Wondering what “eat play sleep” is and whether it could help your baby?
In a nutshell, eat play sleep is a baby schedule that focuses on separating feeding from sleeping, so that babies learn to fall asleep independently.
Advocates say this routine helps babies to fall asleep without needing to be fed in the middle of the night, encouraging them to self soothe and settle at night.
In theory sounds good, right? But it’s not a universally loved method among parents, and we’re going to explore all the ins and outs here.
That first year with a baby is a steep learning curve, and perhaps the trickiest part (for me anyway) was figuring out what they needed and when. Because babies exist on a totally different schedule to the rest of us!
They eat around the clock, nod off at random, sometimes sleep for hours and other times just for minutes.
They’re frustrated when they’re tired. They’re angry when they’re hungry (I can actually relate to this one). They’re irritable in the evenings.
And the trouble with all of these things is they’re babies, so they can’t actually tell you what their needs are and when.
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So you either become a baby whisperer who deciphers their cries (I read books that claimed they had different cries for different things but I often struggled to decipher the actual difference), or find another way to anticipate their needs.
This is where eat play sleep comes in.
It can also be referred to as Eat Activity Sleep You (time), or EASY, which is how it was described by the Baby Whisperer author Tracy Hogg.
What is eat play sleep?
The eat play sleep routine involves feeding your baby as soon as they wake and then not feeding them again until after their next nap.
Eat play sleep is a schedule that you use on loop throughout your baby’s days in order to help them get enough feeds and sleep.
Feeding and sleeping is deliberately separated in order to avoid babies using feeding to sleep as a prop.
The theory is that when your baby wakes in the night they can get themselves back to the land of nod without having to feed to sleep.
This is how it works:
Eat
The routine starts with eat as soon as your baby wakes from a nap or in the morning. This happens right when your baby is wide awake so that they take a full feed.
This means your baby can then enjoy playtime on a full tummy.
The theory is that babies who snack all of the time throughout the day won’t sleep as well at night, because they will be waking up hungry.
So by feeding your baby once they are fresh from sleep, they should take a full feed rather than nod off before they have finished.
Play
Following a feed your baby can then enjoy an activity or playtime.
Some baby sleep experts swear by separating feeding from sleeping in this way so that your baby learns to fall asleep on their own.
The amount of time your baby will be able to stay awake and happy is known as their wake window.
It’s incredibly useful to know a rough idea of your baby’s wake window, as this means you can put them down for a nap before they are overtired.
An overtired is much harder to settle – I’ve spend many a long hour trying to rock and comfort an overtired baby. It’s definitely worth avoiding.
There are tips for working our your baby’s wake window here. It gets longer as your baby gets older – for example a newborn may have a wake window of just 30 minutes, but a six month old baby could be awake for two hours.
Sleep
If you know your baby’s wake window then you will know a rough time when they need to be put down for a nap.
It’s much easier to settle your baby if you put them down before they become overtired.
Of course that sweet spot can be quite hard to find. Watch your baby for their tired cues – becoming disengaged from play, staring off into space, jerky movements, rubbing their face and ears. Crying tends to be the last resort!
The idea of separating feeding from sleeping is to help parents extricate themselves from having to always help their baby get back to sleep.
That doesn’t mean you leave baby to cry it out if they are struggling to sleep.
Eat play sleep advocate Tracy Hogg recommends putting baby down drowsy but awake and then using the “shush pat” method to help them get to sleep. This means the parent gently pats and shushes them until they nod off in their own bed.
Eat Play Sleep for Newborns
While eat play sleep can be a really useful rhythm to help parents organise their day, and anticipate what their baby needs next, it’s unwise to follow this schedule to the letter for a newborn.
There are a few reasons why eat play sleep may not work for a newborn:
- Babies need to feed often. The principle of eat play sleep is to separate feeding and sleeping. The trouble with that is newborns need to feed very frequently. At night a newborn baby who wakes frequently usually genuinely does need to feed. So with a newborn it’s best to totally ignore the eat play sleep principle at night, and instead feed them as and when you think they need to.
- Babies naturally fall asleep during feeding. Do not stress out about a baby who falls asleep on the breast or bottle. It’s normal! A full tummy and the warmth of being held as they feed makes them sleepy.
