Starting a sleep schedule?

Vik9 · October 2015

Our LO is 1 month today and our pedeitieician has recommended trying to start sleep training him. She recommended putting him to bed at 7 and waking him at 7. I understand putting him to bed but does it make sense to wake him if he's sleeping? She says even if we put him down at 6:30 am we need to wake him at 7:00 am and feed him every 3 hours after that. It's a little difficult to feed him every 3 hours as I'm breastfeeding and sometimes he wants to eat every hour. Any suggestions?

reneecarmenn · October 2015

I've heard many different things, some people say not to let LO sleep through the night until they are about 10-12lbs. My LO is three months and he still wakes up once at night. I do want to start sleep training him. I've heard that 4 months is a good time to start

jennahkross · October 2015

We started a sleep routine around a month. She is almost 7 weeks and I think she is finally used to the schedule. It took us about two weeks. Of course she is still so little not every night goes as planned!:)

jasmineluke · November 2015

jennahkross said:
We started a sleep routine around a month. She is almost 7 weeks and I think she is finally used to the schedule. It took us about two weeks. Of course she is still so little not every night goes as planned!:)

Can I ask how you did your routine? My baby is a month old today and everyone says she's too young!
She doesn't sleep well after baths either so that doesn't work for her!
I would love to start a routine early with expectation that it won't work right away but good to start early !

Bigboobsmcgee · November 2015

This is insane to me!!! At one month, your LO should sleep when he wants and eat when he NEEDS to, even if that's every hour. I absolutely would not listen to your Pedi on this. I'm completely baffled right now. Sounds like Baby Wise garbage and if you read about Baby Wise, it can be dangerous.

Babies will fall into their own schedule later on. At one month, everyone is just trying to survive, nothing else. I have 2 kids and couldn't even begin to imagine any sort of schedule until at least 3-4 months old. And even then, it's a schedule that my children have created for themselves.

It will all work out in time so be patient.

delujm0 · November 2015

Bigboobsmcgee said:

This is insane to me!!! At one month, your LO should sleep when he wants and eat when he NEEDS to, even if that's every hour. I absolutely would not listen to your Pedi on this. I'm completely baffled right now. Sounds like Baby Wise garbage and if you read about Baby Wise, it can be dangerous.
Babies will fall into their own schedule later on. At one month, everyone is just trying to survive, nothing else. I have 2 kids and couldn't even begin to imagine any sort of schedule until at least 3-4 months old. And even then, it's a schedule that my children have created for themselves.
It will all work out in time so be patient.

THIIIIIIIIIS.

Your baby will start to STTN when he doesn't NEED to eat in the middle of the night anymore. The first 3-4 months are about mere survival! Get LO to sleep whenever you can and feed him when he wants to eat. It is insane to me to think that pushing a 7-7 schedule on a 1 month old is a good idea.

By 8 weeks, LO would sleep at least one 6 hour stretch at night; at 10 weeks she would sleep at least 8 hours at a stretch and would sometimes completely STTN - that continued until 4 months and now she doesn't STTN as much and usually requires one night feed (after a stretch of at least 8 hours). You're not supposed to truly sleep train a kid until at LEAST 4 months, and most people wait for 5-6 months because that's when a vast majority of babies are truly capable of going 10-12 hours without a meal. Your pedi seems crazy. I mean i know that's your doctor, and we're not doctors, so their advice should be betetr than ours...but in my opinion you will drive yourself crazy if you try to get a sub-3-month-old on ANY kind of sleep schedule. it's not worth the stress.

Bigboobsmcgee · November 2015

delujm0 said:

Bigboobsmcgee said:

This is insane to me!!! At one month, your LO should sleep when he wants and eat when he NEEDS to, even if that's every hour. I absolutely would not listen to your Pedi on this. I'm completely baffled right now. Sounds like Baby Wise garbage and if you read about Baby Wise, it can be dangerous.
Babies will fall into their own schedule later on. At one month, everyone is just trying to survive, nothing else. I have 2 kids and couldn't even begin to imagine any sort of schedule until at least 3-4 months old. And even then, it's a schedule that my children have created for themselves.
It will all work out in time so be patient.

THIIIIIIIIIS.

Your baby will start to STTN when he doesn't NEED to eat in the middle of the night anymore. The first 3-4 months are about mere survival! Get LO to sleep whenever you can and feed him when he wants to eat. It is insane to me to think that pushing a 7-7 schedule on a 1 month old is a good idea.

