When Your Baby Has an Off Day
When you’re in the thick of sleep training, I totally understand that you want everything to be perfect. You want your baby to take a 2-hour nap, the feeding times to be on the dot, and for your baby to never fall asleep “too early” for their nap. Sound familiar?!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: babies are not robots. This means your baby WILL have off days, and it’s going to be okay! Your baby will take short naps, skip naps altogether, stay up too late or sleep in too long. Not if, but when these things happen, it’s super easy to get back on track.
Let me tell you how.
You simply follow what I like to call, “the 15-minute rule”. This rule means you adjust your baby’s schedule by 15 minutes per feeding/per nap until you get back on track for bedtime! I know, it sounds confusing but I promise it’s not. It looks like this:
Baby normally naps from 8:30-10am. Today they only slept from 8:30-9:30, they wake up hungry so you feed at 9:30.
Next feed, aim for 12:45 (typically feed at 1)
Next feed, aim for 4:00 and now you’re right back on track!
Same with the nap, if they normally nap at 11:30 but woke up at 9:30 and can’t make it to 11:30, aim for 10:30, then 1:15, then 4:30 and you’re back on track for bedtime.
Worst case scenario, your baby’s entire day is off, you plan for an early bedtime and you try again the next day! I promise it’s not the end of the world and it will not ruin your baby’s sleep! Keep going:)
If you want to hear me dive into this topic in more detail, check out THIS podcast epsiode.