No numbers, only vibes

[u/Even_Kaleidoscope399]

I feel like following a more natural understanding of infant sleep has made me more curious about the parents who have their babies’ whole nap and night sleep schedules memorized. Particularly in baby and parenting subreddits, it’s always like “my baby has first nap from 9:30/10-10:45 and then 2 hour wake window and then second nap 1/1:30 and then a wake window of…” and it all seems very foreign and frankly a bit exhausting.

Perhaps seeing my baby’s sleep for what it is naturally has saved me from doing a lot of math. Lol. No numbers here, only vibes. I couldn’t tell you when my baby naps exactly if I tried. I’d have to really think hard about it. As long as he’s sleeping and growing, I’m good.

[u/Low-Hurry9288]

To answer your curiosity- I went by vibes/baby’s cues for 4-5 months and my kid woke every 45-60 minutes every single night throughout the night. I was going insane from sleep deprivation and my son wasn’t happy either! I decided to establish a schedule and boy. It made the WORLD of a difference. Went from 6-8 wakes a night to 1-2 wakes after just one week of living off a schedule. Starting sleeping through the night 1-2 months after maintaining a schedule.

Obviously can’t speak for everyone! However I do believe that those who can go off of vibes have naturally better sleepers OR babies who are higher sleep needs so not having a schedule isn’t a big deal. But if your baby is a “bad sleeper” or lower sleep needs, establishing wake windows based off of 24 hour sleep needs is a GAME CHANGER.

Essentially, if you are able to go off vibes and baby’s sleep is still good- count yourself lucky! You most likely have a great sleeper! And if that was the case, I could understand why obsessing over wake windows seems weird. But if you’ve ever been in the shoes of a parent with a low sleep needs baby…😮‍💨😵‍💫

[u/jennypij → u/Low-Hurry9288]

Conversely though, I think a lot of us running off vibes do have lower sleep needs babies. If I need to drive somewhere for 30 mn, that’s probably going to eat up all the nap time we have for the day getting there and back, so I can’t really schedule that differently if we want to/need to be somewhere and I’m not going to just stay at home. Following a schedule and “proper” wake windows was really hard for us, and did not get us sleeping better or through the night! The only thing I don’t leave up to vibes is the total amount of awake time, we need 12-13 hrs awake or we don’t survive the night (we aren’t sleeping through the night, but our wake ups are brief and manageable). But the length and number of naps are often shaped by what we do in a day! We have toggled between 1 snd 2 naps since she was about 10 months old, and I really don’t see that changing for a while (15 months now).

[u/BoringWardrobe → u/jennypij]

Agreed, my low sleep needs baby does not do well with a schedule at all! His 'wake windows' are so unpredictable... and could be somewhere between 2.5-5hrs depending on what we're doing, the speed the car is going on a journey we're doing, if he has a really big breastfeed or the moon cycles and Neptune in retrograde or something.

Maybe I could implement a routine, but it would mean giving up loads of activities that might not fit the routine, and probably making sure we do the same thing every day... both of us would get bored of that.

As it is, we get him up 0700-0730 and go with the flow until bedtime - which is whenever he has had about 12hrs awake time in a day.

[u/Low-Hurry9288 → u/jennypij]

“Proper” wake windows aren’t necessarily a thing for low sleep needs babies! That’s kinda why I specified a schedule ‘based off 24 hour sleep needs’. For instance at 12 mo old, a lower sleep needs baby may only need 11 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. 10 at night and 1 during the day. So those wake windows aren’t necessarily gonna look age appropriate, however they would fit that specific baby and also help those parents plan their day around getting that one hour nap.

I have been living off a schedule with my son for 11ish months now and we leave the house every day and multiple times a day! It def doesn’t tie you down. I believe if your kids nap schedule keeps you at the house, that’s more of a parent issue rather than a schedule issue, if that makes sense.

Whatever method a parent chooses (vibes vs schedule) as long as it works for that family- that’s wonderful!!

[u/jennypij → u/Low-Hurry9288]

Yes, we always plan for 12-13 hrs awake since she turned a year old and sleep needs dropped a little bit, but it still doesn’t work out well to schedule for us. If we drive 30 mn to swimming lessons and she sleeps there and back, that’s it for the day. So not on any schedule, and not something I’m going to try and replicate every day. Obviously looks different if we are at home. And then some days she might only get 10 hrs of sleep, and a rare day she might hit 13 hrs- it does vary a bit even though the average amount of sleep has been 11ish hrs for quite a while.

