Perhaps I need to be more consistent
^ This here is the key to everything you do with a baby. Be consistent, make their day predictable - easier for you and for them.
There are a couple of suggestions I'd make:
- Pick a WU time and wake him then, every morning for the first week. BT will be 12-12.5hr after that time.
- Stick with A time of 1.5hr (eyes open to eyes closed, includes feeds, etc.) for the first one and preferably take LO outside during this time - a bit of sunshine helps regulate the body clock and gets you some fresh air
![Smiley :)](https://smiley.babywhispererforums.com/Smileys/classic/smiley.gif)
- When you PD for night sleep, resettle in his room only - no lights, no taking him out of the room, just run every waking as you would if it were 3am.
- Be ready at both 25-30min and 40-45min into each nap to resettle - much easier to resettle if you're there and catch him when he's stirring than to resettle him from worked up and screaming, yk? That will help him learn to sleep through that transition from sleep cycle to sleep cycle. This is not forever - just for the first few days until you see him managing the transition on his own. It also sets him up to accept this same kind of help as he grows older and needs help through teething, sleep disturbances related to development, etc.
I'd hazard a guess that he's overtired at least and possibly overstimulated at BT. What happens at home in that hour before bed? When DS was little, he would actually shake with excitement when DH got home and we had to keep that time quite low key and have lots of Daddy cuddles to help him calm down enough to sleep.
As a skeleton, your routine may look like this:
7:30 - WU
9 - nap
10:30 - feed
12 - nap
1:30 - feed
3 - nap
4:30 - feed
6 - catnap (45min)
7:30 - BT (as in, in bed asleep, not starting BT routine)
It will change to something more like this by 4 months:
7:30 - WU
9:30 - nap
11 - feed
1 - nap
2:30 - feed
4:30 - nap
6 feed
7:30 - BT
That can happen just by watching the clock to 10min before A time should finish then watching LO for sleep cues and acting on those but putting down for a nap 20min from then if you haven't seen any cues. For example, if WU is 7:30 and you're running at 1:30 A time, start watching LO for sleep cues at 8:50 and put down for a nap even in the of absence of cues at 9:10. The A time then slowly increases more naturally.