These are real questions from real moms about their newborn babies. You might find an answer to your question here, or even a question you didn’t know you have!
Feedings and Milk Supply
- Kate said…
My dr. is very vague when I ask this question, thought I’d get your opinion. My daughter is 11 weeks old and the past 3 days she’s only been eating 6 times a day. 5 times during the day and once at night. (I do a middle of the night feeding instead of dreamfeed, I like this better). I can’t really get her to eat more unless I do 2 feedings less than 2 hours apart and then it seems like she’s just snacking.Do you think this is okay if I want to continue breastfeeding after 6 months? I want to make sure my milk supply doesn’t decrease. Thanks!
April 7, 2008 6:45 PM
Plowmanators said…
Kate, BW says After 8 weeks old, your baby might be able to move to 6 feedings in 24 hours. Starting at 13 weeks, your baby should be at 5-7 feedings a day. If she is fine with 6 feedings a day, I would let her stay that way. If you are concerned with milk supply, I would add a pumping to your day, just before you go to bed.
April 7, 2008 10:01 PM
Sleep
- taralous said…
Hi! I just found your blog! yay! I am SOOO confused. I have a 17 month old who I did Babywise with for the most part and he was pretty easy and did well with the schedule. I just had a little girl who is 4 weeks today and she is making me double think everything! She doesn’t sleep alot which I thought newborns were supposed to! She is usually up 2-3 hours at a time and will nap about an hour or so twice during the afternoon. She is super fussy all the time and I can barely get her to make it to 2 hours for feedings. I breastfeed both sides and give her a bottle. Sometimes she drinks 1-1 1/2 oz and sometimes all 2 oz. Anyways. I am confused. I don’t know whats the matter and I have laid her down in her crib after feedings and waketimes knowing she needs to sleep but she screams bloody murder for a good 20 minutes and by that time I get her and she is almost ready to eat again. Any help would be great. I’m getting tired!
September 23, 2008 12:20 PM
Plowmanators said…
taralous, It sounds like you had a son who liked to sleep and was pretty easy. Your daughter sounds like my son. My son slept a lot in the day for 1-2 weeks, then rarely ever napped. A few things:1-You have to take control of the situation. She should be awake for about 45min-1 hour at this point (now she is about 5 weeks). At that point, put her down for a nap.2-teach her to self-soothe. You can do CIO or you can do an approach outlined by Tracy Hogg (author of Secrets of the Baby Whisperer). Once those things are in place, she should be able to go longer between feedings. Be sure to look through the blog index; there are many posts on there that can help you. Here are some I would point out: Nap Cues and The Ultimate Cry It Out Bootcamp
October 1, 2008 4:06 PM
Starting Babywise
- Emily said…
I thought I posted this question in another post but didn’t see it when I checked so I HOPE I’m not repeating since I know you get enough questions as it is.My questions are for when you start implementing BW with a newborn.
1. Do newborns have a 12hr “night time” period? Where from 8PM-8AM you lay them straight down after every feeding or do they have a shorther nightime with 8 or 10hrs long?
2. What do you do if during the night they won’t go straight to sleep? I understand during the day you can try different things then just move on w/ the eat/wake/sleep but what about at night when they’re only supposed to eat/sleep…?Thank you and I hope you’re feeling better now!
October 18, 2008 7:53 AM
Plowmanators said…
Emily,
1. That is going to depend on the baby. With Kaitlyn, after her 7ish feeding, I would change her into her PJs and put her to bed. Then for the dreamfeed, I put her straight down. After night feeds, I put her straight down. I always put her straight down until it was the first feeding of the day. With Brayden, his night started later but I think that was more out of my own inexperience than his needs.
2. This is a hard one. At first, we would rock her or something. At some point, we had her CIO–but both kids basically went straight back to sleep.
October 21, 2008 11:53 AM
Read: How To Successfully do “On Becoming Babywise”
Schedule
- Natalie said…
I have a quick question. My baby is 6 weeks old and eats at roughly 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, and 4 pm. after 4 pm her next wake up time varies greatly, anywhere from 7-9:30 pm. As of late I’ve woken her up for the 7 pm and 10 pm feeding so that she would maintain 7 feeding periods in a day. However I’m starting to get the feeling that I should let her wake up on her own for her next feeding after 4 pm. I called the doc b/c sometimes she after 4 pm she won’t wake up until 9 30 pm and then not again until about 3 am. My question is when do I do the bedtime routine? Surely not at 4 PM, but I feel like my daughter wakes up so late for her next feeding that any waketime activities, including a bedtime routine, should be avoided since I eventually want her to be asleep at seven pm for the night. Also, when she wakes up for the feeding after four pm, she’s very clearly in nighttime mode. I can tell because she nurses the exact same way she does in the middle of the night and falls right to sleep after she eats. Does she have her days and nights messed up? I’ve been trying to wake her up for the last feedings to keep seven feedings in the day, but I really feel my intuition telling me that if she’s wanting to stay asleep and she’s already six weeks old, I shouldn’t mess with her too much lest I create real sleep problems from always waking her. I apologize for being so verbose but I have no idea what to do.