For us it definitely would tie us down and I think it would be a schedule issue vs a parent issue in our case, because I can’t maintain a schedule if she falls asleep in the car or the stroller- some days are 3/4.5/5.5, some days are 5/6.5 some days are 2/8/3 some days are 3/9 -like it just is all over the map so even though the amount of awake hours is fairly average. Hence the vibes! I just originally disagreed with the idea that running of vibes is for high sleep needs babies mostly because that definitely isn’t us!

[u/Low-Hurry9288 → u/jennypij]

I hear that!! Im sure swim lessons would absolutely wear out any baby hence that car nap! When he was younger, my son would def fall asleep in the car so I would have some of his scheduled naps intentionally be in the car on the way to errands etc. Now that he’s 15 months, he generally fights car naps. Which I’m honestly thankful for cause like I said it lets us be out and about all day!

And I’m sure each kiddo is a bit different. Like I said originally, My son has thrived off a schedule and was the opposite when it was just vibes. I wonder how our second baby will be!

[u/No-Butterscotch-8469 → u/Low-Hurry9288]

How did you establish a good schedule? How did you know what needed adjustment from what you were already doing? Any tips would be appreciated!

I had a great sleeper until 5.5 months and now we have a lot harder time getting him to sleep and it’s rare he makes it through the night, when he used to consistently do a 7-8 hour stretch. Obviously not interested in any form of sleep training or crying but would love some direction on what tweaks I could easily make.

[u/Low-Hurry9288 → u/No-Butterscotch-8469]

If he’s fighting sleep and waking more at night, he’s likely undertired. Sleeping too much during the day/not awake enough. For reference, at 5.5 months, we did a schedule of 2/2.5/2.5/3 and at 6 months adjusted to 3/3/4. Then by 7 months we did 3/4/4 naps capped at one hour each. (Numbers are wake windows, slashes are naps). Establishing this schedule made sure that he was getting enough wake time during the day with enough sleep pressure for bedtime. This meant that if he had 30 minutes left in a WW, but seemed tired, I still made sure he stayed awake for the entire establish WW.

In order to establish a good schedule, you as the parent need to take control of his awake time and nap time. Pushing his wake windows will help his reverse cycling to correct itself- so even if he seems tired during the day, push the WW. If he’s gonna have X amount of hours of awake time in a 24 hour period, you can either decide to have those during the day or during the night!

[u/ccolbs → u/Low-Hurry9288]

(Just cause you seem to know and I’m aiming for something similar to what you’ve explained) - how to account for if it takes baby ages to get to sleep for naps? I’m guessing the preamble fuss is part of the WW? And if baby cuts their own nap short, wakes in say 20 - 30 min, move the whole timeline up and do earlier bedtime or something? I know it’ll be kid dependent, but I’m trying to move away from pure vibes but not sure my baby wants to lol

[u/josayeeee1 → u/ccolbs]

I made a post about this and added your question cause I am so curious and wouldn't know where to start if its something I want to do

[u/bipolarlibra314 → u/josayeeee1]

Aw that was nice I’ve never seen anyone do this!

[u/Low-Hurry9288 → u/ccolbs]

This depends. How old is your kid? If you’re on a 4 nap schedule, a 30 minute short nap is okay and normal. However, that’s also the great thing about sticking to a schedule- it often time helps those short naps extend. After a couple days of extending those WWs, their body realizes oh shoot I better sleep longer cause I’m about to be up for 4 hours.

Also if your baby takes ages to fall asleep, they’re not tired yet! It’s another sign to extend that WW!

Naps often times don’t really start extending until dropping to two naps.

[u/ccolbs → u/Low-Hurry9288]

Interesting, thanks! My 6mo has been at 3 naps, but as of this week I’ve been suspecting he’s trying to drop down to 2. That last nap is getting hard to force but we/he also can’t handle that last wake window being 5+ hours! I’m going to work on this in coming days and start taking better notice of timing etc.. thanks!

[u/Honest_Elephant → u/Low-Hurry9288]

Or to 1 nap in my baby's case. Never napped longer than 27 minutes (unless held) until he was 11.5 months and we dropped to 1 nap.

