Do you work outside the home? At home?

I am a SAHM

Do you encourage a daily rhythm for your baby or toddler? How / what?

Initially, we were happy to be lead by Jacob and to just go with whatever he needed - this worked well for us. Although it did take a lot for me to adjust to that, since I am a bit of a control freak! When Jacob started to develop some sleeping problems around 6.5 months of age, we started to introduce a flexible routine to try and give his day a bit more structure and he responded well to it - he seems to like knowing what comes next. Basically we have a sleep/feed/play routine. Currently, at 13.5 months of age, Jacob wakes around 6 am (never later than 7 am and sometimes earlier than 6 am), has a bottle and breakfast, morning tea at around 10 am, plays until around 11am (it varies depending on the day!) and then has a long sleep of anywhere between 1.5 - 3 hours. He has lunch when he wakes and then afternoon tea between 3 - 4 pm, with dinner at 5.30 pm and bed between 7 - 7.30 pm. Since Jacob has been walking, we always try to ensure that he has some outside play time each day where possible and weather permitting.

Do you have any specific routines - ie mealtime/ bath time/ bedtime rituals that are special to your family? Helpful to encourage transitions.

As mentioned above, basically we follow a sleep/feed/play routine but we are flexible about sleep times as we appreciate that each day is different to the one before! The only time where our routine becomes 'strict' is of an evening. Dinner is always at 5.30 pm, bathtime at 6.30 pm (where either myself or my husband will have the bath with him and the other dresses him for bed), bottle at 7pm, which is done in Jacob's room with the lights off (just the light from his monitor is left on) and then into bed. He is usually totally down for the count at this point.

With regard to sleep, we always give Jacob a 'sleep message' - we basically try and give him a trigger so that he knows what to expect. So for both his day and night time sleep, one of us will go into his room cuddling him, close the blinds and curtains, sit in the chair by his cot and have quiet cuddles and kisses for around 5 minutes, before we pop him into his sleeping bag and into the cot. We then say to him "time for sleep, love you", put the side of the cot up and leave. We found this really helped Jacob to identify what was expected of him - sleep!