Am I doing this wrong? (schedules, napping)
Nessie82
member
After reading others on here I feel like maybe I'm doing alot of stuff wrong.
LO eats every 4 hours during the day. Sometimes if he starts crying around 3.5 hours we will give him his (6 oz) bottle early.
He naps in his swing in the morning around 8:30 until 12:30.Then I change him and give him his bottle and usually will fall back asleep for another 4 hours. Sometimes he wakes up early then the 4 hours so I play with him on his mat or changing table (he LOVES it) We do neck stretching exercises because he has toricollis. Then when the 4 hour mark arrives I feed him. The last few weeks he is fussy from 4 pm to 8 pm after his 4 o'clock bottle but DH and I somehow make it through this time doing different things with him. LO will usually fall asleep for 20-40 min at a time a few times during this period. Then at 8:00 pm, (sometime 7:30) we change him, turn off the lights, talk quietly and give him his (still 6 oz) bottle. Then he is out for the night in his RNP. He will sleep from 8 to 12 or 1, wake up for a another feed and then go back down until around 4. At 4 I will feed him get him back down and then he wake up about 1.5 hours later (6 am) and we play in his room until his next bottle at 8 am.
This schedule seems to be working well for all of us but after reading everyone else feeding on demand I feel like maybe LO really is ok going 4 hours between feeds like clock work.
Anyone see any problems with this schedule? I know eventually he will sleep longer at night but right now we are ok with the 5 hour stretches as we both take turns.
My Blog
Dream of a better world...where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.
Re: Am I doing this wrong? (schedules, napping)
I'm not sure if there's any "wrong" way. It's whatever works for you and whatever your baby demands (IMO).
I too read posts about what other babies are doing and think I'm messing up LO's life. lol. But really...at this age...is that truly possible by not following by the books?
Sometimes DS eats every 2 hours (4-6 oz). When he's showing feeding cues I don't starve him to keep him "on schedule". As long as he's keeping it all down (which he always does) I don't think of myself as overfeeding him. I'm sure in a few months this will change. But I'll believe he's truly hungry if he's showing the cues at this age.
I often feel like (compared to other posts here) DS sleeps too much during the day. Everyone is always talking about "play time". We play but DS never wants to stay in the same spot more than a half hour and usually ends up crying until we hold him and he falls asleep or put him in the swing and he falls back asleep. He does great playing on the playmat, boppy on floor, etc in that 30 minutes though.
So I guess what I'm getting at is I don't see any problems with your schedule. I think as long as our babies are getting the nutrition, sleep, and activity time then we're doing our jobs. How much of each LOs require is up to them.
Thank you!
My Blog
Dream of a better world...where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.
If he is eating well and gaining weight that is all that matters, I feed DS on demand, but I BF so I do not know exactly how much he gets each time so I figure I should feed him when he wants it, I would love to be on a schedule.
As for play and sleep times, babies are all different and there is a big gap between the earliest and latest Dec babies at this point, DS is almost 4 months ( three adjusted) and he has way more play time than he did 1-2 months ago (he is now playing on the bouncer and the Baby Einstein Musical Motion Jumper), but he has some sleepy days and active days.
Diagnosed with Anti little c antibodies. DS1 7.11.11 - Anaemia and Jaundice. 10 days in the NICU, 1 exchange transfusion and 4 blood transfusions. DS2 29.8.13 - Anaemia 7 days in the NICU and 1 exchange transfusion. Both are now happy and healthy.