Opinion: Baby Schedules

I have an opinion on baby and toddler schedules:  I think they’re great.

Of course, they’re not for everyone.  Some people get along just fine without them.  My mother, for example, shrugs when I ask her what she did with us.  She was in her early twenties when she had my brother and I and was a stay at home mom.  She says she fed us when the family ate (and we ate what they had) and we slept when we wanted to.    Sounds easy and carefree right?  So why wasn’t it working for me? Maybe because I had two and the double crying really freaked me out?

I love schedules because it cuts down on the stress.   What stress?  The stress of trying to figure out what the heck the baby is crying about now.  Up until the kids were about 16 months we did not have them on any particular schedule.  The turning point came when we actually went out as a family to a social event.  Thanksgiving dinner at some friends’ house where a lot of other couples with young children were attending.  Things went fine until dinner was almost ready.  Then, they started crying.  Why?  They didn’t need to be changed.  We tried making them bottles.  They didn’t want to eat.   Another couple put their baby in the car seat for a nap in the same room and glanced at us as we frantically dug through the diaper bag.   They left the room and their kid went to sleep on his own while they went to eat dinner.  We were still trying to get the girls to stop crying.  After going through each option to placate them nothing worked.  So we left.

After this I said we were putting them on a schedule.  No more would I have to try to figure out what was wrong with them.  No more tossing wasted bottles away because it wasn’t what they wanted.  If they were on a schedule I’d KNOW if it was option A, option B, or option C that was the cause.   Process of elimination with a little more certainty.  I did meet with some negativity about my decision. Some thought I’d be forcing them to conform to a preset schedule.  But that was totally not what I was trying to do.

Anyway, I started the schedule by writing down every major action the kids did for a few days and the times.  Waking, eating,  going out, napping.  I took the average of these times and said “Ok, this is schedule A” and then I tried to see if we could stick to it.  After about five drafts I had something the kids did not mind.  When we started adhering to the schedule I started relaxing more.  It helped me know when I had to get up to start preparing bottles or what they were probaby crying because it was almost nap time.  A good schedule usually lasted a few months before the kids started chafing at the timing.   When this happened I’d see what bothered them and just try shifting the times again until the day flowed smoothly.

At three years old the kids still were on a schedule.  Over time we incorporated the advice of sleep experts (Ferber) to set up nap and bedtimes that worked for our kids and weren’t just selfish expressions of our desire to have the kids comatose for as long as possible (damn you Ferber).  The schedules gradually evolved to match their playschool schedules and eventually their school schedules.  Hah.  How time flies.