Sleep..

Hi Misty,

Thee are as many opinions regarding nursing and schedules as there are moms it seems like, but since you asked…

Let me say that all of mine were born healthy and babies who aren’t have not been my experience, so…

I had a wonderful lactation consultant who taught me about scheduled feedings. I am a BIG believer in scheduled feedings for several reasons – predictability of child’s needs/behaviors, mom’s rest is so important to keeping a good milk supply, needs of the household are more easily met when I know what I am doing and when. This is not to say that I am inflexible and don’t gage the changing needs, but I have 3 dc and this has worked beautifully for all 3.

I follow a feed, wake time, then sleep time routine w/ my dc. Sometimes the wake time is short, but the point is that I don’t nurse them to sleep. I, personally, don’t want to train into my kids anything that I will need to train out of them later. 🙂

I never let a newborn baby sleep more than 3 hours during the day without waking (or at least attempting to wake them) for a feeding. At night, I let them sleep as long as they can and then feed them and put them back down.

Some background…

DD (our #1) arrived at 10 lbs 14 oz. (2 weeks late) and was sleeping through the night at 5.5 weeks w/ 4 nights of letting her cry it out. I knew she was waking out of routine, not hunger. She was over 13 lbs at that time and even my pediatrician says at 12 lbs they can make it through the night just fine.

DS (our #2) arrived at 9 lbs 10 oz (1.5 weeks early) and slept through the night at 5 weeks all on his own. He just didn’t wake up for his night feeding one night.

DD (our #3) arrived at 10 lbs 5 oz (2 weeks early) and slept through the night from the day we brought her home. She occasionally would wake around 3 AM to feed during a growth spurt during the first 6 weeks, but this was rare.

Now, this may be earlier than some given that my babies arrive so LARGE and reach that heavier 12 lb mark sooner, but if the baby is getting all the sleep he/she needs during the day, well they have to be up sometime and I’m sure you’d rather it be daytime! 😉

A book that was helpful to me regarding setting a schedule was On Becoming Babywise. I don’t subscribe to everything in the book, but the scheduling part was helpful.

Like I mentioned, you will probably get many suggestions from others that will differ greatly, but these are my suggestions for what they are worth.

May the Lord bless you and your growing family!

Christie

PS – I can’t wait to nurse our number 4 that is due in December. I miss that snuggle time w/ a wee one! 🙂

I happened to have children who were also larger at birth (both were 9lb. 8oz.). They both were fed on demand at first, and by 2/3 weeks, they were on their own schedule (every 2 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night for my first; about every 3 hours for my second). Both were sleeping through the night by 6 weeks, but, like Christie’s babies, they were pretty big by then.

I believe that everyone has their own experiences with nursing, and there’s no wrong or right way; just the way that works best for you and your baby.

On a side note: you mention that she’s sleeping at longer stretches during the day than at night–could she have her days and nights mixed up?

Faith 🙂

Misty,

At our house, sleeping through the night means 6 hours sleep without waking during the night.

Your baby is just at the size mine arrive (LOL, I know mine are giants!) so she may still need a night-time feeding.

Also, mine had 2 evening feedings close together sometimes (say 3:00 and 5:00 or so) and my lactation consultant called it a cluster feeding and given that it’s a busy time of day w/ dinner prep. and whatnot that they need a bit more then.

I count my time from start of a feeding to start of a feeding. So we may might have 6 am, 9am, 12noon, 3pm, 5:30pm, 8:30pm, 11:30pm and then sleep till 6am and start again. When we would have a night feed, it would usually be around 3 am or so.

I know that people differ greatly and some are fine w/ an on demand feeding plan, but in our house that would have spelled disaster for our family and me in particular. We are orderly and very routine and for us it is best to integrate our babies into our routine from the get-go than have the baby change it all around for us. You know your family best and what will suit you, this is just my experience.

Best to you and yours,

Christie

I have nursed 3 and am nursing my 4th right now – she is 7 months. Just another thought – she may need to sleep MORE during the day. I know that sounds crazy, because it is counter-intuitive. At 4 months all of mine still had 3 naps a day for sure. Morning, afternoon and later afternoon/early evening. They all gave that 3rd nap up around 6 or 7 months, but not before. And they had the morning and afternoon naps until 12-18 months as well. Bottom line, the better she sleeps during the day, the better she will sleep at night. Good luck!!

Baby size isn’t always a great indicator, in my experience, either. My two first babies were 11 and 10 pounds, respectively. The first one slept through the night at about 4 months; the second one it was fully 7 months before he did. (He weighed nearly thirty pounds by then, lol) He just wasn’t ready. I gently guide my children onto a basic routine, doing the same things in the same order most days, and I do feel that this helped. Also, for daytime sleep, I just plopped baby down wherever we were–living room, etc. But at night, we had a nighttime routine, and then he got a quiet, darkened room. I think that made a difference, too.

Third baby had reflux and all bets were off, he didn’t regulary sleep through the night until he was about 2 years. 🙂