sleeping time?

[Obiwan]

Thank you karmah1 and shenzhennifer!

So basically it's about starting a bedtime routine early, say at 6pm or 7pm, and the baby will sleep for longer stretches over times (hopefully through the night in time), despite waking up every 3 and 4 hours for feeds now.

I'll try that TODAY! Thank you very much.

 

[Obiwan]

I have to say ... it sure ain't easy raising kids for first time parents, sigh.

Thank you very much everyone for your valuable advice and tips!!

 

[thanka2]

How do you ladies get your babies to sleep so early. At what age can we start teaching them to go to bed at 7 - 8 pm? My baby (2.5 weeks now) is still waking up every 3 - 4 hours for feeds ....

Many "rules" that the ladies are talking about here don't apply to newborn babies (and a 2.5-week-old is definitely a newborn).

I'm not the best person to ask about how to get your newborn to sleep well because my son didn't sleep at night or for more than a couple of hours at a time until he was 1/2 of a year old.

I've heard lots of advice--you just have to try everything and see if any of it works for your child, I think. Unfortunately, none of that advice worked for my son until later.

 

[Obiwan]

Thanks! For babies who sleep through the night, did it happen out of the blue one day, or does one have to 'train' the babies to do so?

I cannot wait for The Day, though I have a suspicion it's gonna be a long wait haha.

 

[lesliefu]

i didn't really do much more than give my baby a full bottle of milk before bed time, at whatever age she was, and she would just sleep longer and longer stretches during the night....i kind of followed what she needed and it more or less matched Gina Ford's recommended schedule (though everything was shifted back an hour to an hour and a half)...i think if you really listen to your baby, it will happen "out of the blue" but then when you go back to the books you will realize that it wasn't all "that out of the blue!" I'd relax and go with the flow! seriously....each baby is different and you HAVE to be flexible or you will give yourself alot of pressure...

 

[Obiwan]

I just ordered the book

Does that mean you feed more milk before bed time than at other feedings?

 

[carang]

with a newborn, you just need to relax and enjoy the first few months. i know it is difficult when you are feeling so sleep deprived, but i honestly believe that it is impossible to enforce a routine on such a young baby. i breastfed on demand and enjoyed every minute of it. once baby gets to be about 12 weeks old, they usually start to get into their own routine.

there are those that love gina ford, and those that hate her. i tend to fall into the latter category. (i just find her way too strict and so many people follow her verbatim.) i always prefered to listen to the cues my baby was giving me and plan accordingly. you will find that once you reach the 10-12 week mark, your baby already has a routine. it is natural for babies to develop them, all you really have to do is follow their cues and your instincts.

and don't worry, EVERY new mother is totally overwhelmed at some point. it's only natural. we have produced (with a little help of significant other) a new human being. it is a phenomenal process, that at birth is only just beginning. mothering instincts will kick in eventually, afterall, no one knows your baby like you do. you just need to relax and listen to that little voice inside your head.

good luck! you are doing an amazing job!

 

[nicolejoy]

Hi Nicolejoy - I see that you have changed the sleeping time for your baby a few times. We're in the process of doing that for our almost 6 month old baby too and was wondering what tips you had to get your baby to go to bed earlier after being on a schedule of going to bed later.

Our baby sleeps now at around 10/10:15. Usually he naps for 1/2 hour or so at 7:30. Then at 8pm, I give him a quick breast feed, then daddy gets home at 8:30, plays with him for a 10 minutes while dinner is being heated. Then our son sits and watches us eat. After dinner, he plays a little bit more with dad and at 9:30, we feed him again (short BF, supplemented by a bottle of formula given by dad) and then bed by 10 or 10:15. Last week, we tried to put him to bed earlier by switching his 8pm feed to 8:15 and then when dad comes home giving him his bottle of formula right away and then putting him down before we have dinner so he goes down by 8:45. Well, he would have none of that and cried and cried and cried.

So I was just wondering how you went about putting your baby down earlier. Thanks for any advice!

Well, for me, I tried to get my daughter to go to bed earlier and the main time that it really worked was when we got back from a trip to Australia - the time difference is 2 hrs, and when we were in Oz, we'd adjust her bedtime to match Australian time, then try to keep it the same when we got back to Hong Kong. I could adjust her schedule by a whole hour like that

The only other thing that's kind of worked is to try and change very gradually - like 15 min earlier for a whole week - then in a month's time, that's an hr earlier... It's a bit hard to all of a sudden go to sleep an hr earlier than you're used to!!

One other tip for getting them to sleep earlier, I don't let my daughter sleep too late in the afternoon these days... If she wants to have a nap around 3, that's about the latest that I'll put her down for a nap. And I make sure she's up by 5 at the latest too... because otherwise there's no way that she'll be in bed by 8... and I really do want to try to stick to the 8:00 bedtime as much as possible...

 

[Shenzhennifer]

As far as sleeping through the night goes, I haven`t heard of too many babies who are breastfed doing that. It seems to be the `in thing` to give the baby a bottle of formula right before bedtime to make them sleep longer. Trust me, I will be trying that for my next one after breastfeeding has been established.

 

[thanka2]

Thanks! For babies who sleep through the night, did it happen out of the blue one day, or does one have to 'train' the babies to do so?

I cannot wait for The Day, though I have a suspicion it's gonna be a long wait haha.

For my son, it was a combination of growing into an older stage and following the advice in the book "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" to sleep train him including the "pick up, put down" method. Oh, and I stopped breastfeeding him and after that not only did he sleep better, but we also did.