2 Month Old Baby Feeding And Sleeping Schedule Sample
If you haven’t read any of my previous posts on baby schedules, we are a family that believes in following a schedule with our babies! Following a baby schedule is one of the important factors that helped our second daughter to sleep through the night for 9 hours straight as not even a 2 month old baby. (She did it for the first time at 7 weeks old!)
To read more about how we got both of our daughters to sleep through the night from an early age you can also read my post here on 7 Tips To Help Your Baby Sleep Through The Night.
Having a 2 month old baby who sleeps through the night is not the end all be all. However, for me, having a baby that sleeps well at night is very important to my own health and sanity. I simply do not function well if I’m not getting decent stretches of sleep at night. Because it is such a high priority for me to sleep at night I keep my daughters on consistent schedules as much as I can. I don’t think it is the way that everyone needs to manage their babies, but it is the way that keeps me the most sane!
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We follow the principles from the book Becoming Baby Wise to build our daughters’ schedules and train their sleeping habits. The below schedule and details were for my second daughter when she was a 2 month old baby (specifically 6-10 weeks old). You can read the details of my oldest daughter’s schedule as a 2 month old baby here. (The schedule for my oldest daughter was actually for when she was 1-4 months old. I believe the schedule below for my second daughter is actually a little bit of a better representation of what a 2 month old baby should be following since we learned a few things after my first daughter! Primarily, I think the wake times for my oldest daughter’s schedule were too long for a 2 month old baby as wake times can shift considerably from 1 month to 4 months old.)
(Note: If babywise is not your thing but you’re realizing that you need help getting your baby to sleep you can get a free sleep assessment here from infant and child sleep consultant Dana Obleman.)
I would say that the biggest challenge we faced for my second daughter as a 2 month old baby was figuring out the appropriate wake time for her. I kept experimenting to find the right length so that she would be sufficiently tired but not overtired to go down for her naps, but I kept feeling like it wasn’t quite right! It finally seemed to land close to 45 minutes (including feeding time) each feed-wake-sleep cycle (again from the babywise book). 30 and even 40 minutes seemed too short but she seemed overtired if we went to 50 minutes. Every baby is probably different with their exact wake time needs so it might take a bit of experimenting to find your baby’s “sweet spot.”
From 6-10 weeks our daughter essentially repeated a feed-wake-sleep cycle 5 times, which means she had 5 naps each day and then a longer stretch of overnight sleep. During this period she had 6-7 feedings each day.
Our 2 Month Old Schedule Babywise From 6-10 Weeks:
7am – nurse
7:20-7:45am – wake time (my daughter usually took about 20 minutes to nurse, so this was wake time in addition to her feeding time. Feeding and wake time were finished by approximately 7:45am).
7:45-10am – nap (she didn’t always take her naps to full length, but when she didn’t I would try to soothe her back to sleep to finish the nap in my arms unless it was clear that she was hungry, needed a diaper, etc.)
10am – nurse (this feeding began the feed-wake-sleep cycle again).
10:20 – 10:45am – wake time
10:45 – 1pm – nap
1pm – nurse
1:20-1:45pm – wake time
1:45 – 4pm – nap
4pm – nurse
4:20-4:45pm – wake time
4:45-7pm – nap
7pm– nurse
7:20-7:45 – wake time
7:45-10pm – nap
10pm – nurse & bed
For the 10pm feeding we changed the diaper prior to feeding her so that our 2 month old baby could be fed, swaddled, and put right to bed. We did not give her any wake time after this feeding.
Our daughter started sleeping through the night for about 9 hours straight (from 10pm to 7am) for the first time when she was 7 weeks old. She was somewhat consistent after that with sleeping the whole way from the 10pm feeding to 7am, but she definitely had several days of waking up closer to 6am.
If our daughter woke before 7am on any particular day I would feed her in her room with white noise still on and without taking off her swaddle and set her right back down in bed until her 7am wake time. I would then feed her again at 7am to start the day even though she hardly ate anything if it hadn’t been very long between feedings. Doing this helped her internal clock to align to a 7am wake time and helped each day to begin for us at the same time so that we were then able to maintain a predictable routine.
