Common Newborn Questions from Moms

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!

Newborn baby girl

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

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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


 

21 thoughts on “Common Newborn Questions from Moms”

  1. I would just like to add to Kate's question about 6 feedings/day. My daughter dropped down to five feedings per day by 9 weeks and she has always gained weight well and been healthy. She began sleeping 12 hours at night at that point and was eating every three hours during the day. At first I tried to squish the 6th feeding back in but it caused her to snack and I knew she was eating better with just the five feedings.

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  2. I have a question…I have been swaddling my son since 5 weeks old and using the BW schedule as well. He is now 6 months and started to get aggressive in the swaddler because he can't roll over and he is waking up 3-6 times during the night. Last week I started to just loosely swaddle him in a blanket and he usually will go down great but after so long he wakes himself up and can't get back to sleep because he doesn't know what to do with his hands. He is all over the place with them and it seems to make matters worse. I tried to let him CIO this last week and for 30 min to 1 1/2 at times and he just gets more worked up that it takes 10-15 mins to calm him. He has never just "dropped off" and fallen asleep. It doesn't help that he can't quite crawl yet so when he gets on his tummy he keeps his head up and won't lay it down which makes him more frusturated. Oh and he does the binky too so that makes it harder because I have to go in and put it in his mouth everytime he is crying? What can I do to wean him off the swaddler and binky? Any advice would help:)

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  3. I have a question for you :)My son is 2 months old and pretty much has been sleeping through the night since we got home from the hospital (6 hours or so). At the beginning we used to wake him up at 4AM to feed since he was so little (or else he probably would have slept 8+ hours). I think this has backfired since he now wakes up at 3 or 4AM every night. I was hoping he would be dropping this feeding already. It isn't bad getting up at this time, but it would be nice when it goes away. Any suggestions?Also, my main concern are his naps. He goes to sleep about 60-90 minutes after he wakes up, but we have to rock him to sleep. When I try CIO, it is a disaster. Yesterday he cried hysterically and ended up skipping that nap entirely (he was up for 3 hours!) Even trying to rock him didn't work after trying to let him CIO for 20 minutes. This also ended up effecting his night sleep last night. Instead of getting up at 4AM for a 20 min feeding, he woke up at 2AM, 4AM, 6AM and 7AM 🙁 Are some babies just not able to put themselves to sleep? When he wakes from naps, he usually can, but he is a stubborn boy when it comes to initially going down for the nap. Night time is great going down though… it is just naps that can be an issue unless we rock him. Sorry this is so long. Any suggestions?

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  4. Lisa,I'd like to answer your question about swaddling. It is usually recommended that you stop swaddling your baby at 3 – 4 months of age. Since baby is well beyond that age, he may enjoy the freedom. If not, try doing a developmental swaddle. This is when you swaddle baby with their hands up by their mouth. This way, they have the security of the swaddle. That way baby can use his hands instead of the pacifier to suckle with when getting baby to sleep.

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  5. Hi, I wasn't sure where to leave this question. I hope you find it… My 10 week old son seems to be going backwards in his night sleeping pattern. At about 8 weeks, he was beginning to stretch out his nights, with a feed at about 8pm, then about 2am, then 6am. This lastest about a week. For the past 3 weeks, he has been having 3 hourly feeds around the clock again! He is feeding 8pm, 11pm, 2am, 5am and 8am (then continuing 3 hourly during the day). I haven't had to wake him for a feed since he was about 3 weeks old. He is always ready to eat, right on schedule. (I should also add, he is a big boy, over 6.5kg/ 13.5 pounds at 8 weeks of age). Maybe I was just spoilt because my daughter was STTN with a dreamfeed by this age… Is there anything I can do to help him stretch out those nights again?

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  6. Hi! We just started implementing the 3 hour routine with our 3 week old. So far, we are somehow keeping up with the schedule. There are times though that there will be a glich and I would not know what to do. Just today, I tried to wake my baby up at 3pm for her feeding. She woke up to feed for about 15 mins then fell back to sleep. I tried to wake her up (changed her diapers, burp her, tickle her, etc), She woke up a little bit. I took advantage of that and tried to nurse her again. She did for about 5 mins and fell back to sleep. Again I tried to wake her up (took a wet wash cloth to her face, tickle, etc). She reacted a bit but was still asleep. So I decided to just let her sleep. I put her in her bouncer instead of her crib. It's already 545pm and she is still asleep! Her next feeding is at 6pm which I will try to wake her for. Was that okay that I let her sleep till her next feeding, without a wake time? Shall I just wait for her to wake up on her own? What do I do? Does this action disrupt the schedule?

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  7. Lisa, I don't have experiene with the pacifier. For advice in that area, click the "pacifier" blog label and you will find information from others.I would try just not swaddling him to fall asleep initially so when he wakes mid-nap, he knows what to do.Also, spend more time doing tummy time during waketime so he can get some practice in that area with his muscles. See also the blog label, Swaddling.

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  8. Kenny and Jen,So are you saying he never goes to sleep on his own? Some babies have a hard time falling asleep on their own, but that is due to medical reasons like colic, reflux, or perhaps gas. It doesn't sound like you are experiencing colic. I would look into the other two.Other than that, with practice, he can get it. But before you start CIO, be sure to read the CIO blog label. Understand optimal waketime length (also a blog label) and nap cues. Good luck!