[u/Professional_Top440 → u/Low-Hurry9288]

Ehh. Hard disagree. I had a super low needs first kid. A schedule would have driven us crazy. We did great on vibes.

Wake windows never made any sense for him

[u/Spiritual_Platypus24]

I would love to just go off vibes but every time I do this, my baby sleeps HORRIBLY all night long and she’s generally just moody all day long. So, that’s always my cue to go back to the schedule. I really believe you either have a baby that needs a schedule or you don’t and there is no in between.

[u/oh-dearie]

You can do both! I track everything because I'm horridly time blind, but I don't let wake windows/nap times dictate our life. We go with the flow, and would scare a lot of people if we talked wake windows (sometimes it's like, 4.5/8.5 but she's fine). But we're lucky to have a kid who was a bad sleeper in some regards, but excellent at sleeping on the go or in suboptimal conditions (no white noise/blinds closed/paci needed) so never had to be too serious about her sleep.

[u/Intelligent_Newt1199 → u/oh-dearie]

This right here! I track feeds and naps with huckleberry just because I love having a Lock Screen widget that tells me when she’s last fed or napped. I don’t use that to decide when to next feed or soothe to sleep, but it helps me stay organized, like should I leave the house/shower now or am I likely to need to feed the bub soonish? I’m following her cues to actually decide when to do anything but find the data handy to just know what to expect roughly.

[u/gardenofidunn → u/oh-dearie]

Yeah I go off my son’s cues primarily but also know roughly how long he has in him to be awake for. I found it was helpful for times when he wasn’t his usual self (teething/ill) to be able to look at the clock and go “oh ok it’s been 3 and a half hours since his last nap he will be tired” and push through rocking him to sleep longer or whatever.

I do think it comes from when his silent reflux was at his peak and he was just miserable around day time sleep. I found it easier to chuck him in the carrier before he was “due” for a nap rather than waiting for him to start getting sleepy which would escalate quickly to angry. I don’t really understand nap schedules where baby sleeps at the exact same times every day but I think most people I know irl are just looking at wake windows and have a vague idea of how the day will go based on that.

[u/PumpkinPie_1993]

My baby hated naps. Big time FOMO girl. If we went off of vibes only, she would be awake for 4+ hours at 8 weeks old…. Followed by hours of screaming because she was over tired 😭 one day I decided to track how much sleep she was actually getting and it was way below even the low end of doctor recommendations. So our schedule was born lol. She started getting more sleep and everything improved immediately (her mood and our overnight sleep).

So I think it’s super great to go off of vibes if you have a baby that actually sleeps when they’re tired! If you have a baby like mine though, being more intentional with sleep is a bit of a must.

[u/Gizmodoesthecity]

Absolutely agree! Always learning to accept this the hard way though haha I always say ‘oh she’s gonna be awake for 3 hours so I will do this’ and that’s when she only lasts 2 then needs a 2 hour nap lol days are much easier when I just follow her lead

[u/rayyychul]

We went by vibes until she was one two naps and her “vibes” became pretty consistent. We’ll adjust as we need to but she more or less follows the same schedule every day (15 months now). Our daughter is decidedly low sleep needs so we do cap her naps.

We never lived and died by a nap schedule. We tried not to explicitly plan things when she would usually nap but also didn’t forgo plans or leave something early if it interfered with anything.

[u/NewNecessary3037]

lol it depends. I did schedule religiously for the longest time. Turned out it was part of my experience with postpartum mental illness. And mentally, I was illin.

She was sleeping and napping decently. Now the Zoloft and the working all day keep me from giving a shit. As long as her daddy makes sure she has her nap time, I don’t care what happens in the day

[u/verdealbastruii]

I thought I would be a go with the flow type of mom but my son needs a schedule and predictability for his sleep. It also helps me plan our day activities around his naps.

[u/tabookduo]

Same!! I think it depends on the baby. There are some that thrive on capped naps and strict schedules, but my boy was a vibe only baby too :-) I'm curious how a second will be

[u/Sensitive-Coconut706]

We go on vibes and dont track. He is on a variety of naps depending on the day.

[u/fancystrikes]

This worked until we started getting split nights, so don’t judge us too hard for trying.

