Working Mom and Schedules

I'm back at work and DD and DS are at daycare. My problem is how to schedule naps??

We get up at 6:30am to eat and are out the door for daycare at 7:30. I want to implement a set morning and afternoon nap and switch from3 hr to 4 hr feedings as they are over 4 mo old now.

I've read the baby whisperer and Babywise, so I know naps are important (right now they are just sleeping whenever they drop off which isn't often at daycare). The problem is that they fall asleep on the way to daycare (30 min ride in traffic) and then wakeup once they get there. Do we need to start putting them back down for a nap when they get to daycare, but then that doesn't follow the eat, play, then sleep... DH says that I stress too much, but I think they would do well w/ a set nap time. I can't complain as they STTN now.

Any suggestions, and sorry for the rambling!

 

QUOTE(twinsunshine @ Mar 27 2008, 12:44 PM) [snapback]690272[/snapback]
I'm back at work and DD and DS are at daycare. My problem is how to schedule naps??

We get up at 6:30am to eat and are out the door for daycare at 7:30. I want to implement a set morning and afternoon nap and switch from3 hr to 4 hr feedings as they are over 4 mo old now.

I've read the baby whisperer and Babywise, so I know naps are important (right now they are just sleeping whenever they drop off which isn't often at daycare). The problem is that they fall asleep on the way to daycare (30 min ride in traffic) and then wakeup once they get there. Do we need to start putting them back down for a nap when they get to daycare, but then that doesn't follow the eat, play, then sleep... DH says that I stress too much, but I think they would do well w/ a set nap time. I can't complain as they STTN now.

Any suggestions, and sorry for the rambling!


Thank you for asking this question! I go back to work on Tuesday, and my head is spinning trying to figure all this out. My aren't really on any kind of schedule now. I'm not stressing out as much as I should be because they are home with DH for two weeks before they start daycare, but then I have no idea what to do. I've been reading books like crazy. Anyway, I'm no help, but glad to see there are others struggling with the same issues.

 

I'm kinda a schedule fanatic, so having my boys in daycare has been a constant stressor for me. I work 3 nights per week & they stay home with daddy, but then go to daycare the following morning so I can get some sleep. They usually go from 7am-3pm. I returned to work when they were 9 weeks old (since I had used up all my time with bedrest...grrr...) & have had nap/feeding issues ever since. I'm anal about them being fed on a similar schedule (within 30 mins of each other) and have grown REALLY anal about consistent naps. The problem for me is that my boys are only in daycare 11 days out of a month. The rest they're home with me & do just fine. It's the daycare days that are a problem. For example, on Tuesday they were at daycare & Conner only napped from 8:30-9am. HELLO? He's 8 mos old & NEEDS more sleep than that! Needless to say, I had an EXHAUSTED baby when I left.

I don't have any real pointers for you except to work closely with your daycare. After Tuesday, I've sat down with the director & the boys teachers to work on resolutions to our problems. Being that we're part time, it's so much harder than if we were full time. I've provided a typed out schedule for them to follow that closely mimics our home schedule & the daycare room schedule (we conformed to theirs for the most part) and that seems to have helped. We'll see how the following days go.

To the original poster, you'll probably never resolve your little ones falling asleep on the way to daycare, until they're older anyway. My drive is only 8 mins & sometimes, if they're too tired, I can't keep them awake for the drive home! I'd think that you could consider it a nice cat nap, but still try to devise some sort of 'routine' for naps/bottles/solids (when necessary) for them to follow at daycare. Try to experiment at home on your days off (weekends?) to see what you can come up with. When mine were your age, we weren't on any sort of nap schedule....sleep when they were tired, usually within 2 hrs of waking. They were on a set every 3 hr feeding schedule, though, and daycare was great about that. Tell them if you want your baby woken to eat (which I never did), how closely together you want them fed, etc. If they're a good center, they should work with you to make the best possible arrangements for your little ones.

I still find dropping them off at daycare highly stressful. I hate not knowing if they're napping well, eating well, or happy. If I didn't have to use daycare, believe me...I wouldn't. But, since we have no other option, this is what we're stuck with!

Oh & BTW, my boys have caught EVERY bug flying around the stupid daycare since they started. Be prepared for LOTS of illnesses (although, spring/summer is coming, so hopefully that'll help)!

GOOD LUCK!!!!

 

I started back to work a month ago-I just told my daycare provider the schedule I wanted to try to keep them on...eat, play and sleep-I said please watch for them to signal being tired and put them down for a nap, I asked her to attempt to get them back to sleep after an hour and half. I am not real stuck on being exact but just to try and follow that as a general rule of thumb. It wasnt a problem at all-she was happy to comply and things have been going fine.
I only have a 10min drive and mine usually fall back asleep on the way and typically stay asleep for a while and I just told her to start the schedule when they wake up.
I honestly have no way of knowing if this plan is actually being followed but that is the price we pay to go back to work and we have to trust that they will respect the way want our babies taken care of.
Good luck!

