Questions about schedules..naps and sleeping, etc

MY son is 21 months old.

Does everyone put there child in for a nap, feed and put their child to sleep at the same time each day?

I was thinking about when my son was a little baby and I was BF. I fed on demand. He took his naps when he was tired, and went to sleep at night was he was tired. My mom said that he napped around the same time each day because he would just fall asleep.

These times seem to be about the same time each night not because I forced it. He feel asleep when he was ready.
MY DH and I never get home at exactly the same time each day. My son was falling alseep for the night about 7:00-7:30pm before Christmas and sometimes wouild be alseep before I came home from work. I now have him falling asleep around 9pm because that is what time he has been falling asleep. I try our bedtime routine and he just doesn't want to fall asleep at that time. I like it because I get to play with him a little after I get home from work.

I guess what I am asking is that am I a bad mom for not keeping to a strict schedule about forcing naps, eating and bedtime at a certain time?

Re: Questions about schedules..naps and sleeping, etc

No you are not a bad mom! Some mom's are routine crazy and some aren't. I happen to be a bit crazy, lol. I've gotten more leniant though as he got older.

Michael usually wakes up by 8, has some milk, has breakfast around 9:30-10. He has a snack in between, lunch is usually at 1 and a nap at 2. Another snack and then dinner at 6, bath at 8-8:15ish and on the couch for some milk and a little TV. Brush teeth and in bed by 9.

This is the basis of our "schedule" some days are better than others in terms of sticking with it. Now that he's older, I just wing it! But when he was a baby, I kept him on the schedule and everyone made fun of me, but it worked for us!

Message edited 1/24/2007 3:30:14 PM.

Re: Questions about schedules..naps and sleeping, etc

If you are a bad mom, I am too. I think some babies just don't do schedules, no matter how hard you try.

Re: Questions about schedules..naps and sleeping, etc

No you are not a bad mom....

I try to get Nate down for bed around the same time every night (7:30/8pm). Most of the time by then he's ready to go to sleep...When he doesn't get enough sleep he gets really cranky in the morning. I just say let's go upstairs, he kisses DH good night and will head for the stairs. I recently noticed that on the days he doesn't go to day care he will go to sleep closer to 9pm.

Naps on the weekends usually happen when I see he's tired. He starts hanging on to you and will lay his head on you.

Re: Questions about schedules..naps and sleeping, etc

I've never tried to get Ella on a schedule. When I was BFing, I fed on demand. She has a loose schedule that she creates: she'll usually nap an hour or two after waking up. Then every 2-3 hours after that, she starts getting cranky and needs a nap. She goes to bed roughly between 7:30-8:30 each night, and wakes up about 12 hours later.

Neither Al nor I have set schedules everyday so its hard to enforce one with her, not that I've tried

I like that she can be flexible and adapt to where we are or what we're doing.