Hi everyone.
I'm Melissa, welcome back to Cloudmom.com.
Talking today about one of my favorite topics, baby feeding and sleeping schedules.
Today I'm talking about the schedule for a baby who is between 9 and 12 months old.
So, hopefully at this stage, your baby's doing some very nice long stints at night, and in
fact many babies will go a full 12 hours at night.
Love that!
And your baby's day is likely structured around 2 naps, because your baby has now made the
transition from 3 naps to 2.
So, when are those naps happening...sorry, when are those naps happening?
Let's take a look.
Your baby's first nap generally doesn't change much when she switches to two naps.
Assuming she wakes up at around 7 a.m., she'll go back down around 9:30 a.m.
Some babies will go earlier at 9 a.m.
Of course, if your baby is an early riser, some babies are up at 6 a.m., that morning
nap might be happening from 8-10 in the morning; and the afternoon from 12-2 or something in
that area.
One thing to keep in mind at this stage which helped me tremendously, and it's advice actually
received from my doctor, was that it's very helpful not to have your baby sleep past around
3 p.m. in the afternoon or 4 hours prior to your baby's bedtime.
I found that very helpful, because when I did keep my babies napping much later than
that, I had a hard time getting them to bed at night.
So keep that in mind.
Okay, so what do your baby's feedings look like now that your baby is 9-12 months of
age?
Let's take a look.
According to this schedule you'll now be giving your baby milk 4 times during the day.
At 7 a.m. when she wakes up; after each of her naps, at 11 a.m. and at approximately
3:30 p.m.; and at 7 p.m. at bedtime.
And hopefully then your baby's sleeping from bedtime until the morning.
Let's hope!
Okay, now how about solids?
At this point hopefully your baby has fallen into a steady routine with eating solids at
least 3 times a day.
I know that's what my doctor recommended.
Check with yours.
And here's how you can incorporate solids into this schedule: I was still focused at
this stage on getting baby enough milk, because my doctor told me that was the most important
part of his or her nutrition.
And then I would schedule the meals after she'd had the milk, other than with the evening
meal.
So, you might do breakfast at 7:30 a.m., after your baby has had his or her milk.
Lunch after milk, after the morning nap, at around 11:30.
With dinner though, I would try feeding her the food first so that her milk is the last
thing she has before she went goes to bed.
That really worked well for me.
If you find that your baby's too full after the milk feeding to want the solids, talk
to your doctor but maybe you wait 20 minutes or so and then give your baby the solid.
Okay so now we've got the naps, we've got the milk and we've got the solids.
Let's pull it all together and come up with a nice little guideline for your baby's daily
routine at the age of 9-12 months.
Here goes: 7 a.m., wake up, milk feeding.
7:30 a.m., a solids breakfast, yummy!
9:30 a.m., morning nap. 11 a.m., milk feeding, after the morning nap.
11:30 a.m., a solids lunch.
2 p.m., your baby's going down for his or her afternoon nap. 3:30 p.m., milk feeding.
6 p.m., solids dinner.
7 p.m., milk feeding, and then bedtime.
One thing to keep in mind with babies at this stage, is that it's helpful not to have them
sleep too late in the day if you want them to have a nice, early bedtime.
So, in this routine, I'm recommending not having the baby sleep past 3:30 at night
because the bedtime is at 7:30.
The general rule is not to actually have your child sleep later than 3, with the assumption
being that your baby will go down to sleep at 7 p.m.
This I really did follow and it really worked for me.
And I found that on days when my baby slept quite late in the afternoon, that I would
have trouble getting them to bed on time.
So there you have it.
I hope this is helpful for you.
If you have experiences or tips you'd like to share, please share them on Cloudmom.com.
Thank you so much for watching my videos, and I will see you next time.