Looking at other baby’s schedules was really helpful when I was trying to get Charlie on a schedule, and when his schedule changed as he dropped naps. I kept pretty obsessive records, and looking back at it now, it’s almost comical how oblivious I was about infant sleep. I’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but I don’t think I’ll ever have baby sleep fully figured out!
Hopefully this is helpful if you’re trying to figure out a schedule and ideal awake intervals for your little one. Here is a glimpse into Charlie’s sleep over the first two years of his life!
3-4 Months
9:20am – Wake up
10:50am – 11:40am – Nap #1 (50 min)
12:50pm – 1:35pm – Nap #2 (45 min)
3:15pm – 3:30pm – Nap #3 (15 min)
4:40pm – 5:45pm – Nap #4 (65 min)
7:30pm – Bedtime
Charlie’s sleep started deteriorating around the 2 1/2 month mark, so he wasn’t really on a schedule since he was waking up frequently at night and his short naps were all over the place. This is a sample day when he was 3 months old until we sleep trained at 4 1/2 months.
6:00am – Wake up
7:30am – 10:30am – Nap #1 (3 hours)
12:15pm – 1:00pm – Nap #2 (45 min)
3:00pm – 3:40pm – Nap #3 (40 min)
6:20pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 15 1/2 hours
This is another sample day because Charlie’s sleep was not on a predictable schedule post nap training. His wake up times were all over the place, we moved his bedtime around depending on when he woke up from his last nap, and we never knew which nap would be his longest. Nap training also took weeks because our nanny wasn’t able to put Charlie down for naps as well as I could. But post sleep training he was sleeping through the night and his naps lengthened significantly.
6 Months
5:30am – Wake up
7:15 – 8:30am – Nap #1 (1 hour)
10:20am – 1:00pm – Nap #2 (1 1/2 hour)
3:00pm – 4:30pm – Nap #3 (1 1/2 hour)
6:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 15 hours
Charlie was now on a general schedule. I had his ideal awake intervals down to a science. But his wake up times were still a bit all over the place — anywhere from 5am – 7am… unfortunately between 5:00- 5:30am most days. We still moved his bedtime around depending on when he woke up from his last nap.
7 & 8 months
5:00am – Wake up
7:00am – 8:30am Nap #1 (1 1/2 hour)
11:00am – 1:30pm Nap #2 (2 1/2 hours)
4:00pm – 5:00pm Nap #3 (1 hr)
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 14 1/2 hours
9 Months
5:30am – Wake up
7:30am – 9:45am – Nap #1 (2 hrs 15 min)
1:15pm – 3:30pm – Nap #2 (2 hrs 15 min)
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 14 1/2 hours
The transition from 3 naps to 2 was literally overnight. Charlie was able to stay up 2 1/2 hours in between naps for months, then overnight he was able to stay awake 3-4 hours, so we implemented a 2-3-4 schedule.
10 & 11 Months
5:30am – Wake up
7:45am – 9:45am – Nap #1 (2 hours)
1:30pm – 3:30pm – Nap #2 (2 hours)
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 14 hours
12 Months
6:00am – Wake up
8:15am – 9:45am – Nap #1 (1 1/2 hour) – we wake him up
1:45pm – 3:00pm – Nap #2 (1 hr 15 min) – we wake him up
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 13 1/2 hours
As Charlie was able to stay awake just a little bit longer in between each of his naps during month 12, we had to wake up him from his naps to keep him on schedule. As his daytime naps decreased, he started waking up later, but the total hours he slept also decreased.
13 Months
6:00am – Wake up
8:20am – 9:50am – Nap #1 (1 1/2 hour) – we wake him up
1:50pm – 3:00pm – Nap #2 (1 hr 10 min) – we wake him up
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 13 1/2 hours
Month 13 was a very rocky one sleepwise because Charlie had some serious illnesses, we traveled to LA, and he subsequently started waking up in the middle of the night. We had to re-sleep train once he got better (I think it only took one day), and he was back on track.
14 & 15 Months
6:30 – Wake up
9:00am – 10:00am – Nap #1 (1 hour) – we wake him up
2:00pm – 3:00pm – Nap #2 (1 hour) – we wake him up
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 13 hours
16 & 17 Months
6:00am – Wake up
12:00pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Asleep
Total Sleep: 14 hours
Shortly after Charlie turned 15 months old, we pushed him to one nap a day. He was able to stay awake longer and longer between his naps, which kept pushing his bedtime later. We’d fill his mornings with activities so he wouldn’t get sleepy, but some days he’d crash as early as 10:30am. It took a couple of weeks until he was regularly napping at 12pm. Our ultimate goal for naptime was 1:00pm. He was actually getting more sleep with 1 nap a day because he was getting one long nap instead of two shorter ones.
18 & 19 Months
6:30 – Wake up
12:30pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Asleep
Total Sleep: 14 hours
Month 18 was a bumpy one sleepwise with Charlie waking up anywhere from 5:30 – 8:30am and waking up in the middle of the night. Sleep training kept getting postponed because of constant colds, but we finally re-sleep trained at 19 months (it was quick and easy again) and Charlie was back on track.
