sleep schedules. how i love them.

I sure do. I seriously could not handle parenting without my kids on predictable schedule! Thankfully, both my kids took to "nap training" fairly well and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child is a life saver. C didn't really sleep through the night until he was a year old. And now that I have my 2nd, I realize that some of that was definitely our fault. As much as I thought was "training" him well, I know now that I went to him too much when he fussed or cried. Granted, he seemed to cry more than E does and all babies are different. But I think there were numerous times when I should have just let him be and he would have figured out how to self soothe much quicker. E sure did! Anyway, here's a snapshot of E's sleep schedule at almost 5 months. Again, posterity.

7-8am -- Wake. She usually wakes around 7 or 730 but some days she'll sleep in til 8! I feed her 7 oz when she wakes up cause she's gone 12 hours without food. woohoo!!

8:30 or 9ish -- Nap. Depending on what time she gets up, she'll nap about 1.5-2 hours later. In the last week, I've noticed she's been stretching it more to 2 hours where before she really couldn't go more than 1.5.

10ish -- Wake. Her morning nap used to be really long but she's adjusted her schedule so that now she only naps an hour in the morning. Feed her within a half hour upon waking.

11:30-12ish -- Nap. Most days she's tired by 11:30 but recently, as I said, I've noticed she's stretching her awake periods longer. This is her longest nap of the day at consistently 2 hours.

1:30-2ish -- Wake. Again, feed within the hour. Good days are when I can feed her at 2:30. Gets her to bedtime without getting too fussy or hungry!

3:30-4ish -- Nap. Third and final nap of the day. Another short one, very consistently no more than an hour.

4:30ish -- Wake. Interestingly, she wakes from this nap fussier than the rest. Sometimes she only sleeps 45 minutes and wakes up crying where all her other naps she wakes up so happy and quiet that sometimes I don't even realize she's up! I don't worry about it though since it's her last nap of the day.

6:00pm-ish -- She starts to get cranky! She's getting hungry and tired which is a bad combo. Bathtime! Sometimes she gets a bath even earlier if she seems really tired. Like I said, this girl can SLEEP.

6:15ish -- Last feeding of the day, 7 oz. (Her other feedings are 6-7oz, btw) And then it's a couple of books, a song and in off to bed! Some nights she's sleeping by 6:30 but my goal is for her bedtime to be 7pm. She seems happy to be sleeping by 6:30 most nights though! And that's fine by me as long as she keeps sleeping through the night. I figure as she gets older, she'll stretch it out to 7pm, which will be perfect.

And that's her day in a nutshell! The end.

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