"Baby-led" Schedule

I found this to be a very interesting topic on one of the baby pages I follow on Face Book. It was a post asking if your child is on a "baby-led" schedule or a "parent-led" schedule. My first reaction to this post was, "why would anyone let their child set their own schedule?" I had no idea what these terms meant so I decided to do some research.

 "Baby-led schedules tend to be very loose routines. You follow your baby's lead, meaning you'll look for her cues to decide what she needs next rather than imposing a timetable for feedings, rest, or play. After the first few weeks, most babies form their own fairly regular patterns of sleeping, playing, and eating. But your baby's schedule may vary from day to day depending on the signals she's giving you " -taken from babycenter.com"

"As the name implies, parent-led scheduling means that you set the daily agenda — typically a very specific timetable for when your baby eats, plays, and sleeps. Parents who operate on this kind of schedule rarely deviate it from it. Many say that timing things (sometimes down to the minute) and being extremely consistent allows their baby to regulate his internal clock and gives him the structure he needs to thrive."-babycenter.com

After doing the research on it, I've come to the conclusion that Paisley is mostly on the baby-led schedule with a few tweaks from me.Which in all reality, makes sense. The best advice I got when she was born was not to put her on a schedule, (feeding every two hours), but to let her tell me what she wants and when she wants it. She is on a schedule, but a schedule she has set for herself, I just step in and make sure she takes her naps and doesn't starve herself. Her schedule is usually pretty consistent day to day, although the exact timing as to when she eats and sleeps may not always be the same. She wakes up in the morning, she plays and she lets me know when she is ready for breakfast. I can tell she's ready to eat when she gets a bit cranky and does her hungry whine. Breakfast is usually sometime around 8:30am. Some morning she wont eat breakfast till almost 10am, but of course she doesn't wake up till almost 9am on those mornings either. Lunch time for her is either before or after her nap, usually somewhere between 12-3. When its time for her nap, usually around 1-2pm, she starts yawning and will rub her eyes, and I take her cues and put her down for her nap. She has weaned herself off of taking two naps a day to only taking one nap a day. Which in my opinion, has really helped her to sleep through the night, she only wakes up once now, usually about 9 hours into her sleeping, she eats, and sleeps for 3-4 more hours. Some nights she will sleep for 12-13 hours straight with out any wakings. Dinner is anywhere between 6pm and 7pm. "Baba's", as we call her bottles, are anytime through out the day, and a full (4oz) bottle before nap and bedtime.  Bedtime is usually 8-8:30pm, which means we usually get her ready for bed around 7:30pm each night (this would be a parent-led situation, as everyday at this time she gets ready for bed). She is usually a pretty happy and content baby, unless she is teething or doesn't feel good. We let her set her own schedule, we just make sure she eats and sleeps at decent times so shes not fussy. Being a stay at home mom, there really is no reason to put her on a strict parent led schedule. Now when she starts going to school, we will most likely give her  a strict bed time, but until then, our days go pretty smoothly :) As she gets older, she's likely to change her schedule and could go back to taking two naps a day. As she gets weaned off her formula and baby food, and starts eating table food, her eating schedule is likely to change as well, we just have to follow her leads as too when she is ready for change.