LO is 6 weeks old now, and we still don't have any sort of a routine. I know she's still very young, but I feel like most moms with LO around her age talk about how their baby is sleeping 4-6 hr stretches at night, and already has a daytime routine established. Our LO days vary so much. Sometimes she sleeps all day long, sometimes she's awake for long stretches. Sometimes she wants to eat every 2 hours, sometimes every 3-4. Sometimes she's ready for bed at 9, sometimes midnight. It's exhausting not knowing. She's had a few random nights of sleeping 4 hour stretches at a time and it was wonderful!!! But then it was over and back to every 2 hours. I go back to work in a few weeks and I'm really hoping to have somewhat of a predictable routine established by then. Am I expecting too much? Any tips would be great!
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Are you nursing? Pumping? Formula feeding?
I found that when my LO was fuller, she slept longer. She did her first 6 hour stretch at night when she was 6 weeks old! If I remember correctly (my memory's super fuzzy not even a year later), I gave her pumped milk in a bottle so I knew she had a full tummy when she went down for the night. -
I couldn't deal with not having a schedule so I set one from early one. I would not let her sleep all day long and woke her up to eat if naps were going long. I always had the same bedtime and morning wake up time. It is very structured but I think it will help since you are going back to work soon. Good luck!
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@chopsuey119: I'm BF, and giving a bottle once a day of pumped breast milk. Our ped instructed me not to be the one to give the bottle, so my husband has been giving it to her before he goes to work. He works 2nd shift, and doesn't get home till 2 am, so a bedtime bottle isn't really an option at this point.
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@jennylynn: I used to give my LO bottles all the time (I wonder why your pedi told you not to?). Usually they instruct moms not to feed bottles when your LO rejects the bottle. If she takes it fine, I don't see why you can't give her one..
but I'm no professional!
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@chopsuey119: I'm not sure exactly. She made it sound like she'd have harder time accepting it from me. But if it worked for you it's worth a shot! I might try it tonight! Did your LO have any trouble accepting your breast still after using the bottle at bed time? I ask because she also instructed us to make it a mid afternoon bottle. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that either though.
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@jennylynn: Nope! LO was fine going between boob and bottle. She started rejecting the bottle at around 2-2.5 months though. We went on a road trip and I nursed her the entire time we were there.. I would make sure you give her a bottle daily so she doesn't reject it!
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We did feeding and sleeping on demand. LO never slept more than 2 hours at a time till he was a good 3-4 months old, and then he only went up to 3 hours at a time. (It does get better- starting around 9.5 months he was sleeping from 7:30 PM till 6:30 AM straight)
We did start doing bottles at night before bed (DH gave them to LO... I think part of the reason they suggest that is that, particularly early on, you don't want an LO to think that bottles are an option when Mom is around because you want them to be up for the boob, but it's ok for them to expect a bottle with the non-lactating partner). Sometimes we thought it helped, sometimes we thought it didn't.
I think it really depends on your kid and your own personal needs. -
Our motto was: keep him full all day, he'll sleep all night! We fed him every 2-2.5 hours during the day and bottle-fed him pumped milk for his bedtime feeding every day. He stretched out that first stretch of sleep longer and longer and was sleeping thru the night by 4 months.
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I started with bedtime first. It was actually at 6 weeks I felt he was old enough to have an established bed time. At 7:30 pm we started the routine for bed, changing into PJs, nighttime jammies and nursing, then swaddling and laying in bed by 8pm. He was usually asleep by 8:30. That started the schedule, he would wake up 2-3x times a night, and get up for the morning between 8-9am. I made sure he was able to tell this is MORNING which is different from a nap by going into his room, opening the curtains and saying, "Good morning!" and talking about the beautiful day, we'd change into day clothes and then have breakfast. I think that helped him establish days/nights which is kind of sounds like your LO needs help with if she still has some days she wants to sleep all day.
He would have his first nap around 10:30-11 and we would do nearly the same routine as bedtime. Then up for about two more hours, then nap again and so on.
At 6pm I made sure he had already taken his last nap, and would be sure to keep him awake from 6pm on. We will often cook dinner together, play on the floor, read books, or put him in his swing.