October 28, 2008 3:20 PM
Natalie said…
So I reread your post about the dream feed and basically its like the 7 pm and 10 pm feeds are both dreamfeeds for olive. I have tried everything! Maybe I should aim for the four pm feeding to be between 3 30 and 4 pm hoping that she’ll wake herself up by 7 pm? if she does wake herself up, do I do waketime? is that when I do a short bedtime routine but still keep everything low key? Also, if she did wake up on her own around 730 (and how long do i let her go from 3:30 – 4 pm feeding until I wake her up?) what time should I make her dream feed? I’d rather it be late, like around 11:30 pm, but thats longer than the 3 hours i normally go. Lastly, I could set a watch by her waketime at 2:42 am. I fell asleep the other night after i had woken her to eat at 9 30 after her 4 30 feeding and she woke at 2 42. I feed her at 12 30 as a dream feed and she sleeps until 2 42. no matter what i do she goes until 2:42!!!
October 28, 2008 3:39 PM
Plowmanators said…
Natalie, I would be sure to have waketime after the 4 PM feeding, then wake her at 7 PM for a feeding and get her into her PJs either before or after the feeding. You will have some waketime for the 7 PM feeding, but it doesn’t have to be as long as other waketimes.The DF can be 11:30 if you want it to. I would do it anywhere from 10-11:30.
November 3, 2008 11:29 AM - Natalie said…
I’m very, very desperate at this point. I realized a few days ago that my 8 week old baby has only been having 7 feeds a day including her mon feeding which occurred anywhere between 330-5am. I decided to swich to a 2.5 hour schedule so she would have 7 feedings during the day. My problem is the same one it’s always been. My baby has always slept very deeply and soundly after about 7 pm. I have to wake her up from her nap at 7-730, feed her and basically put her right back down. I won’t hear from her at all. I started doing a dreamfeed at about 11:30. For a while she was going to 5 am. Then she started going to 3:50 am. At that point I decided to switch to a 2.5 hr schedule with cluster feedings at night to help her sttn. This means her feeds are as follows: 7:30 am, 10:30 am (this is usually a very good nap) 1pm, 3:30pm, 6pm (at this point I have to wake her from a deep sleep-last night i let her go to 6:20) 8:30 (last night 8:45 and i had to wake her up) and a df at 11 pm. I think I totally messed her up by waking her up so many times after 7 pm! She woke up off and on all night long. She has NEVER done that, always slept from df w/o any crying until her feeding at 3:50. I know it takes a few days for you to respond but I have no idea if I should just switch her back to the 3 hr schedule I had her on before and just keep doing what I was doing where she slept from 7:30 pm on or what. Honestly, I would rather wake up every night for the mon and have her maintain her sound nighttime sleep then disrupt her and cause her to get up all night long. I’m almost to tears because I feel I’ve undone all the hard work to this point. Please tell me what you would do.
November 11, 2008 5:24 AM
Plowmanators said…
Natalie, I agree with you; go back to the 3 hour schedule and what worked before. This will mean she might take longer to STTN, but I am with you in that it is preferable to have good sleep at night. She might take a while to get back. When Kaitlyn was 6ish weeks old, I decided to enforce a DF. She slept terribly that night and for every night for a week, but she did get back on track. Your work will not have been all undone.
November 19, 2008 2:52 PM - Ann said…
Hello! I am a new mommy to a 6 week old. We have many friends who are strong advocates of BW, so I knew we would be implementing it when our son was born. However, since we are NEW parents, we have so many questions and frustrations. I hope it’s okay to ask them here!I should probably give you some background info first before I start the round of 20 questions. :)He was a big baby at birth. 9 lbs and is currently 13 lbs today (only 6 weeks!). He consumes anywhere from 4-5 oz at a time. I am strictly pumping and adding formula at every feed to ensure he gets a full feeding. I only pump 2-3 oz at a time. He has come to learn how to self soothe for naps, which is great! AND he had two nights when he slept through the night! However, this is what I noticed: the days following his continuous sleep, his feeding schedules get stretched out. For example, he normally feeds every 3 hrs. But when he slept through the night, the next day he was feeding every 4 hrs. So, I thought his body was naturally moving to a 4 hr schedule. But, then that night, he goes back to 3 hr feedings. Any explanation? Should I be waking him up to prevent the 4 hr stretch?Also, I’ve seen the term dreamfeed here on this site, but I didn’t see it in the book. Can you explain that to me? and when should I really be enforcing it?Third, our ideal schedule would be for him to sleep from 8/9ish pm to 8/9ish am. How do we start doing that? Right now, his last feed is normally around 10-11 and then we let him wake up naturally. Is the last feed something he will eventually drop? At what age do they normally start to do that?I think that’s it for now. I realize he is still really young, but I didn’t know when we would start seeing results. Thank you!
January 8, 2009 3:04 PM
Ann said…
Hello again — I was just curious to see if you received my post/question? I know you are busy. Just checking. Thank you.
January 14, 2009 7:16 AM
Plowmanators said…
Ann, Definitely wake up to keep him on 3 hours in the day at this age. Dreamfeed is a word that the online BW community uses for the late evening feeding. It is found in the Baby Whisperer.Your 10-11 feeding is the dreamfeed. For all the information on that, see the blog label “dreamfeed”It sounds like he is doing really well!
January 14, 2009 5:22 PM
Read: Babywise Sample Schedules: The First Month
