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Dropping Feedings
- Dropping a Feeding
- Dropping the 4th Feeding
- Dropping the “Dream Feed”
- Early Morning Feedings Before Waketime
- Weaning: Breast, Bottle, and Formula
Dropping Naps
How To Posts
- Dropping Naps: A Quick Guide
- Dropping Naps: A Quick Reference
- Dropping a Nap: A Weaning Process
- Dropping Naps
- Dropping the 3rd Nap (evening)
- Dropping 3rd Nap Impact
- Dropping the Morning Nap Guide
- Dropping the Morning Nap (from 2 to 1 naps): Transition Time
- Dropping Naps: Moving To Rest Time
How to Know When Your Child is Ready to Stop Napping
In Action Posts
- In Action: Dropping the Morning Nap:
- In Action: Dropping the Third Nap
- Help A Reader Out…Dropping The Morning Nap
Polls
- Poll Results: What Age Did Baby Drop Third Nap? (approximate) :
- Poll Results: What age did baby drop 4th nap (approximate)?
- What Age Did Child Drop Morning Nap (went down to one nap a day)?
- Poll Results: When Your Toddler Got Settled Into One Nap A Day, How Long Was The Nap?
Swaddling
Timeline
Weaning
Valerie, also known as The Babywise Mom, is the mother to four children. She has been blogging on Babywise and general parenting since 2007. She has a degree in technical writing and loves using those skills to help parents be the best parents they can be! Read her book, The Babywise Mom Nap Guide, to get help on sleep from birth through the preschool years. You can also find her writing at Babywise.life, Today Parenting, and Her View From Home. Read more about Valerie and her family on the About page. Follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram for more tips and helps.
My almost 8 week old son is doing great with daytime naps and eating schedule but feel he should be going longer between feedings at night. At 1 month he was 11lbs and I'm sure he's at least 13 lbs by now (big boy), he gets 5 oz at most feedings during the day (and at 2 of the feedings takes 6oz) – last feed is 7;30 then we put him down for bed. Dream feed has been around 11 (can only get him to take about 3 oz at dream freed) but then it's like clockwork as he he gets up exactly 3 hours after dreamfeed (2:15 to 2:30am). We were doing the dreamfeee at 10:30 and he was getting up 1:30-1:45am. He usually takes 5 to 6 oz at 2:30 and will sleep anywhere til 5;45 or sometimes 7. When he gets up before 6, I only give him 2 or 3 oz as I want first feed to be 7:30ish. So my question is how do I get him to go longer at nights between feedings. I see so many have babies STTN by now and I'm ready!!! He's our second child and with our daughter we didn't know to do a dream feed so by the time we tried to add it was too late – she didnt STTN until 4 months. Please help
Tiffany, he is very young. A lot of babies don't STTN until 12 weeks–especially boys. So it might just be age. But do you have waketime consistently all day? If not, that could help.
Hey. Ive followed your blog for quite a while but never not been able to find what I was looking for even though I turn here for soooo much. Anyway my question is how do you know a child is ready to extend their schedule? My daughter is 3 months old and STTN but still eatting at 7,10,1,4,6,8,10 (cluster feeding due to witching hour). with my son it was much easier to tell when he was ready and he had no problem transitioning but Im not sure with her. Do you have a post about signs of readiness maybe that Im missing? thank you sooo much in advance. your blog has saved my life since Im a STHM mom of 2 (20 mos and 3MOS) with a deployed husband.=)
Oh man I found what I needed right after I posted that. Thank you sooo much for your awesome blog!!!!
