Question of the Week: Schedules

"Are You a Strict Scheduler?"

How old are your kids now? Have you always followed a rigid schedule?
Matthew and Nathan are 8 1/2 months old and we've been following a schedule since we brought them home from the NICU.  They were born at 35 weeks, 3 days, they were put on a strict 3 hour gavage-feeding schedule at the hospital, so we kept it up at home.We then started stretching it to 4 hours at about 4 months.
 
Do you think that your schedule is conducive to healthy sleep patterns in your kids?
Yes! Yes! Yes!  It took just a few weeks of training and they've been sleeping through the night since the middle of the fourth month.  Now they sleep 7am-7pm with the exception of illness or travel.

Do people give you a lot of flack for being a strict scheduler? How do you respond?
I think a few people disagreed with me during the sleep training period, but I didn't let it get to me.  The multiples moms I knew continued to encourage me that it was the right thing to do - and now I'm glad I did. 
 
Has your routine become more relaxed as your kids have gotten older?
No, not much.  We're starting some weekly morning activities this winter that will interfere a bit with the morning nap, but I think they're beneficial for the boys and me so it's worth putting them in our schedule. One week in and they've done well just taking the morning and afternoon naps a bit later. 

How do you kids react when they are completely off their schedules- and how do you get them back on track?
Whenever we travel with the boys, the first night there and the first night home are always the worst.  It usually takes a day of just staying at home and "reprogramming" them to our old schedule and they go right back to it.  We keep to such a tight schedule that their little tummies know when it's time to eat or sleep...yesterday they both did the army crawl into the kitchen and slapped the floor, hollering at me while I made the bottles!