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The Truth About Putting Your Baby on a Schedule
New parents are often confused about the importance of putting their

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baby on a schedule. Should schedules be avoided or embraced? Like so
many other child-rearing issues, there’s more than one right answer.
Toddlers and young children love routines. They feel secure and safe
when they know what’s going to happen. In another year or two, you’ll
probably have a bedtime ritual: “blankie,” warm milk, and Goodnight
Moon to guide your sweet child into peaceful sleep—every night.
Similarly, flexible eating/sleeping schedules can be a great help to
young babies and their parents. That’s especially true if you have twins,
older children, if you’re working out of the house, and/or you’re a single
parent.
But before you try to put your new baby on a schedule, you should
know that scheduling is a fairly new parenting concept. Mothers in the
past didn’t feed their babies according to the time on the sundial. And
many moms today don’t feel right trying to fit their baby into a preset
mold.
I am not saying it is wrong to try to put your one-month-old baby on a
schedule. Just as long as you understand that babies have only been
“asked” to bend themselves to our clock-driven schedules over the past
hundred years, and many babies are simply too immature to do it.
Your baby’s receptiveness to being put on a schedule depends upon his
ability to handle delayed gratification. In other words, how good is he at

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holding off his need for food or sleep? Some newborns are easily
distracted, but others take months before they can ignore their brain’s
demands for milk or rest. The parents of these babies must patiently
delay their desire to get their infants on a schedule until their babies are
ready for one.
That said, if you want to try your baby on a schedule after one to two
months, the best way to begin is by increasing the time between his
daytime feedings to three hours. Of course, if he’s hungry before two
hours are up (and you can’t soothe him any other way) forget the
schedule and feed him. Also, wake him up and feed him if he goes more
than four hours without crying for food. Babies who go too long without
food during the day often wake up and feed more at night.
The next step in scheduling is to train your infant to fall asleep
without a nipple in his mouth. After his feeding, play with him for a
little while before you put him to sleep. That will begin to teach him he
can put himself to sleep. If he immediately passes out after you fill his
belly with warm milk, that’s okay, just jostle him until he opens his eyes.
Then lay him down and let him float back into sleep. With patience over
the next month or two, this will help your baby develop the ability to
put himself to sleep.
It’s easier to establish a schedule if you follow the same pattern
every day. After your baby is a month old, start this reassuring
nighttime routine:
low lights
toasty bath
loving massage with heated oil
some warm milk
cozy swaddle
a lullaby … softly sung
and

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gentle white noise playing in the background
Within a short period of time, the constant association of these
experiences to your baby’s sleep time will work almost like
hypnosis. As soon as you start the routine he’ll say to himself,
“Wow, I feel sleepy already!”
Most infants automatically fall into a regular pattern after a month or
two; however, if you can’t wait to establish a more predictable routine,
feel free to give scheduling a try.
If, on the other hand, he seems to resist being molded to your
schedule, I encourage you to respond to your tiny baby’s needs with
promptness and love; you can always try the schedule again in a week.
The bottom line is that your job as a parent is to adapt to the needs of
your newborn, not the other way around.