of days on the new schedule he needed a lot of help to fall asleep. I ended up bouncing him, rocking him, singing to him, and rubbing his back for almost an hour each nap time. But now, he is doing much better. I think that establishing a nap time routine that is similar to, but not the same as his bedtime routine has helped. At nap time, I change James into a sleeper. We then rock in the glider while I read a story in a soothing tone. I turn on his mobile (which plays Mozart) and place him gently in his crib. He then sucks his thumb and makes little moaning noises until he is sound asleep within 10 minutes.

If he wakes up during his scheduled nap time, I wait to see what he does before going in to get him. Often, he will just fuss himself back to sleep in a couple of minutes. If he starts crying rather than just fussing, I go in, pick him up, and bounce him until he calms down. I then turn on his mobile, place him in his crib, rub his back until he is calm, and quietly sneak out of the room. This process repeats until he is calm enough to quietly fuss himself back to sleep.

Overall, I am loving the schedule and the new freedom that it is giving me. I just need to get James to the point where he can eat puffs and other non-messy snack items. That way, we can more easily do snack on the go and thus spend a lot more time out of the house.