The EASY Schedule for your baby ~
I have done this with Jayden and Ella. I got the idea from Tracy Hogg’s book The Baby Whisperer My Grandma bought me this book when I was pregnant with Jayden and tried her tactics and THEY WORKED!! Here’s how the EASY Schedule works:
E stands for Eat
A stands for Activity Time
S stands for Sleep
Y stands for You Time
So, here’s why this schedule works WONDERS with me. Your baby wakes up from a nap and you instantly feed him/her. You do not let them fall asleep while eating. After they finish their bottle you give them activity time. For a newborn this can be a bath, staring into the wondrous world before them. Just time for them to be awake and not be sleeping. Then when they get fussy, guess what! They’re not hungry!!! You instantly know what the deal is. They’re tired. So you wrap them up, rock them and put them to sleep….then you get YOU TIME (time where you can sit and hear the peace, that is if you don’t have other children or the other children are in school!!) You can even schedule out what you’re going to do for each You Time!!! Ella’s at the age that during activity time she likes to get in her jumparoo and jump jump jump and that’s my internet time. My You Time is USUALLY spent working or doing my housework.
This schedule has not failed me through 2 kids now and I love it. I always know what’s next and so does Ella (she’s my current baby) I’m a WAHM and it’s nice to know that things are not out of control. It’s easy for us and I know that I can tell someone when I will be calling them back, because according to Ella’s schedule I know when she’s going to be tired.
OH! And w/this schedule, Jayden never relied on a bottle to fall asleep. Therefore, when he turned 1 – I threw all of his bottles away on her b/day and we had NO ISSUES!!! Straight to the sippy cup like a big boy!
And the exciting thing today – she’s sleeping right now, and when she wakes up she gets to eat baby food for the first time!!! Stay tuned for pictures!!!!
Hope this works for you like it’s worked for me!! I highly suggest reading her book 🙂
For other ideas, visit ROCKS IN MY DRIER
I just had to say hi because your WFMW title caught my eye at RIMD. We lived by EASY with all three of our kids (although I wasn’t as “by the book” with the last two) and can’t imagine it any other way. EASY saved my sanity when my oldest was a baby? Have you found the BW message boards, yet?? Those are some wonderful ladies! I was a part of the boards for about 4 years until life (and blogging) kinda got in the way, so I don’t visit much anymore, but it was a HUGE source of support for me.
Anyway, HI! from a fellow Baby Whisperer!!:)
I never heard of the acronym before, but did the same schedule with my third baby. It worked great!! Happy baby, happy mommy. 🙂
(The first two were preemie twins…different schedule entirely.)
Amanda, So glad that that’s working for you. I’ve never been a really scheduled person and some of the time it works great but as they get older and are more toddler age, I pay for it. LOL Maybe I’ll try this with Zachariah. I am kind of doing it without knowing it because he eats when he wakes up and then eventually gets tired and takes a nap (without a bottle) like now. 🙂 But bedtime, he always falls asleep after eating.
Miss you!