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I am a hardcore Babywise mama. I start implementing sleep strategies from birth to help my babies become great sleepers ( Click here for my post on how to start Babywise from birth! ). It's not easy: it takes WORK. When you put in all that work, time and effort and then your baby just isn't sleeping the way you think they should be it's beyond stressful. Sleep issues can be frustrating and it can be tempting to just say "I GIVE UP!" I've learned over my years of parenting that sometimes there are sleep struggles simply beyond our control. Enter in the high sleep needs vs low sleep needs baby.
We've all heard the term "sleep like a baby." But as any mom can tell you...baby's most often don't sleep like babies . As a first time new mom parenting can feel overwhelming. I remember feeling SO PREPARED when it came to pregnancy and even labor and delivery but I felt clueless when I got home with my new baby and then had to actually start parenting him.
The newborn days are so tough for me. I don't function well without enough sleep and I feel like I'm a walking zombie until my babies are sleeping through the night. Establishing a Babywise Routine isn't easy, but it pays off so quickly . Somewhere around 6-8 weeks my babies all stopped waking during the 3-4 am hour and instead slept until the 5-6 hour. While you'd think that would be awesome, because it means an extra hour of solid sleep for me, it's actually the MOST frustrating time for a baby to wake. With a desired wake time to start the day being 7, having a baby wake at 5 is like torture. How do you handle it? How do you get them to drop that feeding and make it until 7? Having to wake yourself up to feed your baby at 5 am knowing you will be up again at 7 is truly misery! Here's how I handle dropping the last middle of the night feeding: 1. Treat it as a Full Feeding then Re-Wake: This is frustrating. Because you nurse your baby at 5 am and then ...
Recently I was approached by the physician assistant at our pediatricians office about helping them update their materials to give to patients. I was pretty excited for some updated info...and honored to be ask to contribute! As all of you know, I'm a "Babywise Mom." I read the book. I follow the method. My pediatrician's office has seen all three of my kids from birth, they know how much I value sleep! The first thing she asked me to write was a quick-reference sleep guide for new parents. I remember being a new mom. I felt CLUELESS. I would have loved to have gone to my baby's first dr visit and be given some good tips on helping him to sleep from the start. I tried to channel that inner-first-time-mom when writing this guide and, so far, she's had great responses from the new parents she gives them to. It was tricky to make a one-page guide for a topic I'm so passionate about! What are some tips you would recommend to a new parent when it comes t...
Tess turned 5 months old on Dec 31st so her 6th month of life was from December 31st - January 30th. Nursing: Nursing is going so well. I wish all moms who struggle in the early days of nursing could have a magic ball to see the future and what it'll be like once they get through the tough stage. I'm SO thankful that I've always pushed through because at this point nursing is only wonderful :) Tess is eating much faster...typically around 20 minutes total for a nursing session. She started making this funny puff sound thing while nursing? It's like she blows air rather than sucking. At this age she should be drinking 25-32 ounces a day of breastmilk. I noticed my supply dipped some in December so I started following these tips and could really tell a positive change! When we went to Disney I pumped exactly 25 ounces each day. I think Kye and Britt always drank the top end of the spectrum. And they were both pretty big babies, always in the hig...
