A child’s daily routine at 8 months: approximate schedule by the hour

Sample daily routine for an 8 month old baby

6.00-8.30 – time for morning procedures, including the first feeding, taking air baths, washing the face and rinsing with warm water, light massage of the arms and legs.
8.30-10.00 – time for the first morning sleep, if possible, you can organize it in the fresh air.
10.00-10.30 – awakening and second breakfast for the baby.
10.30-14.00 – time for active games, developmental activities and light physical activity.
14.00-14.30 – third lunch feeding of the child.
14.30-16.00 – second sleepy period.
16.00-18.00 – period of wakefulness, familiarization with surrounding objects, communication with parents.
18.00-18.30 – fourth evening feeding.
18.30-20.00 – evening walks that promote healthy sleep for the baby.
20.00-22.00 - communication with parents, quiet games, preparation for bed, including bathing.
22.00 – feeding the baby before rest.
22.15 – 6.00 – period of night calm and sleep.

When reading the proposed table, you should focus on the characteristics of each individual crumb. You can slightly shift the time intervals, adjusting them according to the needs of the child. In general, when analyzing your baby’s routine in past months, you may not see a significant difference. However, along with walking hours and multiple feedings, the period of activity increases significantly, reaching an average of up to 5 hours.

Caring for an eight month old baby

In order for a child to develop correctly and not lag behind in physical and mental indicators, he needs careful care, which is included in the general daily routine. Fortunately, there are not many changes in this area, the main thing is the regularity of water treatments, massage and physical exercise.

Child hygiene includes mandatory items that are already familiar to a baby:

This is washing your face in the morning under running water;
cleansing the child’s nose, ears and mouth;
it doesn’t matter whether the baby uses diapers or goes to the potty, he needs to be washed and treated with talcum powder or cream;
It is necessary for the baby to wash his hands as often as possible, because he is constantly on the floor, and they become dirty;
nails should also be carefully trimmed as soon as they have grown a little;
You can bathe your baby using a special chair; it’s good if the parents buy bath toys for the child; the baby can stay in the water for up to 25 minutes; if you want to harden the child, gradually increase the water temperature to 30 degrees.

Rubdowns and air baths, which are now longer (15 minutes), have a good hardening effect.

An important point in child care is massage. Its duration is from 10 to 15 minutes, but if the baby likes the sessions, you can make them longer. The main rule is that the baby is in a good mood; in addition, he should not feel hungry, so it is best to carry out the procedure an hour and a half after feeding.

The scheme remains the same as at 7 months - first, gentle and soft stroking of the arms, legs and body, the stomach should be massaged in a circular motion, and the back along the spinal column. Then you can knead and rub your limbs, buttocks and back.

Gymnastic exercises are considered an addition to massage. It is advisable to do exercises at the same time, in the morning. The goal of such chest muscle training is to stimulate motor skills.

The list of daily exercises includes:

turning over in a lying position;
bending and crossing arms;
rubbing the feet and legs;
flexion and extension of the legs at the knee joints;
pulling up for a toy, crawling;
walking with the support of an adult.

Children love swinging on a large gymnastic ball, so you can include them in the overall routine.

When making adjustments to a child’s daily routine at 8 months, one should take into account all aspects of the baby’s life that are interconnected and equally important for the child’s body. Disturbances in nutrition, sleep, and daily activities can lead to poor health, illness, and even developmental delays in the baby.

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Time needed for proper rest

The active development of the child during this period also concerns the rest of the growing baby. Now his sleep begins to resemble his parents' sleep and has two phases: superficial and deep. A soundly sleeping child should no longer react to any external noise, which significantly improves the quality of daytime rest. But the night period becomes very productive, because brain activity is greatly reduced and complete calm and restoration of strength occurs. Some experts have found that a child at this age already experiences colorful dreams.

Some sleep features of an 8-month-old baby that parents should know:

The baby's longest rest phase is during night sleep, which is about eight hours.
Daytime rest is divided into several doses from 40 minutes to a couple of hours. However, there are children who sleep only once during the day, but for up to 4 hours inclusive.
The optimal rest option for a baby during this period of life may be eleven hours of sleep, distributed throughout the day. Some children sleep a couple of hours longer, which is not at all a deviation from the norm.

The baby himself will tell his parents that he is tired and ready to sleep. The following changes in behavior eloquently signal this: lethargy of the baby, slow reaction and disinterest in surrounding objects, frequent yawning and deep breathing. Having seen these actions of the child, you should immediately change his clothes and send him to bed.

Baby refuses to eat or sleep

If your baby is full of energy and feels well, then you can easily teach him the ideal regime - he will go to bed and eat at a certain time. But sometimes it happens that the baby refuses to sleep and eat at the prescribed hours, but everything is fine with his health. In this case, it is worth taking a closer look at the baby; perhaps he has other reasons for this.

It's hot in the room

A child's sleep at 8 months can be disturbed for a trivial reason - stuffiness in the room. The ideal temperature in the nursery is from 20 to 22 °C. Make it a rule to ventilate the room before putting your baby to bed. It has been scientifically proven that children sleep better and longer in a cool room. And if you wrap your child up during the day and open the window slightly, he will sleep for at least 2 hours.