- Sleep props aren’t a bad thing. The other issue with eat play sleep for newborns can be that it’s encouraging parents to teach babies to self settle, as if sleep props are a terrible thing. The truth is for some parents it works to use a sleep prop – whether that be feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep or holding babies as they sleep. Expecting a newborn baby to fall asleep without any help is expecting quite a lot.
- Babies need close contact with their parents. The principles of eat play sleep may also make parents think that newborn babies don’t need to be held as much. It’s not possible to hold your baby too much.
At what age should you start eat play sleep?
You can start the basics of eat play sleep from day one if you choose, but it’s best to get started at around three to four months.
This is when the unpredictability of the newborn days has faded a little and your baby can handle taking a bigger feed and a longer gap between feeds.
If you do start eat play sleep early, its best to keep it very flexible and accept that some days your schedule will look more like “eat sleep eat play eat sleep”.
It’s OK to not follow this routine strictly – many parents find it difficult to stick to a strict schedule.
And even with older babies your eat play sleep schedule can fly out the window for a number of reasons including:
- Teething – There are tips for helping a teething baby here.
- Growth spurt
- Sleep regression – you can find out more about handling sleep regressions here.
- Introducing solid foods – this may change up your routine a little, especially as you’re getting started with weaning.
- Just because – some days there’s no rhyme or reason to it and your baby will just need to be held that bit more and fed that bit more. And still they may cry. In the early months it’s referred to as the “witching hour” when babies cry a lot for no reason. It’s usually towards the end of the day and this phase ends when your baby is around four months.
Eat Play Sleep schedule
A sample eat play sleep schedule (for a baby of five months) would look a little something like this.
- 7am – Wake up and Eat
- 7.30am – Play
- 8.30am – Sleep
- 10am – Eat
- 10.30am – Play
- 11.30am – Sleep
- 1pm – Eat
- 1.30pm – Play
- 2.30pm – Sleep
- 4pm – Eat
- 4.30pm – Play
- 5pm – Short sleep
- 6.30pm – Eat
- 6.45pm – Bedtime routine – book, bath etc
- 7pm – Sleep
- Overnight – Baby may wake to feed. Do not play between 7pm and 7am (to help baby learn the difference between day and night). Instead feed and immediately try to settle them back to sleep.
Pros of Eat Play Sleep
There are quite a few benefits to using a structure such as this one for your baby:
- Provides structure to the day. This rhythm can help you work out rough timings for your day, which makes it easier to plan trips out. If you know when your baby will need their next feed or next nap, it’s much less stressful.
- There’s a degree of flexibility. Some baby experts advocate strict timings throughout the day. The benefit of this schedule is parents adjust the timings to suit them and their baby. It’s a loop rather than rigid timings.
- Helps ensure babies get a full feed. Babies who frequently nod off in the middle of a feed may wake early due to hunger. If they feed as soon as they wake, they can finish a full feed and last a full eat play sleep cycle.
- Parents can predict baby’s needs easier. You know what comes next and therefore you’ll know if your baby is crying due to being overtired or hungry.
- Baby cries less. Because you know your baby’s routine you will be able to fulfil their needs before they become upset from hunger or tiredness. This means they cry less.
- Helps baby to learn difference between day and night. Following a routine that shows a clear difference between day and night can help babies to sleep for longer spells at night.
Cons of Eat Play Sleep
However there are also some downsides to eat play sleep that may mean it won’t suit you and your family:
- Some parents may find it too rigid. While some families thrive on a set routine, others prefer to just wing it and figure things out as they go.
- Can stop parents following their natural instincts. For some parents, feeling as if they have to follow this set routine can get in the way of their natural instincts. They may feel they have to settle baby to sleep without feeding them, even if baby is demonstrating the signs of needing to feed.
- Some babies are not ready for self soothing. The idea behind this routine is to teach baby to self soothe, so they aren’t using feeding as a prop to sleep. However for many babies, especially newborns, they aren’t ready for this just yet. Some babies may not be able to self soothe until they are six months to one year old.
Do you have to follow eat play sleep?
No you don’t have to follow eat play sleep.
All parents must choose what works best for them when it comes to a daily schedule and how they help their babies get to sleep.
And if you do avoid eat play sleep, or a similar style of sleep training, your baby will not be doomed to a life of no sleep, keeping you awake for hours until the end of time.
I’m being dramatic, but my point is that there is no rule book when it comes to how you should or should not help your baby to sleep.
If you find feeding your baby to sleep works for you, do it. If you find rocking them to sleep works for you, do it.
