I love to sleep. On top of that, I’m the kind of gal that really has a hard time functioning on less than 6-8 hours — 8 is preferred. So you can probably imagine my predicament when newborn Miri came along and decided she was going to make up the rules. To be perfectly honest and upfront, Miri was an angel baby. She really figured life out quickly, albeit a few really rough nights — like when we took her to Israel when she was 8 weeks old — but aside from that, she gave us really good chunks of sleep from the very beginning.
That’s not to say we had nothing to do with it. From the day she came home from the hospital, I started practicing good sleep habits. Meaning, that after 7:30 pm at night, it was lights out, even if she wanted to have a party. We had a routine from Day 1, and sleeping just became the norm in our house.
Having a sleep schedule doesn’t work for everyone, but when I say schedule, I really mean more of a routine. To me, “schedule” means that something must happen at the exact same time each day. But that’s not how we work. We have a general “routine” which is much more flexible, but allows my kids to know what to expect; therefore, there aren’t any surprises around 6 pm when it’s dinner then bath then bedtime. They’ve become so used to the routine that if they’re up a little bit later, it’s okay. It doesn’t completely throw them off, and we just jump back into the routine when we can.
I’m even more sure of myself when I say this now after our 21 hour road trip from Chicago to the Catskills in NY. It was the first day in my kids’ entire lives that they literally had ZERO schedule. I mean, no normal nap whatsoever, no normal meals, no normal anything! And, let me tell you, it was so beyond obvious that they just couldn’t handle it. I felt so bad for them because I knew how completely exhausted they were. By the end of the day, when we were finally stopping for dinner, they both had complete meltdowns. I couldn’t be upset, and I couldn’t blame them either. It was nobody’s fault, because things happen sometimes when you just have to go with the flow, but it was just so apparent that they were not functioning off their schedules. After a long night of screaming and trying to settle the kids down, they finally went to sleep at 12 am, and I vowed that we would never get that off schedule ever. again.
Now, don’t get the idea that my children are just perfect little angels and they automatically sleep through the night (STTN) from the moment they’re born, and ta-da we’re all happy. NOT THE CASE. We create routines and tweak them based on the needs of our children until we slip into a cyclical routine that seems to work. And as soon as you get into one routine, that thing that was once working for your kid ends up not working any more, so you have to tweak the routine again. Ahh, ’tis life with children. But once your children know that they have a routine to rely on, even when it has to be tweaked to fit developmental changes or dreaded growth spurts, teething, etc, it’s much easier to get back to “normal” because they rely on that constant in their lives.
I don’t know how people have twins. I could BARELY handle my two under two. It was extremely hard for me, and if I didn’t know that after 7 pm at night I could rely on the fact that I would have “me time”, whether that was time spent working on the blog, with my husband or vegging out watching a show, I wouldn’t have survived. The routine helped and still helps us to get through our days because we have reliable benchmarks, not just a whole 24 hours to fill with no direction. Make sense?
I’ve learned that all kids thrive on a routine, even ones who aren’t given one in their lives. You can totally tell when a kid is having a meltdown that is related to tiredness, and more often than not, that same kid doesn’t have any sort of sleep routine, and their little bodies just can’t handle it!
Anyway, that’s my point of view on the whole routine/schedule thing. It works REALLY well for us. I also happen to be slightly Type A (slightly may be an understatement), and I don’t see our family functioning any other way.
I had a lot of interest in our sleep schedules, which I’ve been recording over time. Below are two of them. Please comment below if you’d like to see more schedules at different ages!
MIRI – 6 MONTHS:
7 AM – Wake
8:30/9 AM – Nap 1
11 AM – Wake
11:30 AM – Lunch
1 PM – Nap 2
3 PM – Wake
5:30 PM – Cat nap if needed
6:30ish PM – Bedtime
MIRI – 1 YEAR:
8 AM – Wake and breakfast
9:30 AM – Snack
10 AM – Nap 1
11:30 AM – Wake
12 PM – Lunch
1:30/2 PM – Nap 2
3:30/4 PM – Wake
5:30 PM – Dinner
7 PM – Bedtime
MIRI – 2 YEARS:
8 AM – Wake
8:30 AM – Breakfast
10 AM – Snack
12:30 PM – Lunch
1 PM – Nap
2:30/3 – Wake and snack
5:30/6 PM – Dinner
7 PM – Bedtime
**These are obviously not what works for everyone, and all times are truly approximate. My kids happen to thrive on a lot of sleep, so some kids may need less.
I’d love to hear what works for your family! Also happy to answer any questions if you comment below! xo
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