Sleep schedules for newborns?!?!

[Maruschke]

I need a routine!!! DD1 feeds and sleeps all over the place because we demand feed. She sleeps enough in total over the day / night but I would love to have it more structured and one longer sleep.

I found this schedule online and I want to give it a go. Any comments / suggestions??? It seems really good.

Organized Mommy: Baby Sleep Routines for 0-1yr

She does settle quite well herself at night time, I can pick her up, change nappy, feed, warp and put her down and she usually self settles, and this takes about 20 minutes. She will then sleep 3-4 hours, and this pattern repeats 2-3 times. Is this the best I can expect???

Day sleeps are usually less than an hour and sporadic .

[KatieRabbit]

She sounds like a great little night sleeper! Wow I wish my DD did that when she was 6 weeks. Sounds like you are doing a terrific job meeting her needs.
I had a quick read of the link and I have two issues:
1. It really concerns me that it encourages dropping a night feed at 4-6 weeks!! That is outrageous to me! Baby will skip a night feed when he/she doesn't need it and it is a long time off yet. I lost interest with her routine after reading that...
2. When I had probs with DD's sleep I read many baby sleep books that sounded just like that. From what I have learnt I think one should run a mile from them, trust in what you are doing ( you know your baby far better than any author/other parent etc) and realise that your baby will just not fit into someone's else schedule but their own. Babies don't just "play for 20 mins, drink for 30 mins, sleep for 4 hours" etc as these books promote and thing bring much unnecessary anxiety to a parent who thinks they must have it wrong if their bub doesn't follow this routine.
I don't mean to lecture but your DD sounds really quite content and is sleeping really well. It is still early days yet and this is the hard part for you when you can't get the 8 hour stretch that you are used to but it will come back with time, I promise! Please trust yourself and your decisions above and beyone anyone else.

[babywannabe]

wow your bub sounds like a great sleeper. She is still very young and needs to feed regularly. You will find in time she will be able to go longer in between feeds as she can hold more in her tummy, and therefore sleep longer.
My DD is 6 months and only has 2, 40 min naps during the day (and not at the same time each day) if i'm lucky but does sleep the night.

From memory she was still doing 3 hourly feeds until 4 months of age. It wasn't that long ago but how quickly i've forgotten! It is also important if you are breast feeding to keep up your supply and demand feeding is the best way to go.

DD is my second Bub, with DS i got so worked up after reading books and schedules etc. that i didn't enjoy those early months as much as I should have. Now I just work around DD's schedule and things just fell in place on their own and i am just so much more relaxed.

Good luck with it, but don't put too much pressure on yourself or Bub if it doesn't work out exactly as planned.

[Heaven]

Oh I just wrote what I thought on facebook but I can write more here.

The 2.5-3hr daytime routine sounds good, that's what we do anyway bc DD feeds every 3 hrs. So I think that part is a good idea but you'll probably fall into doing that anyway. The other bit's I'm not so sure.

If they seem to be hungry more often than every 2.5 hours, then they just need to suck. Use a pacifier.

I don't think this can be true all the time for all babies so I wouldn't just always stick to this rule. Sometimes they are more hungry.

Skip one night feed
When: around 4-6 weeks

I think this is really early to start skipping feeds! No way I could have done that with DD, she really did need to feed.

Longer Stretches of Night Sleep
When: around 6 weeks


To get longer stretches of sleep at night, use cluster and dream feeds. See BW p. 185. Our typical schedule: Cluster feed at 6pm and 8pm. Dream feed at 10:30 or 11:00pm.

I agree with this. A good way to get more sleep while also making sure they're still getting enough feeds!! I'd give it a try!

Routine 5:
4-hour schedule with dream feed
When: 3-4 months

DD is still feeding max every 3 hrs. I couldn't push it out further. She is hungry and she'd probably just make up for it at night. I don't even go 4hrs without eating or drinking so I don't expect her to.

Anyways, that's what I think. Oh and I'm reading the 'No cry sleep solution' atm, it's really good!! I would have a look at that. I wish I had read it when DD was smaller bc it tells you what to do to prevent bad sleeping habits right from the beginning instead of me now having to try and change her which is harder. It also has tips on getting into a daytime nap routine and a night time routine and how to get them to self-settle without CIO.

