McKenna Baby Summary: Week 18

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Schedule and routine for a 17-18 week old newborn baby. Get info on this baby’s daily schedule and routine for each day and know how to structure your day.

4 month old baby and her two year old sister

NURSING

This is a summary for McKenna ages 17-18 weeks old–her 18th week. This week was good overall.

Nursing is still the same. A few weeks ago, I mentioned how she would pull off and talk to me instead of eat. I quickly got her back on eating straight without much social interaction until done. When Brayden was this age, I would wait until he decided he was done, so nursing too us about 45 minutes to complete even though he wasn’t eating long. When Kaitlyn started doing this at this age, I would let her talk for a minute or two, then I would put her back to finish eating. She quickly got over the social thing and just ate in about 10 minutes and then socialized. That is much preferable for me. So I did the same thing with McKenna.

Nursing Woes {Baby Playing While Breastfeeding}

WAKETIME LENGTH

Waketime length stayed the same. I wanted to point out how ultra-sensitive her first waketime length is. It absolutely cannot be over 50 minutes. If so, she wakes early and has a hard time going back to sleep. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child says to keep the first waketime very short. Since she is so sensitive to it, I have to watch her in the video monitor so I know exactly when she wakes up since she will often wake up and look around for a while before making a peep.

NIGHTTIME

She started extending her nights again, then we went camping. While we were camping, she would wake around 4 AM and talk to herself (which she had been doing for a few days, but would always go back to sleep). I didn’t want her waking Brayden and Kaitlyn, though, so I fed her so she would go back to sleep. When we got home, she quickly extended her nighttime sleep again, up until vaccinations. Vaccinations happened the last day of this week.

18 week old schedule and routine pinnable image

PHYSICAL SKILLS

This age is a time where a lot of physical skills improve. McKenna loves to stand, sit up (both with help), and is getting really good at using her hands. She loves to grab things. Gone are the days that she will sit in my lap at the table and not try to grab my plate :). She is starting to hold toys for short periods. She is also very adept at rolling over from front to back. It is a big time in life!

SOLIDS PREP

McKenna seemed interested in solids, but I am not really interested in starting them yet. It really adds a lot of time to the day, and we are quite busy right now. So I decided I would do a solids prep. I mixed up a teaspoon of cereal with several teaspoons of water (boiled and cooled). She liked it and ate it all. I did this after she took a full feeding, rather than between sides like I would if I were really trying to start solids.

I just want to satisfy her desire and also slowly get her used to eating from a spoon. I am not concerned with moving to three meals a day. I think I will stick to one meal a day until she is five months old, and then move to three a day. We will see 🙂 I might stay with one beyond that, I might move to three before that.

Read: What Age Should You Start Feeding Solid Foods To Your Baby

DROPPING 4TH NAP

McKenna is not ready to drop her fourth nap yet. Brayden and Kaitlyn both had by this age, as do most babies. She is not ready, however. She did skip it one day this week. I keep her up before the fourth nap until she gets fussy (instead of watching waketime length and putting her down prior to being fussy). My desire is for her body to slowly get used to not sleeping at that time of day. So I put her down and she sleeps anywhere from 30-90 minutes. It is typically for 60 minutes. If she wakes earlier than feeding time, I get her up and have her play until it is feeding time. I then feed her and put her in her PJs and straight to bed.

Dropping Naps: A Quick Reference

OUR SCHEDULE

Most days, it is pretty much like it was last week. The camping days, she ate at 4 AM instead of 6ish. Some days, she went until morning waketime. So I will just put the same schedule as last week since it is a medium:

5:30-6:00 AM–eat from one side
8:00 AM–wake and eat
8:50 AM–nap
11:00 AM–eat
12:00 AM–nap
2:00 PM–eat
3:00 PM–nap
4:30 PM–eat
5:45 PM–nap
7:00 PM–eat and straight to bed
10:00 PM–dreamfeed

Babywise Schedule week 18 pinnable image

OUTINGS/EVENTS

Our notable event of the week was camping. It was a long drive to get there, and McKenna was not pleased with it. She will only take short naps in the vehicle, and by the end of the 4 hour drive, she was done. We did stop about half-way for a feeding and diaper change. I think that being in the carseat makes her gas worse. She seemed really uncomfortable and in pain.

While we were camping, she took awesome naps. They were all perfect and long, and this was with lots of kids running around screaming and riding 4-wheelers. My aunt said that her aunt told her babies sleep better in higher altitude. True? Who knows. It was for McKenna (not that I am saying it was the high altitude that did it. Maybe it was the singing birds? Who knows).

As I said earlier, she would wake up at 4 AM and talk, so I fed her so she wouldn’t wake Brayden and Kaitlyn. Overall, she did really well and bounced back quickly afterward.

Read: Tips for a Successful Camping Trip with Children

HELPFUL BOOKS/WEBSITES

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