Sample Baby Sleep Schedule: Weeks 24-39 (Merge 5)

For your 6-9 month old after merge 5

Your baby is now half a year old and it's time for another merge, which is why we are here with a sample baby sleep schedule for weeks 24-39. While you are no doubt seeing your child's personality take shape and routines form, that doesn't change the fact that her body is still in transition.

Between 5 and 7 months, a partial feed-wake-sleep transition begins to take place, due to the introduction of solid foods and the emergence of the catnap, (a transitional nap, shorter in length, but still necessary). It happens when a baby no longer needs the additional sleep of another full afternoon nap, but is not quite ready to go without a short rest between his mid-afternoon nap and bedtime.

Catnaps can range between 30 minutes and an hour, and happen in the late afternoon, usually around dinnertime. Going from a full nap to a catnap does not eliminate a feed- wake-sleep cycle, but moves Baby's routine in that direction.

PDF babies typically drop their third naps and move to a catnap between 24-39 weeks. This large span of time represents a huge variation among babies, yet is a normal range of predictable behavior. It is just a unique fact of individuality that some babies drop the full nap and replace it with a catnap early on, while other babies continue with three naps a day well into the seventh month. Once your baby drops his third full nap, his daytime feed-wake-sleep cycles can range between 3½ to 4½-hours each day. That will depend on your baby's unique needs and the time of day.

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Baby's Sample Nap Schedule After Merge Five
(Weeks 24-39 with Catnap)

Activities

1. Morning: 7:00 a.m.

  1. Feeding
  2. Waketime
  3. Down for a nap

2. Late Morning

  1. Feeding
  2. Waketime
  3. Down for a nap

3. Mid-Afternoon

  1. Feeding
  2. Waketime
  3. Down for a Catnap*

4. Late Afternoon/Dinnertime

  1. Feeding
  2. Waketime

5. Early Evening

  1. Early Evening Waketime
  2. 8:00-8:30pm: Liquid feeding, down for the night

    * This is usually around dinnertime, (between 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.).

    (Further information on feed-wake-sleep cycles and nighttime sleep can be found in Babywise II.)

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    Excerpted with permission from On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo, M.A. and Robert Bucknam, M.D., copyright Parent-Wise Solutions, Inc. You can learn more and purchase the book here.

    Have even more comments? Leave a comment and one of our Babywise Support volunteers will do their best to help you.

    You can read more articles on Baby Sleep and Sample Baby Sleep Schedules here, or check out our additional resources below:


    Sami Cone

    Sami Cone

    Best-Selling Author & Speaker

    Sami Cone is the best-selling author of "Raising Uncommon Kids", is known as the "Frugal Mom" on Nashville's top-rated talk show "Talk of the Town" and educates over a million listeners every day on her nationally syndicated "Family Money Minute". She is proud to call Nashville home with her husband, Rick, and their two ‘tweenage' children.

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