First time mom - do I wake a sleeping baby?

[Anonymous]

My DS is 30 days old and almost 10 pounds. He is eating like a champ and has dirty diapers, ect...all signs of a well fed baby. He also is a sleeper and can sleep up to 4 hours during the day.

Do I let him sleep that long during the day? Or wake him every three hours?

I let him sleep yesterday for 4 hours, feed him, then he went back to sleep for an hour. He was then up from 7:00-12:00 PM. He wasn't fussy or crabby when he was awake.

Do I follow weisbluth and try to get him back to sleep in 2 hours of being awake?

I'm so confused!!

[Anonymous]

How does he sleep at night? Our now 13 week old has been a champion sleeper since she was that age, and I rarely woke her up once I was sure that she didn't have her days and nights mixed up (you'd rather get the 4 hours from 12 am-4am than 12 pm-4pm!). Even now, I can rarely keep DD awake for more than 1.5 hours and I've learned not to try. She sleeps better during the day and at night (9-10 hours a night) if she gets regular naps during the day. I pay close attention to the sleepy signs - looking away from something that was previously interesting, yawning, rubbing eyes, etc. and I pay attention to the clock to make sure I'm not distracted and keeping her up too long. The shriek followed by hard crying is the last sign which usually means it is too late to get a good nap! Good luck!

[Anonymous]

My answer would depend on how he is sleeping at night. Newborn babies usually have one long sleep (4-5 hours) in each 24 hour period. Unfortunately, that is usually during the day. The goal is to shift this long period to the nighttime and then lengthen it as the baby gets older. I would wake my babies every 3 to 3.5 hours during the day to eat. After the 9:00 or 10:00 pm feeding I would let them sleep until they woke up on their own. I would also pick a "first" feeding of the day - around 7:00 am and wake them for this feeding. It helped to set the schedule to be similar each day.

The process worked well for my three. They were each sleeping 10-11 hours at night by 3 or 4 months.

[Anonymous]

I would wake my son if a daytime nap hit the 3-3.5 hour mark. And around 1-month old, I instituted a set "bedtime" (i think around 9 pm, then gradually pushed it earlier) so made sure he was awake from his last nap at least 2-2.5 hours before that. So for example if he was napping I wouldn't let it last past 6:30 pm. If the nap ended earlier (say 5:30) then bedtime might be a little earlier.

This was actually advice from my ped. and it really worked. My son quickly shifted his long stretches of sleep to nighttime and by 2 months old was going 10-11 hours at night (he was formula-fed though so an EBF baby I'm sure might take longer)

[Anonymous]

My 10 week old (12 pound) son will go 5-7 hours at night. I put him to sleep around 8ish and then get him up briefly around 11 for a quick feed and then back to bed. He doesn't really wake up fully, but just enough to eat.

I find that if I don't give him that 11:00 feeding, then he'll wake up around 2-3 and then again at 5-6. Getting him to eat at 11 allows him to sleep more on my schedule. I figure a rested mommy is a happy and more effective mommy.

[Anonymous]

Let him sleep. If he want to sleep four hours, no harm is going to come of it. He will either wake up early or eat more once he does wake up.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks!

He's sleeping pretty well at night. He gets a bottle of ebm at 11 then is up for 5 min at 3 and 6-7 to eat.

[Anonymous]

Third time mom here. Never wake a sleeping baby.

[Anonymous]

I was under the impression that you only woke a sleeping baby to feed until they had regained their birth weight. So I say, let him sleep.

As for establishing day vs. night, my tactic was to keep curtains open, lights on, noise at a normal volume, etc, during the day, even if the baby was sleeping. No tiptoeing around. At night, we kept it dark and quiet with a little white noise. Once she gained that awareness that comes around the 4-6 week stage, she started to concentrate more of her sleep at night, and stay awake more during the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Third time mom here. Never wake a sleeping baby.

Never say never! OP doesn't have sound like she is having weight issues, but my 10lb newborn would sleep for hours and hours and still fall asleep at the breast which caused some serious weight loss issues in the very beginning. I needed to wake her to feed her or they were close to putting her in the hospital.

[Anonymous]

OP here. So I didn't wake DS yesterday and he ended up waking up at 4 AM to 7 AM! I suppose 5 weeks is too early to detect any kind of pattern but it was unusual from the previous nights.

Do people agree with Weisbluth that a baby shouldn't be awake for more than two hours?

Having a newborn is so difficult, I have no idea what I'm doing. sigh.

[Anonymous]

I think it was doctor sears whose book says, some babies who are not thriving may not be able to rouse themselves to feed. So those babies should be awakened.

If your baby is thriving, which it sounds like he is, and occasionally sleeps longer, I say enjoy the long naps. As long as it doesn't negatively impact night time sleeping, weight gain, number of dirty diapers produced, etc.

Do you have the Dr. Sears book? It's very helpful for a first time mom. "Everything you need to know about baby from birth to age two".

[Anonymous]

The only time I wake my son is if he takes a REALLY long nap at the very end of the day. If he falls asleep at 4:30-5ish, I wake him by 7:30. I do this so I can have some hope of him going back to sleep by 9:00 and sleeping at night. I also get him up briefly around 11:30 for a quick bottle. I wouldn't say he fully wakes up, but this allows me to get his long stretch of sleep when I'm sleeping. Every few weeks I try and skip the 11:30 feeding for a few nights to see if he's ready to sleep a much longer stretch.

He's three months old now and is thriving, happy, and health. I don't feel like the occasional times I wake him are hurtful. If it works for you and you have a happy and healthy baby, then go for it. Do what feels right.

[Anonymous]

Never wake a sleeping baby, UNLESS:

1) he's very young, and having weight gaining problems/eating problems, or
2) you suspect something is "wrong".

My son, at five weeks, religiously woke up every 2.5 - 3 hours at night. One night, at the 3 hour mark, I was awake, and thinking "he'll be up any minute"... 3.5 hours went by, then 4... and as much as I wanted to stay in bed, I started to worry. At 4.5 hours i went in to check him, and he was VERY feverish, and alarmingly hot (our first ER trip). I'm not trying to scare you, and I think there is nothing wrong with letting a baby who routinely sleeps 4 hours sleep 4 hours... just watch out for the extra-ordinary, because illnesses can come on VERY quickly with young babies, and can become very severe in a matter of hours.

Your baby sounds healthy as a horse. Eating, gaining weight, and sleeping like a champ. Count your blessings and let him sleep!

[Anonymous]

don't poke a bear!

we never woke our baby the first year. now, if he's napping too close to suppertime, we might wake him. but we mostly just follow his ques.