First 3 Months: Gray’s Sleep Schedule

Sleep Schedule

Okay, now onto Gray’s sleeping schedule. For the first 6 weeks, Gray slept in our room in the Snoo bassinet. Basically it encompasses the idea of a swaddle and adds in sound + motion to soothe your baby and keep them asleep longer/pacify them if they are upset. A few things to know about the Snoo:

1. It is expensive (full price is $1295). They do run 40% off sales every now and again, so if you are pregnant and are wanting to buy it, I would sign up to receive emails. It will definitely go on sale within the 9 months you are pregnant and you can buy it for significantly less.
2. They do offer a 40% off military discount here. This is what we did since Scott is a veteran.
3. If you don’t want to buy, there is a monthly rental option. Depending on how long you think you’ll use it (max is 5-6 months) and whether or not you plan to use it with future children down the road, this may be a great option for you.

The first 2-3 weeks at home, Gray hated the Snoo. We would strap him in and he literally would lose his mind. We did everything we could think of to get him to like it, but nothing worked. Finally around week 3, he seemed to like it a little more and now he loves it!

When Gray was 6 weeks old, we moved the bassinet from our room into the nursery and that is where Gray has been sleeping. Making the decision to move your baby into their own room is totally up to you, but between the Snoo, the monitor, and the Owlet, we felt like he would be fine.

Below, I included some screenshots from the Snoo app- it pairs with your bassinet and tracks your baby’s sleeping patterns. The blue indicates that Gray is calm; the red indicates that he is fussy and the Snoo is trying to soothe him.

Quite a few of you have asked when and how we plan to transition Gray to his crib. Obviously, the crib doesn’t move like the Snoo does, so we will have to first get Gray used to no movement. The makers of the Snoo (Happiest Baby) recommend transitioning your baby at 5-6 months old to the crib. However, starting around 3 months old, we noticed that Gray was able to free his arms from the Snoo swaddle- don’t ask us how…it’s still a mystery how he does it. The Snoo sleep sack does have openings that you can unsnap to let your child’s arms through, so we did that for about a week and Gray seemed to like it! Once I knew he could sleep without being swaddled, we just decided to start weaning him from the Snoo and into the crib. There is a ‘weaning’ feature on the Snoo app where the base level changes from a gentle rocking motion to no motion at all. The white noise sound still plays. If your child starts crying, the Snoo will gently start rocking, but once your child is calm, it will go back to no movement at all. We have been using this feature for the last 1.5 weeks and Gray has been doing great! When we lay him down at night, the Snoo is not moving and generally he doesn’t wake at all during the night. There have been a few times where he gets fussy around 4 AM, but the Snoo is able to rock him back to sleep and eventually stop moving.

About a week ago, we decided to start putting Gray in his crib for nap time during the day. We have the Hatch Baby sound machine, so we turn that on and he (thankfully!) does well in the crib. We really should go ahead and put him in the crib for nighttime as well to see how he does, but for some reason I just can’t cut the cord with the Snoo at night haha! We will likely fully transition him to the crib sometime over the next week, so wish us luck!

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Gray’s Daily Schedule

The last thing I wanted to touch on is what a typical day looks like for us- each day varies, but generally speaking we do keep to a certain schedule. This schedule is based on Gray being 3 months old:

• 6-7 AM: Gray wakes and feeds 5-7 ounces
• 7-9 AM: After feeding, Gray is usually up for 1.5-2 hours. We have ‘activity time’ where we play, do tummy time, and snuggle
• 9-11:30 AM: Nap time- Gray gets a little fussy which means he is tired. Generally, his first morning nap is his longest of the day and will last 2.5-3 hours.
• 11:30 AM- 1:30 PM: Gray is up and feeds 5-7 ounces. We play and hang out together.
• 1:30 PM- 3:30 PM: Nap time- This nap can be tricky because it can be anywhere between 45 minutes – 2 hours depending on the day. If it is a shorter nap, he will feed (5-7 ounces) again once he wakes up.
• 4 PM – 7:30 PM: This is the toughest part of the day aka ‘the witching hour.’ Whenever Gray wakes from his late afternoon nap, I will feed him typically no more than 5 ounces because I want him to be hungry again around 6:45 (which is his big nighttime bottle). Once he feeds 5ish ounces around 4:30-5 PM, we basically try to keep him entertained until bedtime. It is also tricky because this is the same time that we are trying to prep and eat dinner. I like to wear Gray in my Solly wrap during this time and sometimes he will end up taking a catnap for 30 minutes from 5:30-6 PM (just depends on the day). I do not let him sleep past 6 PM though- we need him to be sleepy at bedtime. Around 6:15 PM, I will take Gray up to his room and start our bedtime routine. We bathe him every other day (again, personal preference here!), so some nights include a bath and others don’t. Gray loves bath time, so its a good distraction for him and gives us something to do before bed. On no-bath nights, I will take my time putting pajamas on him and try to entertain him in his room.
• 6:45 PM- 7:30 PM: I feed Gray a 7-8 ounce bottle, burp him, and then rock him to sleep. We only have the Hatch Baby night light on and have white noise going. We keep it very calm and mellow in his room once this feeding starts because I want him to know that it is bedtime. Sometimes he will fall asleep quickly, other nights I can be rocking him for what seems like forever (and I have to ask Scott to take over). A good night would be that he is in bed by 7:30 PM; a not so great night would be that he stays up/is fussy past 8:30 PM.

WOW- okay. That was a lot of information! If you made it to the end of this GOD BLESS YOU! It has literally taken me multiple days to write this because I keep coming back and adding more info and feel like I have more to say. I hope this is helpful for you moms-to-be and current moms out there! As always, thank you for reading! XO- A