LILY’S EATING AND SLEEPING SCHEDULE: 20 MONTHS
Reading the last Lily eating and sleeping update is just wild because I can’t believe how much things have changed. I mean, I should probably just be used to that by now because every thing in the world of babies is a short lived “phase,” this one included. Although, once you read this, you’ll understand why I would love for this routine to remain the norm…I’m just not getting my hopes up!
To quickly re-cap, months 12-16 were a shit show with sleep. 4-5 am mornings, middle of the night wake ups, no naps, dropping naps, etc. It was a mess and DC and I felt like we had a newborn at home with the amount of sleep we were(n’t) getting.
So before I get into our current schedule, I always like to recap with a list of past posts that will help get you up to speed or potentially be more relevant to you depending on your child’s age:
Lily is just about to turn 20 months old and the last two months have truly been great with her sleep. I strongly believe that this is because we implemented changes in her schedule that help support her sleep needs.
Since she was 4 months old, bed time was always around 7/730pm. So when I was complaining to my therapist about Lily’s early morning wakings and she suggested we move bedtime up by an hour, I thought it was a crazy idea. I just assumed an earlier bed time meant an even earlier morning, which we couldn’t handle. But she explained to me that Lily is likely going to bed over tired and thus causing her to wake up even earlier. At that point, I was willing to give anything a shot and we agreed to move up bed time plus move up nap time and dinner (don’t worry, full schedule below)!
We no longer count wake windows and stick to this schedule as strict as possible, no matter what, even if she doesn’t nap well, wakes up early or sleeps in. We don’t adjust the times to accommodate for anything else and I really think it’s the consistency with our routine that has helped with her sleep.
As with any change to routine, there was some transitioning for a week or two where we still dealt with early mornings, middle of the nights and crappy naps. But since making these changes, her sleep has been incredible and we’re just hoping it stays as long as possible.
Eating wise, I am actually writing this right before we are about to make a major change – taking the bottle away (ahhh!!) Lily currently has a bottle in the morning and before bed and our paediatrician advises getting rid of the bottle by 2 years old. But since we are bringing a newborn home before that, she said the sooner we get rid of the bottle the better. We have been been putting it off for so long, mainly because her sleep has been so good and we don’t want to do anything to mess it up.
Our Dr’s suggestion for getting rid of the bottle is to make some sort of “ritual” such as (pretending to) throw the bottles in the garbage, say “bye bye bottles” and “big girls don’t use bottles anymore.” And then offer the milk in a sippy cup. She said Lily likely won’t drink the same amount of milk, if any, from the sippy cup and if we feel we need to, we can offer more dairy in her diet. I personally she think she gets more than enough dairy already so I won’t try and compensate for the lack of milk.
So the plan is to get rid of it this week, at some point. I will keep you posted on how it goes!
In terms of meals, the full schedule is below but we still have issues at meal time with food throwing, refusing to eat, high chair antics, etc. She pretty much always eats breakfast but lunch and dinner are a gamble. Some days she eats, some days she doesn’t.
You’ve heard me talk about this before but one thing we do that helps at meal time is offer a “safe food,” which is a food we know she loves and will always eat. It’s usually some sort of berry or watermelon. I used to be afraid that if we offered fruit before or with a meal she would only eat the fruit and nothing else but we actually find it just gets her started eating and she’ll eat at least one other thing on the plate.
A typical plate has 3-4 offerings, example: pasta, avocado, berries and a salmon patty. I offer very limited amounts so she doesn’t feel overwhelmed and then let her ask for more. And we tend to just prep and reheat the same thing 3-4 days in a row.
Snacking wise, we still rely on them a lot for things like getting her in the stroller or car seat. I’m sure it ruins her appetite and we could be better at trying other ways to get her to cooperate instead of bribing her with snacks. I’m also sure if we didn’t rely on snacks so much, she would eat better at meal times as she would be hungrier. But, we are far from perfect and do what we can to get by.
Alright, time to share the schedule. I always have to preface that a) this is what works for us, not what I’m suggesting you do with your child. And b) not every single day is like this, but for the most part, this is what a typical day looks like:
7:30/8:00 am: wake up. We usually hear her talking to her toys around 7:30 but can leave her for a while. She seems to just be playing in the crib and happy. Even when we do go in to get her, sometimes she just likes to lie in the crib and play and show us her toys. She sleeps in a sleep sack and in her crib she has a stuffed flamingo, minnie mouse and baby.
8:15 am: 8oz bottle whole milk
9:30 am: breakfast (usually yoghurt with peanut butter or banana pancakes)
11:15 am: lunch (usually pasta, cucumbers, turkey slices, cheese. fruit or any recipes from my e-book)
12:30-2:30 pm: nap. If she refuses her nap which happens from time to time, we make sure she is in her crib for at least an hour. Doesn’t happen often but that’s the rule we stick by. We cap her nap and always wake her up by 2:30 pm the latest.
5:15 pm: dinner. Same type of food as lunch.
6:00 pm: bed/bath routine starts. Usually a bath, 8 oz bottle of whole milk, read some books and play.
6:30 pm: in crib asleep. Most it ever takes her to fall asleep is 5 minutes but she’s usually out by the time we’re downstairs haha.
We still have middle of the night wakings or crying, probably a few times a week but it seems like it’s just in her sleep and we never go in unless we think something is wrong. As I said above, we are hopeful this stays the norm but between taking away the bottle and brining home baby sister, I am confident we will be having some sleep issues in the next few months. For now, I’ll just enjoy this time!