3 week old, worried i'm not letting her sleep enough.

[Sarah337034]

Right, i am new to all of this so go easy on me! I am mum to 3 week old little lady, she is exclusively breast fed and i don't express yet, i wanted to sort out feeds first. I fed on demand for the first 2 weeks but i completely exhausted myself, i found as a new mum it was impossible to read my babys cues and just ended up feeding her pretty much non stop, she would snack for 20 mins and then sleep only to wake 20 minutes later. I was really ready to pack in the BF unless i changed something. I looked into it and decided to start adopting a pattern to feeds and just soothing my little one inbetween feeds if she was anxious.


SO.... This is what i have been doing.

7am wake feed , change and get ready for the day.
10am feed
1pm feed
4pm feed
7pm feed
10pm feed
11pm, lavender bath and bed.
She usually sleeps then from about 12 until at least 4am every night (so thats 6 hours between feeds.

Then I feed at 4am and she sleeps through until 7am ( sometimes we lie in until 7:30/ 8:00am if she doesn't wake.

Feeds are at least 40minutes to an hour long each time and she takes both breast. She is putting on weight well and in the 75th centile.

My trouble is i work every evening 5:30- 9:30pm every evening as of January as i'm self employed. My OH will pick up LO from me at 6pm and do the 7pm feed at home, my question is should we be doing the bedtime after the 7pm feed instead of the 10pm, am i giving my LO a long enough night time so to speak? Should i wake her later? She naps when ever she wants during the day other when i wake for feeds. She will usually sleep most of the morning, and have more awake time in the evenings.

Im not sure whether its because its been Christmas time and she has been over stimulated and the routine has been thrown off but she seems less settled after bath now and can take a good while to settle, is this overtiredness? The routine seemed to be going wonderfully the first 4 days of doing it but now she is much harder to settle I'm scared I'm tiring her out :-(

[Sarah337034]

wasn't aware i was doing Gina Ford, Didn't even know who she was till i googled it!!

[ScariestFairyByFar]

Try not to worry I found as 6 weeks my dd's sleep changed drastically and she settled into an earlier bed pattern.

[ScariestFairyByFar]

Be aware that with your routine might not work all the time, when she hits growth spurts she'll want to feed much more to up your supply.

[Sarah337034]

yes, i'm well aware of growth spurts! I will all ways feed her if she won't settle and seems hungry after half an hour of soothing.

[zoobaby]

Newbie here too so might have totally wrong end of the stick. My LO was always fractious around 3-4-5wks and I misread the cues as hunger. Turns out he was either full of wind or overtired. Both can look a lot like hunger. Hospital MWs told me that BF babies don't need winding so never tried it. Offering more milk would just increase discomfort. Once I figured out what he was telling me, I could respond properly and then all other bits moved into place.

[zoobaby]

I bought a few books... each end of the controversial theory/method spectrum and some in between. I found that The Baby Whisperer book had about 5 pages sprinkled throughout with very good advice on how to read baby's cues. Also, Dr Harvey Karp book gave me plenty of ideas and improved my confidence. Then I just adopted a hotch potch of what sounded reasonable and what seemed within my and DS's comfort zone.

[noseynoonoo]

All I would say about routine is that you can't expect anyone, including (especially) a baby to only want to feed at specific times.

I have don't eat all of my meals at the same time. Sometimes I want my dinner a bit earlier than usual, sometimes later and sometimes I want more snacks than usual or perhaps a quick drink will do... and I'd be annoyed if my husband woke me up because he considered it time for me to have my next meal. So, if I was a baby I reckon I'd feel kind of the same too.

Good luck with everything and I hope you work out the evenings frim January.

[MildredIsMyAlterEgo]

On the one hand I think following the SWMNBN-type routine is too rigid, but on the other hand I fed on demand, BF exclusively until 6mo, finished BF at 19mo, DS only started 'sleeping through' (i.e. for a 5 hour stretch) at 23mo...having had nigh on 2 years of waking up at 2-3 hourly intervals a night I would push for a routine if I had a 2nd DC especially if I was working.

11pm seems late for a bath though?

Good luck and congratulations on your little DD

[Sarah337034]

Noooo, never crying! I might giver her a cuddle/ sing a song/ rock her in my arms/ bounce in her chair/ read or chat to her and she will settle again for 10, 20, 30 minutes before crying again, if she is not content then of course I will feed her! I think that you are mistaking me for a controlled crying advocate! LO has never EVER been left to cry.

Unfortunately I can not afford to have 6 months of to be feeding every 20 minutes like I was or we wont pay the rent or heat the house, also LO was far less content at this stage as I was evidently unable to read her signs. As a new mum i think that this is a very tough thing to do, maybe you guys are all different.

Now she seems far more content between feeds as she is taking on a full belly of milk rather than a vicious circle of snack, sleep, snack, sleep where we both were clearly shattered and distressed.

I feed completely on demand during night times.


A now suitably guilty mummy.

[FernandoIsFaster]

TheSecondComing - if you are just going to post snide thinly veiled comments and offer no advice whatsoever why not hop off the thread eh?

[potas]

Dont worry Sarah. Someone will always post on a thread like this to say that essentially you are a bad mother if you don't feed your baby every time it squeaks. But as someone pointed out they dont always want or need fed and if they have wind then it can make them worse. I had a loose routine with my baby - fed every three hours and woken at 7am and bedtime at 7pm. It works really well and it is loose in that when he is having a growth spurt or just a hungry day we feed more often but we always try to stick to the 7am/7pm bit. He is a very happy baby. Sometimes he gets grumpy but instead of blindly assuming I have to feed him I check all the other possibilities too - often he just wants a change of scene/new toy. Having a routine makes it possible to do more with your baby and to leave your baby in the care of a partner etc with a lot less stress involved in my opinion. Hope it works for you.