The hardest thing to manage with overnight feedings for my 2 month old baby was when she would wake within an hour of her 7am “start” time for the day. If she woke at 6am or later it was very hard to get her to resettle after feeding her since she was ready to start the day. It was especially difficult if she woke around 6:30am since by the time I was done feeding her it was nearly 7am. For these days I often ended up just feeding her at 6:30 and trying to stretch her first morning nap a half hour longer so that her next feeding lined up with the schedule for the day.
Even though I followed a schedule I also always allowed for flexibility to the schedule based on my 2 month old baby’s needs. If I knew my daughter was hungry because she didn’t get a good last feeding, was experiencing a growth spurt, or any other reason I always fed her and then just tried to adjust the rest of the day so that her last 10pm feeding still happened at 10pm. If she woke early from any of her naps I typically tried to soothe her back to sleep to help her finish the nap (even though I very much seek to have my daughters take all of their naps in their cribs).
I sought to follow the above babywise schedule sample with my 2 month old baby girl, but there were also many days that required flexibility. The general framework of the schedule still helped my daughter to learn to sleep well at night and kept me a sane momma through the early weeks of her life!
You can find the outline of some of my additional schedules below, or in the main menu under baby-schedules.
Read more of my second daughter’s schedules:
Birth-2 Week Sample Schedule
2-5 Week Sample Schedule
Read my oldest daughter’s later schedules:
4-6 Month Sample Schedule
6-12 Month Sample Schedule
Were your daughters swaddled during any feedings, particularly their 10pm or overnight feedings, or did you always unswaddle and reswaddle them? I’ve read some folks say unswaddling was disruptive to their kids, so I’m curious what worked for you. Thanks!
My son is 2 months old and has done well with PDF so far. But he isn’t napping well. I make sure that he is fed and has wake time then we help to relax and make sure he is drowsy before putting him down. But lately he has only been sleeping for 45 minutes. I let him cry to see if he will settle himself but he never does, he goes from a whimper to a frustrated cry. I pick him up to comfort him for a few minutes and try putting him back down but he is clearly awake and ready to be up. I have tried cutting down his wake time because I thought he might be getting over stimulated. But he doesn’t even come close to taking a 2 hour nap.
We have also been struggling with getting him to sleep completely through the night. We put him down for bed at 10pm but he wakes up at 4:30am like clock work. The same thing happens here. I try to let him settle himself but he grows increasingly frustrated. Thinking that he is hungry I try to feed him. He eats for only a few minutes, starts to fall asleep but when I put him down he wakes up. So then I change him, try to feed him again – he eats for another few minutes and then finally is asleep enough to sleep until the start of his day at 7am. Is he ready to sleep from 10pm-7am? Is there something I can change to get him to sleep all the way through?
Some of your questions only a doctor could answer as it depends on his weight and growth, etc. I know my girls struggled intensely in some seasons though to take longer naps as well. I often tried to rock them through after the 45 min cycle or give them my finger to suck on (they did that instead of pacis) so that they could still continue to sleep. They definitely needed longer but would wake after the sleep cycle at 40 min or so. Sometimes I had to hold them through the rest of the nap just to get them to sleep more. I always knew that if they didn’t nap well during the day the overnight would be worse. As far as overnight, I’ve learned that each of my babies were on their own schedule with extending their stretches. If you have the right framework in place, they might just be slower to get there. My recommendation would be to just be patient.
Hopefully you’re still getting messages:-)
My almost 6 week old daughter does amazing cycles during the day(mostly have to wake her
For feedings from naps) but from 7-10/11pm she struggles to fall asleep and is more awake. Since this is when she is supposed to be going
To bed, any suggestions?
yes, that period of time can be so fussy!! I would recommend keeping stimulation as low as possible (no bright lights, try to keep the tv off, not a lot of stimulating toys). You may want to experiment with adding an additional feeding since that can be the cluster feeding time of day as well. If you are breastfeeding it could be possible that your supply is lower in the evenings and she is more hungry.