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  9. Thanks! He isn't a gassy baby and doesn't have reflux. He is just spoiled and stubborn 🙂 He can put himself to sleep when we are out and he is in his car seat, but at home I think he has come to expect us to rock him.We are starting to rock him until he shows he is getting sleepy and then putting him in his crib. Then if I rub his forehead, he can fall asleep. If I just leave him in the crib, he cries hysterically. I look and look for sleep cues, but he rarely has any. When he is in his crib he will smile and laugh at us and try to play with us. He is also one who wakes 45 min into naps. If I go in a put a paci in right away he goes back to sleep. If not, he cries and cries and will not go back to sleep.

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  10. Julie,It sonds like it might be a growth spurt. The best thing to do is feed him as much as he needs until it is over. Keep in mind that boys typically (statistically) take longer to STTN than girls.

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  11. Vee, that is the right thing to do. Just let her sleep until her next feeding. Then try to wake her again for the feeding. There is a post called "adding waketime to your newborn's day." This should help you out 🙂

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  12. Thanks for commenting. It may have been a growth spurt – I just didn't realise that growth spurts can last for up to 3 weeks. We are now (at 13 weeks) in a more manageable pattern with only 1-2 wakings overnight (between 8pm and 8am). I will be prepared for another growth spurt though! Thanks again.

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  13. I have a question concerning my 4 week old. I have her on a 3 hour feeding schedule and have been trying to do the BW feed, wake, nap schedule. Everything is good except the nap part. She will drift off to sleep on her own wherever she is but if I put her in her bed she cries for 10-30 minutes and I only get a 45 minute nap. I also feel like she spends her whole life closed off in her room. She is not a fussy baby until I really try to put her down every naptime and then I think she gets overly tired and fusses because she hasn't gotten any rest. Must she nap only in her bed or are naps elsewhere ok. I have been trying 45 min to 1 1/4 min of waketime, is this too much or too little? Am I sabotaging myself by not following the routine explicitely? Help

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  14. missmissum,The way you describe it, she isn't falling asleep on her own, she is falling asleep in your arms or somewhere else and then doesn't transfer to her bed well.See the blog label CIO for help in this area and ideas for how to go about this.You do want most of her naps to be in a safe bed for babies. She can have naps elsewhere on ocassion. How often will depend on her personality–some are naturally more flexible than others.She would now be about 6 weeks old, so about one hour should be good for her, but see the label "optimal waketime" for help in making sure.It is a good idea to be really consistent with the routine in the beginning. They then have a base to start with and can be flexible in the future.

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  15. I am new to Babywise and I really want to get it right. My son is 4.5 weeks old and I've decided that I want 7:30 to be our wake up time. He is on a 2.5-3 hour feeding schedule and his late night feeding is at or around 3:30. He has been waking up at about 6:15 and I can't get him to go back to sleep, so I nurse him but then I feel like the entire schedule for the day is messed up. I don't want him to get used to waking up that early and I want to be able to feed him at 7:30, 10:00, 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:30, with 2 late night feedings but if the day starts off wrong I don't know how to get it back on track. How can I get the day started at 7:30 instead of 6:15? Please help!

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  16. I have a 5 week old boy who is on a great schedule during the day. We have been starting at 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm. and 2 late night feedings when ever he wakes. I feel like I am doing something wrong when it comes to the evening feeding (9pm). After he eats at 6pm he has a little awake time and goes right to sleep. I than have to wake him for his 9pm feeding and than when I try and put him to bed he wakes up every time screaming until about 10:30-11:30pm! He than falls asleep and will sleep until 2/3am. I tried eliminated that scream time by cluster feeding and waking him up at 8:30pm and again at 10:30pm to nurse. It eliminated that scream time and he stays asleep after the 10:30 feeding but he keeps getting up every 2/3 hours all night to nurse. So my big question is should I keep the cluster feeding at 8:30 and 10:30 making 10:30 our bedtime but having him get up every few hours or should I keep the 3hr schedule and have the last night time feeding at 9pm and just let him cry it out until 11pm? Thanks

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  17. Andrea, I would stick with the cluster feeding. It improved something.For the night, be sure you are 1) having a consistent time you wake him up each morning and 2)work to have him be awake after each feeding in the day.See also the blog label "witching hour" in case you are having some of that.

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  18. I'm not sure where else to leave this comment but I've got a couple of immediate questions. I'm hoping I can get something back before 2 weeks because this is kind of an immediate question. First, I accidentally subscribed to be updated through my e-mail of posts and I need to be unsubscribed. It is flooding my e-mail inbox.Second, I am a first time mom and my new son is 12 days old today. I am working on implementing babywise and I've got a quick question about a bump I've run into and I'm not sure how to deal with it. My son seems to be getting on a pretty good 3 hour schedule…starting at 8 am. I bump up his evening feedings to 2 1/2 hours so his last feeding is either 10 or 10:30. At night he is pretty consistently 3- 3 1/2 hours and then he wakes on his own to feed. One problem though, one of his night feedings falls at about 4 or 4:30. He goes back to sleep but then he is waking up at 6/ 6:15ish and not going back to sleep very well unless I give him the pacifier, which falls out so he wakes up so I eventually put him in bed to make it easier. This has happened 3 nights in a row. I am trying to make sure he's getting a full feeding at 4, and I think he is, I just don't know why he is waking up after not quite 2 hours?? I'm not sure what I should do. I tried letting him cry it out, but after about 15 minutes he is still upset and not going back to sleep. I want his first feeding to be at 8 so I don't really want to feed him at 6:15 cause that will kinda screw things up and I don't want to just give him a snack either. Any suggestions? Thanks for the help…I really appreciate it. Thanks again!

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