The child is teething

During this period, he may have a fever and be capricious. But in some cases, such symptoms are absent, and instead, the baby simply refuses to eat and sleeps restlessly and briefly. Don't insist, let the baby eat as much as he wants, he will still have time to catch up.

The baby is full

If the baby begins to refuse to eat, this may be due to the fact that he is often attached to the breast during the day. Therefore, you should give your baby breastfeeding only as a supplement after the main meal.

Another factor influencing the baby’s appetite is constant snacking on cookies, apples, etc. Of course, the child needs to scratch his gums with something and learn the skills of chewing food independently, but you shouldn’t get carried away with snacking.

You constantly break your daily routine

Maintaining a daily routine in the modern world is difficult to the minute. Either shopping trips or a routine doctor's examination force you to disrupt your baby's usual sleep and eating patterns. Therefore, you should make every effort to time it correctly and try to stick to the routine.

However, if the baby is sick, then you should not torment him with the regime. During this period, let the baby eat and sleep only when he wants to.

Proper organization of good sleep

A child’s sleep should be more productive than the sleep of an adult, because the baby’s body is just developing. A restful, sound sleep can be ensured by creating favorable conditions for it:

It is necessary to maintain the correct level of humidity (not lower than 70%) and temperature (not higher than 24 degrees) in the room where the baby rests;
Before putting the child to bed, parents should first ventilate the room so that oxygen promotes deep breathing during sleep;
You should choose the right mattress for relaxation and remake the crib so that the folds of the sheet and blanket do not interfere with the baby’s sleep;
It is necessary to maintain the usual routine, putting the baby to bed in accordance with it;
Daytime rest hours are best accompanied by dim daylight and the absence of too loud background sounds;
Not a single baby has ever refused his mother’s lullaby; the sounds of the song lull and soothe;
A long evening walk and relaxation in warm water while swimming will ensure a good night's sleep for your baby.

Another common phenomenon among 8-month-old babies is turning over while sleeping from their back to their tummy. If the baby continues to sleep, then his face just rests on the pillow, and he should be urgently turned over onto his back. This must be done carefully, stroking and quietly humming a monotonous melody. But if the baby wakes up abruptly, being frightened by his own turning over, you should take him in your arms and rock him a little, then send him back to bed.

Many mothers, reading the article, are already wondering how to control the baby in the middle of the night if the parents suddenly fall asleep themselves? The following advice will help here: you should remove one of the side walls of the crib and move it as close as possible to the parent's bed. Feeling the baby move in his sleep, any mother will wake up and help him fall asleep again.

Daytime sleep requirements

How much and how does a baby sleep at eight months of age? Daytime rest is still necessary so that a mobile and active baby can replenish expended energy and give his body a break, relaxing the nervous, musculoskeletal and muscular systems. Its structure remains virtually unchanged.

The duration of sleep is reduced, now the baby only needs 4 hours to restore the body.
You need to put him to bed twice.
Taking into account the fact that the baby is now an early bird, it is good to put him to bed for the first time at 8-30 in the morning for 1.5 - 2 hours.
The most favorable time for afternoon sleep is from 14-30 to 16-00.

It is very important to ensure that the baby does not become overtired during the waking period. “Walking” for more than 3 hours and 15 minutes will inevitably cause overwork, problems with falling asleep and restless sleep for the baby.

Organization of proper and nutritious nutrition

By the age of 8 months, the little gourmet’s diet becomes very varied. In addition to what he has already tried earlier, parents should offer him meat and egg yolk. But this must be done extremely carefully, introducing new products, like other complementary foods, gradually. The child should be given only low-fat varieties of meat: starting with turkey and rabbit, then chicken breast.

It should be understood that the child will not yet be able to eat whole pieces of meat, even cut ones. Therefore, it is better to chop the fillet and add it to vegetable puree or baby soup. The same goes for chicken yolk, which can be added to freshly prepared food for your baby. However, it is best to give these two new products on different days, since, when combined with each other in one food, they can cause different unpleasant reactions in the child’s body.

In addition to new foods that your child is introduced to, you should definitely continue to feed him natural milk. Pediatricians believe that the benefits of breast milk are still great enough for babies. To properly combine complementary feeding and breastfeeding, you should correctly distribute the hours of baby food:

Morning feeding: breast milk or formula.
Second feeding: dairy-free or milk porridge, fruit drink or water.
Daily feeding: vegetable puree or soup, with chopped meat or yolk, fruit juice.
Evening feeding: cottage cheese or fruit puree.
Feeding before bed: breast milk or liquid porridge.

Having analyzed this small tablet, it becomes clear that breastfeeding replaces one of the baby’s meals, it is best that these are morning and evening hours, since the baby is in a comfortable state, still being in close proximity to the mother. But you should understand that mother’s milk is more of a food, which means you should prepare bottles of water, juice and baby tea for the baby, because the daily fluid requirement for an 8-month-old baby is about 600 ml.