My son is 2 months old and we’re struggling with getting him to sleep longer than 3 hour stretches at night. Our routine is basically the same as yours above except he is not sleeping through the night like above. I have so many questions for you!! How did you go about transitioning from waking in the night to not.. when your baby woke did you just let them cry a period of time? Then rock/shush? At what point would you eventually give in and nurse.. or didn’t you? Did they eventually get tired enough from the crying and fall asleep? Sorry this is such a loaded question I’ve just tried everything and really am looking to have a successful night of him sleeping.. for my sanity!! Thanks 🙂
I’m so sorry for the delay in responding! I hope you’ve seen some relief since you posted this!! At 2 months old if she woke overnight she was almost always hungry. We would give it just a few minutes to make sure it wasn’t a sleep cry that she would quickly resettle from and then I would feed her (and diaper if needed) and swaddle her and lay her back in the crib. (Are you swaddling? Because if we tried to leave her unswaddled at this age she woke like every two hours because she would startle herself awake with her arms!) If she cried after I laid her back down we gave her time to just cry and learn that she needed resettle. (I also kept the lights as dim as possible overnight for feedings and diapers and did not talk to her to try to help her learn that we didn’t wake at night to have attention – but just to eat. We also ran a white noise machine for her.) If she couldn’t resettle after a period of time then we would help soothe her, but it usually wasn’t necessary overnight. I hope that helps some! Milk supply can also be lower in the evening if you are nursing, so just another thought if he is indeed waking of hunger every time..
Hi! Great example schedule. I’m curious though – I’m in the very very early stages of trying the Babywise method but I’m curious how you got through the early stages. My main challenge right now is my two month old daughter will go down for a nap but then wake up after 30-45 minutes and scream until I come get her. I’ve tried letting her cry it out for 10-20 minutes but she never does calm herself down. Any advice? Thanks!
This sounds all too familiar haha! Naps were bad that way I would say for about the first 4 months. I always gave some time to cry when they woke mid-nap just so they would learn that I wasn’t going to rush to soothe them right away whenever they cried, but after a set amount of time I would always then help to soothe them back to sleep. (This usually meant giving them my finger to suck on since they didn’t take pacis and rocking them.) I was often able to get them to fall back asleep and finish the duration of the nap – whether in my arms or if I was able to get them back into the crib. If they absolutely wouldn’t fall back asleep I still tried to keep them soothed and not super stimulated or interacted with so they would fall into a rhythm with when to rest. By about 4 months old both of my daughters started to sleep their naps MUCH more fully and reliably.
So when you lay them down for naps and bedtime you simply swaddle them and put them in bed and let them put themselves to sleep? No nursing to sleep?
Right – no nursing to sleep. This helps them learn to fall asleep on their own so that they can also fall back asleep through sleep cycles overnight and during naps. Now, at 2 months old they didn’t just fall asleep when laid in the crib. There was usually a period of crying or fussing. I always allowed it for a period of time and if they weren’t settling down I would then go in and help to rock them to sleep or let them suck on my finger (they didn’t take pacis) to fall asleep. By 4-6 months old they would fall asleep with little to no fussing when just put in the crib.
When do you change her diaper? Right after she wakes before feeding? Or after she eats?
I usually tried to wait until after she ate because eating seemed to often stimulate her going…
How did you determine wake time of 7 am and bed time of 10 pm? I thought babies usually have to go to bed earlier so 10 pm seems kind of late?
Hi there! I probably didn’t make it clear enough in the post, but we basically put our daughter to bed at 7:45pm. The 10pm feeding was just to help her sleep a longer stretch while we were asleep, but we did not diaper her (unless absolutely necessary) or allow any wake time after this feeding. So we woke her just to feed at 10pm. We did that because she still couldn’t make it fully through the night and we wanted her longest stretch to fall over our sleeping time. By 4 months old that 10pm feeding was completely dropped and she would sleep from 7pm-7-7:30am. We chose the wake time of 7am simply because that’s what worked best with our schedule for the mornings. With consistent training to wake at 7am, both of our girls wake around that time every morning which works well for our needs.
Hi. How were you able to drop the 10oclock feeding once that was part of routine?!
