RHYTHM AND ROUTINE
Life with littles who are sleeping inconsistently can feel hard to navigate. Luckily, we can still create some predictability in our day to day lives despite being in a season of unpredictable naps and nights.
First, ditch the strict sleep schedules.
The literature on infant sleep tells us again and again that sleep is highly variable in the first year.
Most babies have sleep habits that are very different from one day to the next. They might nap for two hours one day and only 30 minutes the next. They might have periods where they’re sleeping long uninterrupted stretches at night followed by periods where they’re more wakeful.
Sleep training culture wants us to think that, as long as we follow all the ‘perfect schedule’, our babies will sleep like clockwork. But developmental leaps, growth spurts, milestones, illness, teething and many more have the potential to throw that schedule off every day, leading to a lot of frustration and resentment when the schedule doesn’t ‘work’.
Rather than focussing on abiding by a strict schedule, think about using wake windows to guide your baby’s sleep instead. Remember, wake windows are meant to be used flexibly - on the heels of a short nap or a particularly wakeful night, your little one will likely need a shorter wake window. After a day of long naps, it makes sense that your little one will need a longer wake window before they’re tired enough for bed.
Next, look for your family’s anchors.
The parts of your day that stay consistent most of the time. These anchors set the cadence for our days – life ebbs and flows and changes regularly, but our anchors remain our constant.
So for us, during the week one of our anchors is my husband getting home from work. I usually have dinner underway by this point and once he gets home he’ll take over with the kids so I can finish up and get everything on the table. Staying consistent about this anchor really helps set the tone for our family. It allows us to regroup after the afternoon’s activities and it helps orient us for the next part of our day: starting the evening routine.
Think about what your anchors are - or what you’d like them to be - in your current season.
For example, if you’re home with your newborn, a simple but meaningful anchor for you might be a short morning walk. What time you wake up in the morning or how long it takes before you’re able to eat breakfast and brush your teeth between feedings and diaper changes will likely change from day to day, but the one measure of consistency you’ll have is your morning walk. Some days your baby will be up for a long walk, other days it’ll only be a few minutes before they start fussing. That’s ok! The beauty of these anchors is they allow us to be flexible to what’s going on for our little ones on any given day.
An afternoon anchor might be when you have to pick your older child up from childcare, or when your partner arrives home from work, setting the pace for the second part of your day. Your last anchor of the day will probably be bedtime.
Having these consistent ‘anchors’ means that even when life feels chaotic, if we were to pan out and look at our days from a pulled-out lens we’d see these anchors sort of holding a rocking boat in place.
The benefit of focussing on anchors rather than a schedule is that they allow us to be flexible to the needs of our family. They don’t hinge on things happening at a certain time or for a certain duration. Whether dinner happens at 5:30pm or 6pm doesn’t really matter - the flow stays the same. So we’re able to engrain our anchors around the things happening in our lives, rather than our lives having to revolve around a schedule.
Lastly, create small rituals around your anchors. These will become your daily routines.
Even really young babies thrive on rituals and routines. They help our little ones make sense of their day and know what they can expect next. Having daily rituals also helps us as parents gain some of the predictability many of us crave.
If a morning walk is one of your daily anchors, create a simple ritual around getting out of the house with your baby. Perhaps you always offer a feed after packing your bag and before getting them into their outerwear. Singing the same song each time you put their hat and jacket on will help them start to understand that going in the stroller is the next step.
A simple but consistent nap (and bedtime) ritual helps our babies know it’s time to wind down in preparation for sleep. A diaper change, pulling the blinds shut and singing your sleep-time song (or putting on a specific playlist) as you nurse or rock your little one to sleep ahead of each nap is enough! The more consistently we preform these rituals, the more effective they become.
Create a ritual for when your partner gets home from work or your older child(ren) get home from childcare / school. Even something as simple as sitting down for a snack together everyday can be a meaningful. Alternatively, your partner coming home might be a good opportunity for you to have a ritual for yourself - hopping in the shower, putting some headphones in and prepping dinner, or taking the dog out for walk - while your partner takes over the baby responsibilities for a chunk of time.
Again, having daily rituals and routines gives our family a general sense of predictability that we – and our children – can orient ourselves to. By ditching the clock and opting instead for a "first this, then that" approach to our day, we’re able to stay flexible and responsive to each family member’s needs on any given day.
Remember, sleep will become more consistent as your baby gets older.
Lots of little ones tend to have more consistent naps and nights once they go down to one nap a day, usually after their first birthday. As your child hits the 12-18 month mark, you can shift to more of a time-based schedule and expect that your days will start to look more consistent.
When it comes to baby sleep, we have two choices. We can read the online schedules and listen to the baby sleep myths and try to control our babies to make them “fit the mold,” or we can give in and ride the waves.
When we choose the second, parenthood almost always becomes a whole lot more enjoyable.
References:
Paavonen, E. J., Saarenpää-Heikkilä, O., Morales-Munoz, I., Virta, M., Häkälä, N., Pölkki, P., Kylliäinen, A., Karlsson, H., Paunio, T., Karlsson, L. (2020). Normal sleep development in infants: findings from two large birth cohorts. Sleep Medicine, 69, 145-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.01.009.
What makes my approach different:
The whole gist behind most sleep training programs is that you have to follow their rules for it to work… even if it feels awful.
That’s not what we do here. I will never ask you to do anything that goes against your intuition.
You’re the expert, and you get to call the shots.
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