And one more piece of advice: in order to gradually accustom your baby to successful socialization in the future, start teaching him to wash his hands before eating, and later this will become his good, healthy habit.

Feeding

The baby continues to have five meals a day. The menus of breastfed and bottle-fed children are becoming less and less different. Almost all products are already available to artificial babies. Exceptions include aggressive allergens. For example, chocolate, citrus fruits, peanuts. For children who eat naturally, the diet consists of the following products: pureed vegetables and fruits, biscuits, bread made from wheat flour, porridge without milk, vegetable and butter in limited quantities, juice from adapted fruits and berries, lean meat puree varieties, half an egg yolk, fermented milk products are possible.

This is what a baby's menu might look like at 8 months:

220 ml breast milk (formula).
170 grams of buckwheat flavored with butter (5 g), 50 g of fruit puree, 50 ml of juice (compote).
160 g of vegetable puree, lean meat meatball (40 g), 40 g of fruit puree, 30 ml of drink.
40 g cottage cheese, a couple of cookies (biscuits), 50 g fruit puree, 100 g kefir.
220 ml breast milk (formula).

Proper physical activity

The development of a child is always a rather individual process, but by 8 months he should already have mastered certain physical movements. The small muscles of the arms and legs have already become stronger and allow the baby to perform various movements: sit confidently, crawl quite actively, stand on his feet. The culmination of all these manifestations will undoubtedly be the first small steps taken by the baby with the support of the parents.

Do not forget that the growing body of a child is still fragile, and he should be helped to develop correctly. For this, the baby needs regular physical activity, including light morning exercises and a set of special exercises that strengthen the baby’s muscular system. But it should be remembered that moderation must be observed in everything, not allowing such a side effect as muscle hypertonicity to develop. Therefore, it is better to consult with a pediatrician and pediatric massage therapists on how to correctly perform all of the above exercises.

When performing morning gymnastic procedures, you should very carefully bend and straighten the child’s limbs, and do not make sharp circular rotations of the hands and feet. After all, even the most loving mother can accidentally injure the baby with an awkward movement. The exercises should be done in a ventilated room, alternating exercises with stroking and massage. You can hum a funny song, then it will be more pleasant for the child to make the necessary movements that do not cause him a feeling of awkwardness or fear. In total, the duration of physical activity for a child of 8 months should last from 15 to 20 minutes per day.

The benefits of daily walks

It has long been no secret to anyone that the benefits of being in the fresh air are almost incomparable to anything else. And this is a particularly important factor for the development of a child. Experts advise walking with your baby for at least 4 hours a day, perhaps breaking this time into several walks for convenience. The benefits of walking in the fresh air can be assessed by the following criteria:

There is an active development of the cerebral hemispheres and knowledge of the surrounding world.
First socialization in society through meeting and playing with peers.
The child's body develops correctly through oxygen saturation of cell tissues.
The child falls asleep deeply and spends the whole night serenely.

In addition, it is also useful for mothers who are tired from household chores to spend several hours outside with their child in order to bring their body back to normal after childbirth.

Features of the daily routine during artificial feeding

There is practically no difference between the recommended daily routine for eight-month-old babies who are bottle-fed or breastfed. For morning breakfast, use the mixture; during the day, give mashed potatoes, porridge, vegetable soups or cottage cheese. Before going to bed at night, give the baby the formula again or replace it with liquid porridge.

Educational games and their importance for child development

Every month the baby develops skills that were not there before. To help the child develop properly not only physically, but also mentally, parents should devote time to a variety of games with him. What should you offer your baby?

Let's try to give a few examples of developmental activities for children:

Multi-colored rings, cubes, balls - the baby will be happy to put all this out of the boxes, rearrange it, examine it and put it together into a single structure.
You can have a special basket for the baby, where parents will put toys, or put many different items in the baby’s crib. He will really enjoy methodically throwing out all the contents from the crib or basket. In the understanding of an adult, a child is simply being naughty, however, for him this is a real exciting game that develops thinking and strengthens all muscle groups.
Among the more active games, the child will definitely enjoy playing in the arms of his father, who can lift the baby up and “fly” with him or sit him on his lap and play out fairy-tale characters with him.
A very useful game for your child will be “unwrapping a gift.” Any toy can be wrapped in a soft cloth or paper wrapper, forcing a curious baby to quickly unwrap the package. Thus, the child develops fine motor skills and coordination of movements.
At this age, kids begin to get acquainted with books with pleasure. For this process to become habitual, you should show the child the image, describing it in detail and clearly naming it.

To make your baby love bathing, you can turn this procedure into an interesting game. It is enough just to accompany the baby to the bath with “rubber friends”, and then show him how the toys wash or float. An inquisitive baby will want to repeat all the actions of his mother. The baby will especially enjoy pouring water from a bucket or watering can into a cup. But it is worth remembering to be very careful when a child is in the water; any awkward actions on the part of the parents can lead to a fear of water, frightening the baby with a still developing psyche.