Schedule

i followed my babies natural schedule & based on that i created a bedtime routine that gets him in bed between 8-9:30 depending on the night but it sets the schedule for the next day. Now i’ve been doing this since he was about 3wks so he’s pretty good with it but i always try to go off of his signals & it’s gonna take some time so try to be patient if that’s the route you go. i focus specifically on a good bedtime routine that works for us & i also feed him in the side lying position only for bedtime and nighttime feed. he spends about 10-12hrs sleeping broken into 2-4 different sections depending on the night. & he only wakes to feed and he is usually half asleep while feeding.

My son has always fallen asleep for the night between 9:30-10. So based on that, after a few weeks of letting him choose his own schedule, we found that 10 pm is his ideal bedtime because he wakes between 6:45-7:30 each morning. By doing this time, he has slowly fallen into a pattern of 3 large (1-2 hours) naps during the day. 1st @ about 1.5-2 hours after waking, 2nd @ about 12:30-2pm, 3rd @ about 5-6:30pm, then he goes down for bed again around 9:30-10. We never forced nap times, but encouraged quiet low stim environments during these times and he’s solidified his schedule.
He has also kept this nap schedule regardless of how many times he wakes in a night, which I find great.
For bedtime routine, since we don’t bathe every night, we always dim the room to just his nightlight, put on lotion, get him dressed, feed, read a book, do one last feed/comfort nurse, then into bed.

Though he’s been having a rough time not swaddling anymore, and now wakes between 5-10 times a night, where he used to sleep through the night with the occasional wake up around 4:30-5am, since he was about 4 weeks old, so it’s been quite the time handling this change haha

I’ve noticed some consistency when I started waking my LO up at the same time every day. There can be some variety in our schedule give or take 15-30 minutes. But for the most part we have the same routine daily. If you aren’t waking up consistently within the same range I would start there

Usually I’d say start the night with a bath (helping relax a baby will get them comfortable with sleeping) then change in sleepers and fresh diaper and swaddle and then make sure their bellies are full , burp then they might sleep during feeding . Try to have the lights off when feeding so they can get use to day and nights