How do you do things around the routine?

Question

So ive got my 14 week old baby boy on the Contented Little Baby routine by Gina Ford. Started last monday and he's pretty much fallen into it quite nicely apart from a few things. But basically wondering what people do during nap times? In this routine there is one longer nap of 2hrs from 12-2pm, i find myself having to work around that so i don't arrange anything at those times unless I'm going somewhere at 11 so he can then sleep or unless I'm going out after 2. What do you do? Is this the right thing to do or should i just do whatever i need to do regardless of the nap (but then it messes up the rest of the day?) Help! 
The routine is great if I'm not doing anything!

Answer

I tried to do a routine, and it just didn’t work for me. He doesn’t always take 2 hour naps. Sometimes they are 45 min and sometimes 4 hours. He doesn’t always wake up at 6. Sometimes it’s 6:30 or 7:30 or 5 AM. I try to notice when he wakes up and plan accordingly. I follow the baby, and I babywear if I have things I need to do out of the house and he needs to nap. It has worked well for us, especially through sleep regressions, growth spurts, and teething.

Answer

Naps are very important. If you want him to stay on his schedule and sleep well then you need to be planning around those naps. We implemented a schedule at 4 months (one created based off our daughter, not a book) and she stayed on that schedule until 13 months. She woke at 6:30am, slept from 9:30-11:30am and then again from 2:30-4pm and then went to bed at 6:30pm. She's now 15 months and dropped down to one nap a day from 11:30-2pm. Our day is planned around her sleep schedule. We break the schedule once a week (usually during the weekend when my husband is home and we're out doing something) but that's it.

How do you do things around the routine?

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