 

Just make sure you talk to her and let her know how you want the schedule to be. Most daycares are flexible and will try to work with what you want and how the babies are. With that sad (by the way, my girls were born a day before yours!) this is what happens with us:

5am wake up one of the girls, change, feed
5:20 (or when the first one is done) wake up the girl, change and feed
6:00 sometimes they will take a 30 - 45 min nap (we can't help this as this is the time my dh is getting my son ready to go to daycare also. I leave the house at 5:45 to go to work so he's on his own)
6:45 get everyone in car to go to daycare

Once they are in daycare, Jackie (our daycare provider) says they only nap once. It's part of then watching the older kids play and also getting that early nap in. When I'm home on the weekends with them, I will put then down for a nap about 2 hours after they wake up. At daycare they also then take a nap with the rest of the kids around 12 - 12:30 till 2 or 3pm.

Then the rest of the night goes like this:
5pm pick up from daycare
5:30 little nap at home (we are talking like 20 mins)
6:00 eat dinner with ds and then get him ready for bed
6:30 - 7pm get ready for bed (if it's bath night, bath) change to PJs, feed (I hand the first to dh to feed and I feed the other)
Then they are usually in bed by 7:30- 8 pm.

We are going to change up the evening though. As soon as i get home from work (5:30) I'm going to cook dinner and we are going to eat (my, dh and ds) and then we'll get the girls ready and put them to bed and THEN deal with ds. The girls are just so tired because they get up so early we need to get them to bed earlier.

So anyway, that is what we do. I of course have my ds so it throws another factor into the mix. And the whole thing with them falling asleep on the way to the daycare, we go 3 block (Jackie is in our neighborhood) and the girls still fall asleep on the way there sometimes. It's just something they'll grow out of when they realize there are neat things to look at on the way!!! As far as following the East activity sleep play thing, I did it with my son, but I'm finding it harder (ok impossible) to do with the girls. Basically I'm just trying to figure out what works best for them and our family and letting them lead (with a little coaxing along the way). Hopefully from reading people replies and seeing what other people do you'll get ideas that work for you. That's what I've done. Good luck!!! (and sorry for the novel!!!)

 

It's great reading that other people are going thru the same things. I'm only the 2nd to have kids in my group of friends and the only one w/ twins, so it's nice reading and seeing that other people can relate!! Anyone else w/ advice... bring it on as I will take all the advice that I can get!!! :blink:

 

You and DH are both right. They would probably do better with a set naptime, but when kids are in daycare, there is only so much you can do. Our daycare would put them down whenever they "seemed tired," which IMO was way beyond their sleepy cues. They took terrible naps at daycare, from 8 weeks until they went to one nap in the toddler room at 13 months. I did stress about it, and they were often really tired in the evening, but it did make it easier to put them to bed at 6:30. And it didn't do them any harm in the long run.

We tried to have regular naps on weekends, although it was harder because they didn't nap on a schedule at school. But we would take them for long stroller walks and they'd sleep the whole time, so at least they were catching up on the some of the sleep they missed.

And when they went through their "waking at 5:00" phases (which was maybe 6-11 months), I would often pop them back in the crib after breakfast for a little nap. If they screamed for more than 15 minutes, I'd give up, but usually they'd be so tired that they'd fall asleep and sleep at least half an hour before daycare.

The daycare was much more accommodating about feeding times. When I said (around 4 months?) that I wanted them to start feeding every 4 hours, the teacher acted relieved, like she had been waiting for me to say that. I still always brought in an extra bottle (or at least a half bottle) in case they got hungry earlier than usual -- I gave her the OK to feed at 3 hours if it was clear that the baby was hungry. I didn't want them to run out of bottles.

Anyway, the bottom line is, try to relinquish control and go with the flow. Schedules are nice, but babies can survive without them, and it doesn't help to stress about it. The whole scheduling thing gets much easier after 12 months or so.

 

My twins have been in daycare since I went back to work 12 weeks after delivery. Initially, I didn;t really expect a schedule since they were pretty young, but at about 4 months, I began really stressing about their napping in particular. They were just drifting off in bouncy chairs at random times during the day and only sleeping for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. DH and I finally typed out a detailed scheudle that we wanted to try to implement, which included at least 2 naps that were to happen in cribs. Just this past week or so, it seems they babies are starting to get the hang of it, and are taking at leat one nap that is 1-2 hours long and another that is about 45-60 minutes. They eat 7-8 ounces 3x/day while there. Our weekday schedule looks a little like this:

Babies awake at 6:15/6:30.
Bottle at 7/7:15
Drop off at daycare 8:30
Bottle at 9:30
Nap around 10am
Bottle at noon
Nap again around 2pm
Bottle at 4pm
Pick up around 5pm
Solids at home 5:30pm
Last bottle 6:30pm
In bed at 7pm

The babies nap and eat at the same time (or roughly). They probably don't need the 9:30 bottle at daycare and they do seem ready for their first nap around 8:30 or 9, but that is right when they are getting dropped off, and it's hard to make that trasition and pt them right down for a nap, so I use the 9:30 bottle as a way to ease them into napping a bit later. I do wichy they would get more sleep during the day, but I am happy that their naps are finally getting longer. Who knows if I'm doing this right or not(?) but they seem happy, relatively well-rested, and healthy. I have learned that there is only so much control I can have over the daycare situation/environment, and I've learned to relax and not stress out as much.