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Peabody TeachFor teachers and grown-ups

A daily schedule for toddlers and infants

Checked October 31, 2026

A toddler room runs best on the same order every day: arrival and free play, breakfast, diapers and hand-washing, a short circle, play centers, snack, outside, lunch, a long nap, then snack, music and outside again before pick-up. Infants are different: each baby eats and sleeps on their own schedule, and the day's plan is what the grown-ups offer around them. Keep the order, let the times bend, and post it where families see it.

A toddler day

The schedule maker starts a toddler room on this day. Change any time; keep the order.

  • 7:30 Arrival and free play
  • 8:15 Breakfast
  • 8:45 Diapers and potty, hand-washing
  • 9:00 Short circle: a song, a book, the day's plan
  • 9:15 Play centers: blocks, art, sensory table
  • 10:00 Snack
  • 10:15 Outside play
  • 11:15 Wash up and lunch
  • 12:00 Nap
  • 2:30 Wake up, diapers and potty, snack
  • 3:00 Music and movement
  • 3:30 Outside or free play
  • 4:30 Books, puzzles and pick-up
Watch for A toddler circle is a few minutes, not twenty. When they start wandering off, it's time for the song and out to play.

An infant room

Babies don't run on the room's clock. Each one is fed when hungry and put down when tired, and the room's plan is a rhythm of things to offer: floor time and tummy time, songs and lap books, a stroller walk, sensory play. Head Start's program standards ask infant and toddler rooms for daily routines inside a flexible schedule, and the infant starter is written that way.

Write each baby's own times from home (bottles, naps) on their daily sheet, not on the wall schedule. The wall says what the grown-ups will offer and roughly when.

Every nap Every baby sleeps on their back, for naps as well as at night, on a firm, flat surface with only a fitted sheet and nothing else in the crib. That is the national Safe to Sleep advice; the safe-sleep posting is in logs and postings.

Mixed ages at home

In a family child care home the day bends around the youngest: babies' bottles and morning naps while the big ones do a table activity, one circle with the babies on laps, and everyone's nap after lunch with quiet books for the children who don't sleep. The schedule maker has a mixed-age starter for that.

Post it and send it home

Print one copy for the wall at the children's eye level and one for each family, so a parent knows when nap is before they plan a mid-day pick-up. Check your state's licensing rules for what must be posted and how long rest and outside time must be.

Tools for this guide

Sources

All guidesPreschool and daycare