We actually did it cold turkey. I just stopped feeding her at the 10pm time and started letting her sleep from bedtime until she woke overnight hungry. I think I may have pumped at that time for a little bit to help my body adjust to not having the feeding before entirely not worrying about it.
What do you do for wake times? Tummy time or other stimulating activities or do you let your little one just be naturally awake?
At 2 months old wake time was mostly just our daughters being naturally awake and us maybe talking to them, etc. but we didn’t do much in the way of specific activities. We did try to do a lot of tummy time though! (As much as they would tolerate haha.) By between 2-3 months old though we were able to start doing a few small toys with them and an over-head hanging play gym type of thing so wake time activities started to become more exciting at that point.
Hi! Do you swaddle for naps or only for bedtime?
We swaddled for all sleep (naps & bedtime) until she started rolling over a little bit after 3 months old. If we didn’t swaddle she would startle herself awake with the startle reflex. With the swaddle she did much better taking longer naps and sleeping longer stretches at night since it kept her from involuntarily swinging her arms and startling herself.
Thank you so much! I always wanted to know that.
I noticed you are nursing…did you wake during the 9 hr stretch to pump or did your supply even out and not drop?
Yes, I was nursing. It may be different for everyone, but I did not have an issue with my supply even once she was sleeping this long at night so I did not wake up to pump. With my first daughter I kept a late night pumping even once she was sleeping and I very much regretted it due to the loss of sleep it caused me, so with my second daughter (this schedule) I did not pump late at night once she dropped that feeding. With my first daughter it would have caused me issue with my supply (most likely) but with my second daughter my supply in general was much better and letting myself sleep this long stretch did not effect it. Even between my two daughters it was different, so I’m sure a lot of it just depends on each person’s supply!
When do you run errands/outings in the schedule, and how do you keep to the schedule when you’re out?
Do you wake your daughter if she is still sleeping past her scheduled wake up/feed time? My 2 month old frequently takes longer naps than this, but we are not currently on any set schedule.
Keeping the schedule while out is incredibly hard. I’ll be honest – I really didn’t get out much with either of my daughters until they were at least 6 months old. (There becomes much longer happy wake times around that point.) Most of the time it really wasn’t worth getting them all thrown off their schedule to run errands when younger than 6 months as it would then often affect their nighttime sleep or make them overtired and incredibly cranky. I would go after they were in bed at night instead when my husband was home. If I HAD to run out I would plan it for right after a feeding so that it would hopefully impact naps as little as possible and aim to disrupt as few of the eat, wake, sleep cycles in the schedule as possible.
Yes, I did wake my daughters if they were still sleeping by the end of their nap time. I did this so that they would get enough feedings in during the day and also so that they would learn that their long stretches of sleep were reserved for overnight. It was really hard to do when they were sleeping peacefully, but as a result they both became very good nighttime sleepers and I had consistency to my days which I desperately needed just to plan life.
Hi! I was wondering when you do bathtime in this schedule?
Great question! We were not ones that did daily baths with infants, so when she needed a bath we just snuck it into one of her wake times that day. We really didn’t follow a firm routine with when we did bath time.
I think this routine is a keyword! I sleep trained my second son with Susan Ubran’s HWL method (www.parental-love.com – it’s the best!). That was the moment I realized my older one was living chaos for the past 3 years! We established kind-of-routine by accident at some point but the whole process was very hard. With this book, when I was reading those step-by-step instructions I was thinking: WHY NOW?! Why didn’t I think of that sooner? So now we have a routine for both of them and our family life is easier than ever.
I’m not familiar with Susan’s method, but I absolutely agree with routine making everything run smoother! I’m thankful in a way that our first baby was a difficult one because it drove us to discover that sooner. Every family is different and with a different dynamic, but our family is definitely a happier one with little ones on a routine. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story!
I’ve heard about this book before and was not so sure about this. But when I tried – I changed my mind! It’s totally cool that just few pages of information are changing your life this much this fast. Susan is the best!
I really liked this step-by-step structure of this book. Clear and easy to follow. 10/10 for Susan!