That first year is tough, so it really comes down how you choose to parent your baby.
As long as they are well fed, growing and happy, then you’re doing great!
What if eat play sleep is not working?
Have you tried eat play sleep and found your baby only takes a quick cat nap – then you’re not sure whether to feed them right away again or try to get them back to sleep?
Maybe they woke up and wouldn’t take their full feed, then spent their entire “play” time on and off the bottle before falling asleep without finishing it.
And some people find their baby still likes to fall asleep on the breast or bottle, then wake and have another feed – so eat play eat sleep.
Sometimes your baby may be too young to do eat play sleep. Maybe it just doesn’t work for them.
If you decide that eat play sleep is not for you then that is totally OK. Some parents may find this method just effortlessly slots into their life.
Others find it’s more of a stress worrying about getting through the play and sleep phase without feeding them again until the next milk feed is due.
If you are struggling with short naps, then you may like this article about how to lengthen baby’s short naps.
What to do if eat play sleep is not working
There is an eat play sleep alternative that takes on the principles of helping baby to sleep more at night, without such a rigid structure.
First of all it’s important not to let this schedule rule your life. It’s only worth doing if it makes your life easier!
In my experience, when my efforts at a schedule did not work, I let it slide for a few days but kept trying to encourage the loose routine. Starting first thing with a proper milk feed, and going from there.
If it all fell apart, tomorrow was always another day.
If eat play sleep is not working then try these basics for forming an easygoing daily routine with your baby:
- Encourage baby to take a full feed. This is especially important during the day. From around eight to 12 weeks onwards, encourage your baby to finish a feed and then have a gap between them. I found doing five feeds over the course of 12 hours (from 7am to 7pm) worked really well. Then baby would have maybe one or two feeds overnight.
- Know your baby’s sleep cues. Watch your baby and take note of their behaviour ahead of nap time. This can help you work out their natural rhythms. Once you know this, you can put your baby down for sleep before they become overtired.
- Observe your baby’s natural rhythms. Figure out your baby’s wake window – how long until they need their next nap after waking up. Once you know this, you can predict what time their naps will be and slot their feeds around those accordingly. When your baby is a few months old you may find yourself falling into a loose routine without even trying.
- Feed in a quiet place. A distracted baby may not take a full feed, and instead snack throughout the day. Try to feed in a place where they won’t be distracted from finishing.
- Limit nap duration during the day. Your baby’s naps may vary in length between 30 minutes and three hours in the day. It’s sensible to try to limit the length of their naps, to encourage the longer spells of sleep at night. That’s when you want them going on for five hours or hopefully more! By limiting their naps in the day you make time to feed them, so that they have consumed most of their calories during daylight hours.
- Establish a bedtime routine. This is a really simple series of steps you go through when it’s time for baby to go to sleep. Our bedtime routine consisted of a bath (every two to three days as babies do not need to bathe every day), putting on PJs, a final milk feed and a quiet bedtime story before putting them down in their bed and singing a lullaby. When you repeat this every day it signals to them when it is time for bed.
- Don’t jump to pick them up. Babies often grunt, stir and even cry in their sleep. Try to discipline yourself to wait five minutes when they do make noises at night, just to see if they will get themselves back to sleep.
- There’s no such thing as comforting your baby too much. Avoid falling into the trap of thinking you’re forming bad habits by comforting your baby when they cry. There’s no such thing as cuddling your baby too much, so follow your instincts!
Remember, waking up in the night is normal. It’s seen as the holy grail to get a baby sleeping through the night. And it’s understandable why that is.
Sleepless nights are tough.
However babies are very different to adults, and you need to accept that night waking is not a sign your baby is missing a milestone, but just part of their normal behaviour. Many babies start to sleep through at six months, some are still not sleeping through at one year.
How does Eat Play Sleep look in practice?
To see how an eat play sleep routine looks when applied to your baby you can check out my sample schedules by age for babies, all the way up to the toddler years!
Baby Schedules
Wrapping up
If you need sample baby routines to try to help you structure your day then why not check out these baby sleep schedules by age.
And as you stopped by this article, you’re probably trying to sort out your baby’s sleep because you are exhausted! You can take a look at my tips for dealing with newborn baby exhaustion here.
Now that you have had a look at your baby’s daily schedule you may want help with breastfeeding, so check out my tips for breastfeeding beginners.