BTW, love the new name!!

[Arcadia]

I need a routine!!!

Hehehe...I remember feeling like that.

In all honesty it is pretty early days for a baby-led routine, so you'll have to be pretty strict if you want to impose a structure. Is that what you want? I know how you feel, but I tried quite a few times to push DD into a better feeding/sleeping pattern at that age, but it always ended in disaster. Now at 6 months she is really predictable and has long stretches between feeds and long naps.

I know everyone is different though and lots of mums and bubs thrive on a routine.

You could easily make up your own by settlng the alarm each day to get bub up at the same time and begin the day with a feed. Then calculate her normal awake time (so 1 hr and 10min for eg) to work out when her first nap would be. You could also map out her feeds to every 3 hourly and try and stick to it for a few days and see how you go...

The most important thing at this age is flexibility. If things go a little pear shaped, don't get stressed...just go with it and try again the next day.

HTH.

[MantaRay]

Hun, it actually sounds to me like your DD is doing really well. She is still so young and most babies that age do need 8 - 12 feeds in 24 hours. And when things are going well trying to change things can break everything. You know what they say - if it ain't broke don't fix it!

Very soon she will start to sleep longer at night, and go longer between feeds during the day. And she will find her own pattern - be it feed-play-sleep or feed-play-feed-sleep - whatever is right for her. The easiest way to get a routine working is to let her set the pace. It is much harder to do it the other way around.

[Heaven]

Oh yeah and I forgot to say I agree, those sleeps sound really good!! I would enjoy it while it lasts!! DD isn't sleeping that good at night anymore Except the last 2 nights, they were really good for some reason after about 2 weeks of waking 4-5 times!!

[Maruschke]

Thanks everyone, I have decided to just try and pay more attention to her tired cues during the day to see if better day sleep = longer night sleep! We feed / play / feed / sleep at the moment. Last night we were up at 12, 2, 3.30 and 6.30 so perhaps it is just a growth spurt time for her.

[Jellyfish]

I must say, this does sound similar to what we did for our night sleeps. The day sleeps/feeds are an entirely different story, though!

We did the evening cluster feeds (and still do), the dream feed that we eventually dropped and now DD is sleeping 8pm to 4am. It was more accidental than anything. One night, I forgot to dream feed and she still woke at 4am so did the same thing the next night and it just went from there.

Our feeds are something like this (give or take 30minutes either side):

8am: Feed
10am: Feed
1pm: Feed
3pm: Feed
5pm: Feed
6:30pm: Feed
8pm: Feed
4am: Feed

She usually has a big nap after her 10am feed (she is currently sleeping now) till her next feed and then the rest of the day is a mixture of catnaps (one sleep cycle of about 45minutes) and awake time.

I do find that the better she sleeps during the day, the better night we have and anytime I sort of move too far from the above pattern, she gets a bit cranky (which seems to happen a lot when we are out and about as you have probably noticed, so that is something I need to work on). Personally, I would love to have bigger gaps between some of the day feeds but I think if I did that, her night stretch would suffer... who knows, it is so confusing.

One thing we did was make sure that bed was for sleeping. Anytime that she wants to be awake and play, she is out of that room. Not sure if that has helped but it seems like she knows that it is sleep time when we go in there... I could be imagining that part, though haha.

[mbear]

Your night sounds a bit like mine..........
Whilst i try and stick to the same routine every night, i really dt expect much from them at this age.....From 10-12 wks i will be the strict mama installing a routine, but b4 that time, i just feel they are too young to expect alot from them......

[Maruschke]

Last night I fed at 12, 2, 3.30 and 6.30 *yawn*. Today AnnaChas lent me Pinky McKay's book 'Sleeping Like a Baby' and Ezzo's book 'Baby Wise' so hopefully I can read both sides of the argument and find something that suits us .

[bridee]

Another place to have a look at a schedule is google babybliss. I really like Jo Ryans suggestions for a schedule.

[Jellyfish]

Last night I fed at 12, 2, 3.30 and 6.30 *yawn*. Today AnnaChas lent me Pinky McKay's book 'Sleeping Like a Baby' and Ezzo's book 'Baby Wise' so hopefully I can read both sides of the argument and find something that suits us .