20 Months
5:00 – Wake up
12:o0pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 13 hours
Post sleep training, Charlie started waking up at 5:10am most days.
21 & 22 Months
7:30am – Wake up
1:30pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 15 hours
We inadvertently cried it out for Charlie’s early morning wakings. One night we only got 3 hours of sleep before Charlie was up at 5:30, so we just didn’t go get him. After 15 minutes of calling out Mommy and Dada, he went back to sleep until 7:30. He did wake up at 5:30 a couple more times, but we didn’t get him and then he consistently started waking up at 7:30.
23 Months
8:30am – Wake up
1:00pm – 3:30pm Nap
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 15 1/2 hours
During month 23, Charlie must have experienced a growth spurt or something because we had to wake him up every day at 8:30, and he’d still take a 3+ hour nap!
24 Months
7:30am – Wake up
1:00pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 14 1/2 hours
25 Months
4:50am – 7:30am – Wake up
12:30pm – 3:30pm – Nap
7:30pm – Bedtime
Total Sleep: 12 1/2 – 15 hours
The past couple of weeks Charlie’s wake-up times have been all over the place because he’s been sick, and he’s been waking up itchy from his eczema. For one week straight he woke up at 4:50am on the dot! How does his body know that it’s 4:50am? But then today we had to wake him up at 8:30am. A 7:30am wake up time is perfect for Charlie (and for us).
~~~
It’s been really interesting for me to look back at Charlie’s sleep and how obsessive I was about it to keep records like this. Some things to note:
– I can’t believe I woke up at 5:00 – 5:30 every day for the first year of his life!
– Charlie started waking up later when we started limiting his daytime naps.
– Charlie eventually outgrew his early morning wakeups (one of the hardest sleep problems to solve) and started sleeping 12 hours at night instead of 10 even when we stopped limiting his daytime naps.
– Though we tried crying it out for early morning wake-ups, they didn’t work when he was younger. We tried again when he had been waking up at 7:30 for awhile but had a relapse, and it worked like a charm without any crying.
– Though he’s had a bedtime of 7:30 for most of his life, we probably should have given him an earlier bedtime when he was younger. We experimented with earlier bedtimes, but they didn’t seem to affect his wake-up times, so we based his bedtime on his natural nap schedule. Still if we had been more strict about an earlier bedtime and probably limiting his naps, he might have started waking up later much sooner than he did.
– Although sleep books tell you that children will need less sleep over time, I’ve found that Charlie has needed just as much, if not more sleep, than when he was younger.
Hope this was a helpful glimpse!
Are you as obsessive about your little one’s sleep as I am?
apricot / 453 posts
Interesting post. I think I am going to start keeping track of my son’s sleep schedule – how interesting to look back on. Glad to see Charlie needed a lot of sleep too – our 4mo gets around 15 hours of sleep each day – some days even more.
persimmon / 1255 posts
I agree that it’s always so helpful to look at other baby’s sleep patterns. I’m waiting for the day when LO will take longer naps. Currently, they’re usually 40-90 minutes and 2hrs only when she’s super tired.
cherry / 207 posts
My obsession started after Melody turned 25 months, started to sleep in and take long naps at home on weekends! Despite reassurances from our PD that she’s fine, I was worried.
From 6.30am wake up to 9am and 1.5 hours nap to 3 hours!!! I started a sleep log and enlisted her daycare teacher to help me track her daily naps at school. Note that there were no environmental or daily or bedtime routine changes. She did start in the 2 years old classroom a month earlier.
Some observations:
– if we let her sleep in, on weekends, it delays her nap time. On weekdays, she can’t nap in school (nap time starts at 12 noon)
– a delayed nap time plus a long nap on weekends = late bedtime on weekends
– sleeping in + long nap = more total sleep on weekends
I kept log for 2 months until I was convinced she is ok and settled down into a sleep schedule averaging about 12 hours of total sleep daily. 7.30am wake-up, average 1.5 hours of nap and a 9pm bedtime.
hostess / eggplant / 11068 posts
I am absolutely obsessed with LO’s sleeping. She is 5.5 months old now (we sleep-trained at 3.5 months) and she is definitely in a bit of a predictable pattern. When her first nap of the day is less than 1.5 hours, I start to worry! I’ve been keeping close track of her sleeping because my sleep is dependent on hers.
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
you take the most amazingly detailed notes!! how you did that with the sleep deprivation, i’ll never know
guest
This is so stance for me to read, because I didn’t keeP records or was I even really aware of what changes he was going through while he was going through them. I’m kind of more of an attachment parent, I just kind of let him tell me what he needed. I didn’t over analyze what he was doing, I kinda just went with the flow. We had easy and hard times, but I couldn’t really tell you anything about them. All I really remember is that once he went to one nap, all of a sudden he became a “napper” before this he cat napped. It was so frustrating because I couldn’t get anything done. I think eventually each child falls into their napping patterns, some more quickly than others.