Use these as a shape, not a timetable. Every schedule below assumes a 7:00am wake. If your baby wakes at 6:15, shift everything 45 minutes earlier — the gaps between sleeps matter far more than the clock times.
A schedule is really just a sequence of wake windows laid over a day. That is why chasing someone else’s clock times rarely works: if your baby’s morning wake is different, every subsequent time is wrong. What transfers between babies is the structure — how many naps, roughly how long each one, and how much awake time between them.
3 months: four to five naps
Still very flexible. Naps are often short and inconsistent, and that is normal at this age. Wake windows run 60–120 minutes.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and feed | — |
| 8:30–10:00 | Nap 1 | 1h30 |
| 11:15–12:45 | Nap 2 | 1h15 |
| 14:00–15:30 | Nap 3 | 1h15 |
| 16:45–17:15 | Nap 4 (catnap) | 1h15 |
| 19:00 | Bedtime | 1h45 |
Total: about 4h30 of daytime sleep and 10–11 hours overnight, with one or two night feeds.
4 months: three to four naps
This is where the 4 month sleep regression usually lands. Wake windows stretch to 90–150 minutes and the fourth nap starts dropping out.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and feed | — |
| 8:45–10:00 | Nap 1 | 1h45 |
| 11:30–13:00 | Nap 2 | 1h30 |
| 14:30–15:30 | Nap 3 | 1h30 |
| 17:00–17:30 | Catnap (drop when ready) | 1h30 |
| 19:15 | Bedtime | 1h45 |
Every one of these schedules assumes a 7:00 wake. Yours does not. NapNap recalculates the whole day from whenever your baby actually woke up, using their own wake windows — so the next nap time is right even on a 5:40am morning.
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6 months: two to three naps
Naps consolidate and get more predictable. Wake windows run 120–180 minutes. Many babies are on two long naps plus a short catnap.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and feed | — |
| 9:15–10:30 | Nap 1 | 2h15 |
| 12:30–14:00 | Nap 2 (usually the longest) | 2h00 |
| 16:00–16:40 | Nap 3 (catnap) | 2h00 |
| 19:15 | Bedtime | 2h35 |
Solids usually start around this age, but milk is still the main source of nutrition — see how much milk a baby needs.
9 months: two naps
The catnap is gone. Two solid naps, wake windows 150–210 minutes, and the pre-bedtime stretch is noticeably the longest of the day.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and feed | — |
| 9:45–11:00 | Nap 1 | 2h45 |
| 13:45–15:00 | Nap 2 | 2h45 |
| 19:00 | Bedtime | 4h00 |
12 months: two naps, moving toward one
Most 12-month-olds still need two naps. The 2-to-1 transition usually happens between 13 and 18 months, not at the first birthday.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and breakfast | — |
| 10:00–11:00 | Nap 1 | 3h00 |
| 14:00–15:15 | Nap 2 | 3h00 |
| 19:15 | Bedtime | 4h00 |
18 months: one nap
A single midday nap of 1.5–2.5 hours, with roughly five hours awake on either side.
| Time | What happens | Awake before |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Wake and breakfast | — |
| 12:30–14:30 | Nap | 5h30 |
| 19:30 | Bedtime | 5h00 |
How to actually use a schedule
- Anchor the morning wake. Pick a consistent wake time within a 30-minute band and open the curtains. Everything downstream depends on it.
- Use the gaps, not the clock. If nap 1 runs short, the next nap moves earlier. Recalculating from the actual wake time beats forcing the printed time.
- Protect the last wake window. A bedtime that is too early after a long nap causes false starts; too late causes an overtired 45-minute battle. This window is the one worth getting right.
- Change one thing at a time, and give it three days. Baby sleep is noisy day to day. A single bad night after a change tells you almost nothing.
- Cap naps if they eat the night. If daytime sleep is pushing total sleep above the typical range for the age and nights are fragmenting, capping the last nap usually helps.
Common questions
What time should a baby go to bed?
For most babies over three months, bedtime lands between 7:00pm and 8:00pm. What matters more than the clock is the length of the last wake window: put a baby down before enough sleep pressure has built and you get an hour of protesting, put them down too late and you get an overtired bedtime battle.
Should I wake my baby from a nap to keep the schedule?
Sometimes. Capping a late-afternoon nap protects bedtime, and capping total daytime sleep can help if nights have become fragmented. In the first three months, generally let them sleep unless a nap is running so late that bedtime becomes impossible.
How long does it take for a new schedule to settle?
Give any change at least three days, and often closer to a week. Baby sleep varies a lot night to night, so a single bad night after a change is normal noise rather than evidence the change failed.
My baby wakes at 5:30am. Do I start the schedule then?
If the wake is genuinely the start of the day, yes, shift everything earlier and expect an earlier bedtime. If it is a night waking, keep the room dark and treat it as night. Persistent 5am wakes are usually caused by a bedtime that is too late, a last wake window that is too long, or too much daytime sleep.
Do these schedules work for twins?
The structure does, and most parents of twins find it easier to run both babies on a shared schedule anchored to whichever twin wakes first. Expect one twin to need slightly different wake windows than the other.