Activity and 3-Nap Schedule for Babies 6-9 Months Old
We created this infographic to give you a bit of structure in figuring out how to put together a three-nap schedule for your baby. We designed this to be printable, so you can hang it on your fridge as a guide to structure your day. Babies and young children thrive on routine, but variety is important too! You can do different activities within the categories each day to keep things fresh and interesting (see an infographic on activity ideas here). Please remember that there isn't a "perfect" baby schedule. Every baby has slightly different needs and abilities. We hope this will help give you a little structure, but don't stress if your baby can't follow it exactly. Also remember that a few babies in the 6-9 month age range will be ready for two naps. You can find that 2-nap schedule here. For additional information on baby schedules, check out our age-by-stage sleep schedule blog. We also have a series on how to decode and fix nap problems here. Enjoy!
A note on the activity blocks: They are just suggestions to help you fill time. If you already have a different routine that you follow between naps, then that's totally fine. We know that some parents struggle finding a balance between providing structure and keeping things interesting. The idea behind "baby math" isn't that a baby needs to be doing "math" every day, but rather that having a block of time that changes things up a bit activity to activity. For example, for "baby math time" you might go to a different drawer each day and count objects or you might play with different block shapes or walk around with your baby and point to all of the circles in your house. Again, if you want to do a different activity that is unrelated to math at that time, then that's totally fine!
We hope this helps you guide your child to a nice, stable daily schedule, but we know there are situations where you may need individual support to figure out how to bend the rules for your unique needs (for example, the rules may change for naps on weekends or for situations where you can’t be consistent due to your schedule, changing caregivers, etc.). If you need help choosing an intervention strategy or figuring out how to make this work within restrictions of your life, then we would be happy to help you put together a plan through an individual consultation.