Every new parent can respect and appreciate the value of getting your child on a set schedule. When you have a pretty good idea of when she will nap and sleep each day, life gets much easier. What happens when you get a wrench tossed into the gears?
My wife and I have our daughter on a pretty good schedule. She eats within the same hour windows each day and even naps within a specified time frame. She has done this since the first month. My wife is awesome about getting her just right. We even have some wiggle room to be creative through the day. This has been beneficial on numerous occasions.
However, an 8 o’clock bedtime does complicate the social life. We recently took her out on a family outing to dinner and kept her out past 8. Not to mention, we knew she would fall asleep on the car ride home further complicating getting her back on schedule.
What we found to be successful in this situation is to keep life as normal for her as we can. We fed her most of the way before we started driving home. She did fall asleep. Once we got home and changed her into bedtime clothes she started to wake and was getting cranky. To be expected. So, we fed her the rest of the way and put her right to bed.
We found this method to be successful and found ways to adapt the routine even more to create less of a distraction. Instead of waiting to get home to change her, we take her bedtime outfit along and change her before we feed her. This way we will not wake her up by changing her clothes.
The bottom line is that even those with a tight schedule can afford to go out for a night or two and not ruin the efforts to that point. Just apply some creative thinking and keep as close to the routine as you can. May you have the same success we have had.