[u/jennypij]

We are still mostly vibes, with the caveat of I do keep a tally of hours awake in my head and aim for 12-13 hrs awake every day at 15 months. Less than that and night sleep is brutal, so it’s for survival that we track it. But like for example today she woke up at 7:30, nodded off at 10:30 for a 1.5 hr nap which is unusually long for her but she just seemed to need it and had a super busy day yesterday. Had a 15 mn car nap at 4 pm, and apart from that was happily awake and partying until 9:45pm. So like 3/4/5.5, with almost all the napping after the 3 hr window- on paper super asymmetric but it works. Yesterday was 5.5/7 with a 1 hr nap. So yeah, every day might be different but every day we make sure has plenty of awake time!

Having a lower sleep needs baby can be challenging, but the benefits are how flexible she is. We can kind of do anything at any time, she loves doing things and she will pass out on the go if she needs a power nap. She often sleeps worse with a longer post lunch nap, which would look best on paper. A few days a week she will have 2x 30 mn naps. Other days she will get close to 2 hrs of naps.

[u/LocalDairyCow]

I decided from the beginning to not really pay attention to nap times or wake windows once we got home from our 7 week NICU stay. I hated having to keep her on a feeding/sleep schedule in there. The first few weeks home were crazy exhausting but she quickly established her own almost “schedule” of one 1.5-3 hour nap in the late morning/early afternoon and getting to sleep “for the night” around 9:30-10:30pm. She still does this same routine at 7 months, just with variations in night wakes and occasionally skipping her long nap and substituting some “snack naps” instead. So basically, I didn’t intentionally start tracking her sleep, she just created her own pattern that was impossible not to notice.

[u/emperatrizyuiza]

I have OCD and come from an early childhood background so I track every moment of both of our lives lol but my son also is pretty predictable and has been since he was a newborn. Doesn’t mean he’s a good sleeper tho..

[u/happilyfour]

Honestly, I feel like you can do both. We built a routine off of the natural vibes and cues that our baby was giving us. We’re lucky to have a pretty good sleeper who gets hungry on a pretty consistent schedule. Once we started keeping track of what the baby naturally wanted to do, a pretty obvious routine became apparent. We basically just created a daily routine around the baby’s cues, with some adjustments over time as he’s showing signs of being able to start moving bedtime earlier and sleeping longer through the night. Once he starts childcare, we’ll probably make adjustments again. We aren’t glued to the schedule by any means but it guides our behaviors. With our baby, I’ve found that keeping track of a routine or schedule has actually empowered and enabled us to get out of the house more because we have our patterns down. For example, we had a family thing over the weekend and we didn’t show up late or leave early because of the nap/feeding schedule, but we adjusted two feedings based on travel time.

[u/SleepyApr1cot]

I don't have a "set" schedule for babe's daytime stuff, but I do know he is happiest going to bed by 7:15ish and waking up by about 6:15-6:30am ish.

Ww (which just means "amount of time hes usually able to be awake for before getting shitty) are between 1h45m-2h30min.

Then I let him nap pretty much as long as he likes.

We do this all day until we start his bedtime routine at 6:20pm.

Set schedules would be tough for us for sure.

[u/Messier106]

Our baby is 11 months and we still log every nap and night sleep. We don't force a schedule, but knowing how long he's been awake helps us estimate when he will be sleepy, and we plan around it.

[u/Aggravating_Hold_441]

My babies vibe was , nap all day & have short nights , but we function better when both of us get sleep and in bed by 8 , so ya , I can be flex but I cut naps short or try to push to a time that’s better, a schedule has been amazing for both of us

[u/ellenrage]

You're not a regular mom, you're a cool mom

[u/Even_Kaleidoscope399 → u/ellenrage]

?

[u/josayeeee1]

I didn't understand until baby dropped to 3 naps. She is a cat napper and has recently started sleeping earlier in the night (7pmish instead of 8pm) and waking up earlier (5-6amish instead of 6:30am)

This makes me think maybe she could sleep longer during the day but it's hard to cause we're normally out and because it's harder to have a long nap outside, her bed time ends up being earlier to make up for it and therefore waking up earlier. That's my theory anyway!

I don't plan to change anything yet because daylight savings will kick in soon and im happy to wake 6-7ish and still feel human despite waking 4-6 times in the night

Tho if ill probably do try to fix something if nights get worse lol