If you’re looking to get your 6 month old on a schedule, today I’m sharing our daily routine with you! If you have a younger baby, be sure to read our 4 month schedule. We gradually went from this schedule to the 6 month schedule so it was an easy transition. You’ll find your baby will give you cues and you’ll know when it’s time to adjust. So now to get to our 6 month old feeding schedule!
Wake time for us is around 7:30 am so if your baby wakes up earlier or later, just adjust the time slots below.
6 Month Old Feeding Schedule
Wake – 7:30 AM – NURSE/BOTTLE
Breakfast 8:00 AM – Serve Oatmeal or Rice Cereal. I prefer oatmeal and mix it with pumped breastmilk.
Note: I always offered breastmilk or formula first. This is because breastmilk or formula is still the #1 source of nutrition for your baby still and food is still for practice at this age.
9:30 AM – Nap #1 (I do 2 hour wake times at this age)
10:30 AM – NURSE/BOTTLE once up from the nap (naps usually range from 30 mins to 1 hour at this age). This schedule follows the EASY schedule (eat, activity, sleep, you) and is helpful in ensuring your baby doesn’t rely on you to fall asleep by nursing to sleep. If you can, always try to nurse or bottle feed after your baby gets up from their nap. Sometimes this doesn’t work out due to timing, etc but I did my best to try to stick to this. If you are having trouble with your baby sleeping at night read our 5 ways to help your baby sleep through the night.
12:00 PM – Lunch – offer a veggie/fruit/meat option
12:30 PM – Nap #2
1:30 PM – NURSE/BOTTLE
3:30 PM – Nap #3
4:30 PM – NURSE/BOTTLE
6:00 PM – Dinner – offer a veggie/fruit/meat option
7:30 PM – BED with NURSE/BOTTLE (Start bed time routine between 6:30 – 7PM so baby is asleep by 7:30PM. This gives a 12 hour nighttime)
Note – I kept my schedule to offer nursing every 3 hours. As mentioned above, breastmilk or formula at this age should still be your baby’s #1 nutrition source. That’s why I did not extend the time between the sessions. If you find your baby is not accepting the sessions you can cut back and extend the time between sessions. I noticed my baby was not taking as much during some of the sessions but this is completely normal as he is was getting additional calories from his solid feedings.
Know that every baby is different. So if you find your baby needs to eat or sleep more or less often just adjust the time in between the schedule. At this age when you slowly introduce solids, you work your way up to 3 meals a day. We did 1 meal to start for a few days, then added lunch then slowly added dinner. This allows time for your baby to adjust.
If you’re getting into solid feeding, one of the best feeding tools we used was a Num Num Dip Spoon.
Finally, if your baby is still not sleeping through the night – see our 5 tips for getting your baby to sleep through the night.
So glad I found this!!! This is exactly what I already follow almost exactly except we just started doing solids a little over a week ago- so I had just been doing a tbsp of solids along with his one pumped bottle around 5. What amount of solids did you do per feeding at this age? 1 or 2 tbsp per feeding? Work way up to more than that? I think people totally underestimate the value of a schedule for baby because mine has been sleeping through the night too! Since he was 3 mos old. Thank you for the article <3
If your baby doesn’t nap for the full hour do you take the 2 hours to the next nap from the time they wake up or do you stick to the scheduled time above whatever time they wake up?
You can stick to the schedule but if baby is rubbing eyes and showing signs of tiredness then you can put down earlier.
Hi! When do you nurse during the bedtime routine? Let’s say I feed dinner at 6pm, start the bath at 6:30.. so you give the bottle right after the bath or after story time?
Thank you! 🙂
We always did it as the last step in the routine, so right after story.
How long are your babes nap 2 and 3 usually??Â
The last nap is usually a short one, 30-45 minutes (one sleep cycle). The first two are usually longer, 1 hour – 1.5 hours (typically 2 sleep cycles).
How many times does your baby wake up to feed at night ?Â
By this age both of my babies were sleeping through the night and would only wake up if sick or teething or sometimes for the odd earlier morning feed. All babies are different though and some may still not be sleeping through the night at this age.