How it’s worked out
Ten rules, and the app follows exactly these. The card on Today shows the short version under its “from her last 14 days” line; “See her fourteen days” draws them.
- Her own last two weeks. Each logged day is a wake-up, its naps and a bedtime. Days without both are left out rather than guessed.
- Recent days count more. Each week further back, a day carries half the weight. The last week decides; the week before steadies it.
- The middle of her days, not the average. One odd day doesn’t drag the forecast around.
- By place in the day. Her first window of the morning is not her third; each nap’s window and length are worked out for that position.
- How sure it is, on its face. The ± is the usual spread of her recent days — never under ten minutes, never over an hour. Five or more logged wake windows behind the forecast: steady. Three or four: a rough read, and it says so. Fewer than three: it waits, and says how many more naps it needs. A nap with fewer than three days of its own borrows the figure from all her windows, or all her naps, until it has them.
- Bedtime, two ways. Her usual clock time and the chain of today’s naps. Early in the day the clock leads; after the last nap the chain leads. Never pulled more than an hour from her usual unless her days plainly say so.
- When a nap is on its way out. Skipped, or a catnap under 20 minutes, on most of the last seven days after being kept on most of the week before: the forecast drops it and says why. An every-other-day nap is left alone.
- Nothing squeezed against bedtime. A nap that would start within her usual last wake window of bedtime — never less than 45 minutes — isn’t forecast; bedtime comes forward instead.
- While she’s asleep now. The card says when she’s usually up. If a nap runs long it says so, rather than naming a time that has already passed.
- At night it stays quiet. And it says nothing while it is still learning.
The one number from outside
No medical body publishes wake windows or nap schedules, so we don’t invent them. One figure does come from outside: how much sleep in 24 hours is usual for her age. It never shapes the forecast. It checks the day — last night, today’s naps and what’s still expected, against that range — and speaks only when the total falls outside it.
| Age | Usual total in 24 hours | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 0–3 months | 16–17 hours | American Academy of Pediatrics |
| 4–11 months | 12–16 hours | AASM consensus, 2016, endorsed by the AAP |
| 1–2 years | 11–14 hours | AASM consensus, 2016, endorsed by the AAP |
The ranges are the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s consensus recommendations (2016), endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, with the AAP’s own guidance for the first months. Past the last band the app says nothing rather than stretching a two-year-old’s numbers over an older child.
A forecast, not a schedule
Teething, a cold, a growth spurt, a long drive — she’ll beat it. Use it to plan the afternoon, not to wake her. It is not medical advice; check anything that matters with your pediatrician, midwife, nurse or doctor.
Worked out on your phone
From your own logs, on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere to make it. Sharing a baby with a caregiver shares the logs, and each phone works the forecast out for itself from the same days.
All of it, in one subscription
Nothing in the forecast is held back: her next nap, the rest of her day, her bedtime, the working behind each one and the check on the day’s total all come with the one subscription.
Still curious?
hello@ourbabyday.com answers questions about a particular forecast — say what the card showed and what her day actually did. The rest of the answers live on Support.