I did a search looking for some guidance with Babywise and came across your blog and LOVE it! I have a couple of question……I hope you can help. I did babywise with my first child, she is now 2.5, and did/is doing great. Right around 8 weeks she slept 8 hours and then right around 3 mo she starting sleeping 12 hours. I had a few issues breastfeeding with her so I ONLY pumped for 5 mo and bottle fed her the expressed milk.I now have a NB, he is 8 weeks today and weighs 11.5 lbs. He is a little more challenging on the nighttime sleeping. He is doing great during the day until today. Eating every 3 hours and having awake time and then down for a nap for an hr. to hour and a half. I do do a dreamfeed at aroun 11/1130 and I do expressed breastmilk. I do only breastfeed him during the day but man he is a pain to keep awake and can take almost an hour to feed him and still sometimes he will still take 2 more ounces of stored milk. So I am not sure he is getting full feedings while I nurse him. Anyways, at night he is waking somewhere between 3 and 4 every night. He is not going longer stretches yet. Where as my daughter would go 4 hours and then 5 and then 6. He is stuck at the 3-4am. Sometimes he will take a full feeding and sometimes he will just nurse and I have to fight him to wake up to eat. Then he will go back to sleep until somewhere around 7, yet I don't start our day until 8 so I struggle with keeping him asleep until 730/745. I have many friends who's infants who were already sleeping through the night at this point, boys and girls. I am doing everything by the book and am just lost at why he is not extending his sleeping. I tried the CIO once but he will cry for a whole hour and then it wakes up my daughter. I tried slowly reducing his feeding time, what you suggested in one of your blogs, and then he wakes earlier, 630. I am just so exhausted this go around because I now have a toddler to chase after and would love some advice. I know the BW book says give it to 9 weeks and most babies "just" sleep through one night but he is not going longer stretches which makes me nervous. Part of me thinks he might not be getting enough milk during the day so today I exclusively pumped and he took an additional 2 to 2.5 additional ounces from what I had already pumped. He had been a great napper but today he hardly napped and would sleep 30 minutes and then cry for 30, sleep 10 and then cry for 20. That is how all his naps were today. I am just at a loss , so any help would be greatly appreciated! So I am just not sure what to do. Thank you!
One last thing….I am doing CIO and he is sleeping maybe 30/40 minutes of his 1.5 hour nap for each of naps, and he is currently taking 4 naps. Is this normal during CIO and how long is to long to let him cry. His poor eyes are puffy and I can tell he is tired.
Hi, I have a 7.5 week old . He was 10.2 lbs at birth, on a 3 hour routine from 7,10,1,4,6,8,1030. He has done well at night, the last 3 nights sleeping with only one or 2 interruptions that were solved by the pacifier. The time he has woken up during the night ranged from 345am, to 445, thoughonce it was 530. I tried full feedings then and he took it, sort of, went to sleep and I had to wake him to eat again at 7/730. Last night, he woke at 230, 4, and 6, but always settled right down with the pacifier. Is that ok to not feed him? He did not seem hungry and fell asleep again as soon he was sucking. Thanks for your advice!
Dear Valerie,Thank you so much for your awesome work on this blog! I'm so encouraged by so much that I find on here.I have a question for you regarding my son's last feeding of the day. So he is 4 months old, and on his own around 2 months, he would eat directly after his last nap (around 6pm at the time) and then want to eat one more time before bed, a la "cluster feeding", around 7pm, at which point he would go right to sleep.Though this was technically "feeding him to sleep", it seemed to be what he needed and for all other naps and sleep opportunities he was going directly from wake time to sleep on his own, so I haven't been too concerned about that last cluster feed of the day.Now we are at 4 months, and we are eating at 6, 9, 12, 3, 6 and then he nurses to go to sleep at around 7:30. He then will sleep until about 1 or so and feed once in the middle of the night.My question is about that 7:30 feeding right before bed – I wonder whether to drop it or whether to keep it going. On the one hand, I don't mind keeping it up but I also might be reinforcing the "nursing to sleep" longer than I should. I'm confident that he will go to sleep on his own if I drop it at this point – but my concern is more that dropping it will interfere with his nightime sleep and cause him to wake more frequently in the night for food. What are your thoughts? Thank you so much!!