He is 3 mos now and has made an earlier bedtime for himself, he was just getting tired earlier. He now has his last nap around 5-530 pm and goes to sleep 7-7:30, and wakes up in the morning anytime between 6:30-8am - it varies depending on his sleep schedule which can still change.Just remember you might get her in a schedule, and a month later it will change. It happens all the time with my LO. sometimes he sleeps 2 hour stretches, sometimes 5, sometimes 4. Every night is different and his schedule sometimes changes, like recently he seems to want an earlier bedtime, I'm not going to force him to stay up until 8pm.
I hope it works out!
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We are not very "scheduled" people, but we did make sure that Jack Jack was away in the hour and a half prior to bedtime and then we gave her a big feed at bed time. She now sleeps from 7:30- 3 am. She sleeps again from 3:30-5:30 and then comes into bed with me until 7.
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I have no advice, since I'm pretty much in the exact same boat.
DS was sleeping 3-4 hours at a time until he hit about 4 weeks. Since then, he's up every 2-3 hours to eat (even at night); about every 3 dys or so, I can get a 4 hour stretch out of him, but it's not always a nighttime sleep.I think every kid is just different. We've done everything "right" with DS since day 1 (sleep routines/sleep cues, consistent bedtime/wake time, very clear day/night differences, etc...) and nothing seems to work. I'm thinking about putting him in his crib for a few days to see if that makes a difference (we currently co-sleep), but we've tried everything else, and nothing seems to have helped. Oh well, I'm just hoping he grows out of it sooner rather than later.
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My LO had absolutely no routine/schedule during the day at 6 weeks and still doesn't at 11.5 weeks!
We did start a bedtime routine early on though (4-5 weeks) with a bath, massage, stories and nursing at around 8pm every night (now bedtime is between 6:30-7 due to crappy napping). For a few weeks (weeks 4-8) LO would cluster feed for 3 hours before bedtime which I think helped to tank him up for nighttime. And like @mrswagon, he was fed every 1.5-2.5 hours during the day (unless he took a long nap which was very rare). he goes down like a log at bedtime every night!
I do think that babies' sleep habits are biological and they will STTN or sleep longer stretches when they are ready. I also totally agree with @cocobee in that once you think you have your LO figured out, they'll switch things up on you!
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I started with on demand feeding and sleeping from birth and let LO let me know when it was time for each. Then around 4 weeks we began a bedtime routine around 830 since it seemed LO liked to do a long stretch of 5 hours when she went down at that time. Over time that started stretching out. On the day she turned two months was when she first slept all the way through until 7am. Our bedtime routine consists of bath, songs, swaddle, and nursing. I got pretty lucky in terms of sleep.
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Same as @andrea. I'm a stickler for routine/schedules so we had one for our son at around 6 weeks, I'd say. The first few weeks there wasn't really a schedule. He just slept/ate whenever he wanted (on demand). Then once I started kiiiinda seeing some sort of schedule, I stuck with it. I controlled his feeding times, nap times, etc. And eventually he just went with that schedule. I NEED a schedule though but I know lots of mommies who are fine without one. It also helped tremendously that we're very routine people so every day was exactly the same (well at least in the eyes of my LO).
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Hopefully things will start evening out for you soon! I really noticed that once he stopped wetting his diaper at night he started sleeping through the night. It took a while to figure it out, but here is what works for us-
We've never bothered with a schedule or any real training and he started STTN between 2-3 months old. Right now at 4 months, he sleeps from around 9 or 10pm until 7am on average. He goes where we go (dinner, meetings, errands) and if he feels like eating or napping while we are out, then he does it on the go. I hate the idea of being locked in the house at specific times.
I pretty much feed him on demand and let him nap when he wants to (usually around 9am, noon, and 3pm). He gets a bottle or two of pumped milk a day (and has since the beginning) and it really hasn't mattered who gives the bottles, the rest of the time he gets boob. I like taking bottles of pumped milk with me when leaving the house so I don't have to worry about breastfeeding in public, it is just so convenient to pop a bottle in his mouth!
I usually keep him up from 6 or 7pm until getting him ready for bed at 8:30 or 9. I'll dim the lights, change his diaper, and put him in his pajamas. After that he gets a good long breastfeed (45 minutes to an hour) and transfer him to his crib while drowsy. Sometimes he needs the white noise, other times not, I pat his belly and keep him from kicking himself awake for a few minutes.
DS was sleeping 3-4 hours at a time until he hit about 4 weeks. Since then, he's up every 2-3 hours to eat (even at night); about every 3 dys or so, I can get a 4 hour stretch out of him, but it's not always a nighttime sleep.
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