By 8 weeks, LO would sleep at least one 6 hour stretch at night; at 10 weeks she would sleep at least 8 hours at a stretch and would sometimes completely STTN - that continued until 4 months and now she doesn't STTN as much and usually requires one night feed (after a stretch of at least 8 hours). You're not supposed to truly sleep train a kid until at LEAST 4 months, and most people wait for 5-6 months because that's when a vast majority of babies are truly capable of going 10-12 hours without a meal. Your pedi seems crazy. I mean i know that's your doctor, and we're not doctors, so their advice should be betetr than ours...but in my opinion you will drive yourself crazy if you try to get a sub-3-month-old on ANY kind of sleep schedule. it's not worth the stress.

It's sad that an actual doctor is giving out this kind of advice. Not only does it put a ton of pressure on a new mom to make baby fall into this unrealistic schedule but it's also not good for a brand new baby

AshJean89 · November 2015

We started a bed time routine of eating, taking a bath and story time but it was more so we could calm him down to sleep without feeding him to sleep. He's 1 month but I still set an alarm for every 3 hours to feed him unless he wants to earlier. You can't really set a schedule at this age.

missliz53 · November 2015

My LO is 11 weeks. We have a bedtime routine and a nap routine and those really seem to help her to fall asleep and stay asleep longer. We also use the sleep, eat, play routine and don't let her go more than 3 hours between feeding during the day. The routines really seem to help her. We don't let her CIO, but if she wakes up and fusses a little when she's napping I'll let her fuss because a lot of times she'll fall back asleep on her own in under a minute. She goes to bed between 8 and 9 pm and we get up between 8 and 9 am depending on when she's ready to be up.

MeganKGarcia · November 2015

My daughter is a month old today and her pediatrician says that she can go ONE stretch of 6 hrs during the night if she doesn't wake up before then. Aside from that she should be eating every 2-4 hrs, totaling 8-10 feedings per day. My LOnhas me on a schedule. She usually gets pretty cranky and wants to feed every hour from about 8:30-11:30, by 11:30 she is ready for bed. 11:30 she goes down and usually wakes 2hrs later, then she sleeps for 4 hrs, then 2hrs. Then she is up for 2 hrs.... Then we are back to eating every 2 hrs and sleeping in between until 8:30ish. I'm sure that, just like everything so far, now that I am used to this routine she'll switch it up on me.

NurseRieger · November 2015

Baby needs to nurse on demand and fall asleep nursing at that age. I would absolutely not put a 1 month old on a schedule. I don't plan on doing a schedule myself and can't really because I do shift work. I have started the routine of wake up, nurse, swing time (mommy needs coffee), floor and tummy time, nurse, hang out with daddy who's just waking up (daddy works nightshift), nurse, fall asleep nursing, more floor time, nurse, swing time (mommy eats dinner), sometimes goes for stroller ride or has sling time, sometimes gets a bath in the evening, cluster feeding, bedtime, MOTN feedings per request. Note there are no times or planned durations. It's a personal choice of how to do routine and how rigid to keep it but feedings should never be held off because "it hasn't been 3 hours yet" I don't know what your pedi is thinking, it sounds crazy to me. Give that baby the boob every hour if that's how often he wants it. Mine was eating every 90min to 2 hours at 1 month. As far as sleep training a 1 month old. ..does pedi want potty training to start at 3 months too? That's wack-a-doodle!

Vik9 · November 2015

LO has been waking up at 7 and eating every 2.5-3 hours. We have started a nighttime routine around 6:30 of bathing him and feeding and he usually falls asleep around 7-7:30-. My concern is he can sleep 5+ hours during the night and I'm worried i should be waking him to eat.

whitfi24 · November 2015

I don't know about sleep training a one month old. But I think starting a night time routine or bed time routine is helpful in setting the tone for what will come later. I'd also let it be baby driven. What time does he/she fall asleep in the evening that would make a practical "bed time"? What does he/she like thats soothing in the evening - such as low lights, bath, bottle/nursing, story? We have a "bed time" routine of a bath, bottle and rocking. He did have a story for a bit but that seemed to agitate him. I started it at about 7 weeks and he's up to about a 5-6 hour stretch for the first leg of the night.

bellie1223 · November 2015

agree with previous posters, let your baby be the guide, and feed when they are hungry! my little one is two weeks and I started a "bed time" routine a few days ago, not because I'm trying to sleep train her by any means, but it helps me feel a little less overwhelmed. I get all my sleep stuff ready (water bottle, snacks, take a shower, etc), then we do a bath/wipe down with a washcloth for baby, change into pj's, eat, cuddle, swaddle and down for the first round. Hopefully having a routine somewhat established will help the transition later, especially when she starts sleeping in her own room.

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