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| First Time Moms |
| Public online group |
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| I am a new mom and my 11 week old wakes up every 2-3 hours at night to feed. Does anyone have advice on starting a schedule or recommend any books about this? |
| Posted by mags on 01/19/2009 08:36 AM
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If your breastfeeding, that sounds about normal. If you are using formula, then I have heard that babies will go around 4 hours between feedings. One suggestion I can make is to feed your baby right before you go to bed, even if you have to wake them up. I did that with my son starting at around 4-5 months. I would nurse him at 10 pm and then he would sleep until 6 am. At 11 weeks though, he was eating at 7, 10, 2, 5 each night. I let my son set his own schedule though. Once I went back to work, DH would help by giving him a bottle at one feeding and I would pump, which meant I was only up for about 10 minutes, versus 25 with a normal feeding, diaper change, and getting him back to sleep.
If you need to try to extend the time in between feedings, I would suggest just making sure that your baby does not start losing weight. Also, make sure they are getting a good amount and not just snacking at the feeding time. That would cause feedings more often. Some people have said to put cereal in the bottle in the evening to help fill their belly and help them sleep longer. I tried this a couple of times and it made no difference. I also read in several articles by peditricians that it is not a good idea to put cereal in a bottle. They said that babies should not eat cereal until they are old enough to eat with a spoon(with you feeding them of course).
Hope this helps. |
| posted by Casey on 01/19/2009 08:47 AM
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I think for 11 weeks that is pretty normal. I am a first time Mom too and I remember my daughter doing the same thing for quite a while. She didn't really start to give up the middle of the night feeds until about 7 months and she is now 9 months and has been sleeping all the way through the night. She has her last feed at 6:30pm, in bed by 7pm and wakes for a feeding about 5am.
How often during the day does he/she eat and how much each time? Maybe increasing the amount at each feeding would hold him/her over a bit longer?
My daughter had reflux problems at that age and it was recomended by her pediatrician to put some cereal in her bottle at 4 months to help with this. I know that people say not to do this, but you need to be careful and use a bottle meant for this type of feeding. It can also cause food allergies. It didn't necessarily stop her from feeding in the middle of the night, but she didn't wake as often.
The only book I have really used since having my daughter is Dr. Spocks Baby Child Care 8th edition.
Not sure if any of this will help, but good luck. |
| posted by Sandy on 01/19/2009 08:54 AM
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I am right there with you--I have an 11 week old as well. He was waking every 2-3 hours until about a week ago. I don't know what changed exactly. I've heard that around 12 weeks baby's stomachs start being able to hold more food and they can eat more in a sitting and stay asleep longer. That seems to be the case with mine--he often eats between 7 and 9 ounces right before bed. We also started establishing a bedtime routine around 8 or 9 weeks--bath, pajamas and swaddle, turn down lights, soft music, read a story, etc.
I highly recommend Penelope Leach's book--I think it's called Your Baby and Child--she doesn't offer a lot of advice on increasing sleeping hours at this age (she's a psychologist and thinks baby's this age will work it out themselves), but she helped me feel very normal when my son was waking every 2 hours (or, often, every 1 hour).
I can really empathize! I know what it's like, but I think it really will get better any time--and when people would say this to me, I would say, "WHEN???!!" But it will get better. Take care. |
| posted by Bethany on 01/19/2009 09:20 AM
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| My baby is 11 weeks old as well, and she has been sleeping through the night since 7 or 8 weeks. She really has set her own schedule, but the one thing we learned to do to help her stay asleep was to tightly swaddle her before bed. She went to bed at 9:50 last night and it's 8:42am and she's still sleeping. She normally only sleeps 9 hours at night. Swaddling was the only thing different we did, and it's worked like a charm. Oh, she just woke up! Gotta run! :) |
| posted by Caryn on 01/19/2009 09:45 AM
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| Every baby is so different when it comes to sleeping. My 7 month old is just beginning to sleep through the night. At about 4 months I began weening her off night feedings. She would eat twice during the night. I would work on elimanting just one feeding at a time by slowly decreasing the ounces until there was none then I had to let her cry it out which actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. She cried for about 15 min. then fell back to sleep until morning. Then after two nights of crying it out she stopped waking for feedings and began to increase ther amount she would eat during the day. 11 weeks is still a bit young to do all this. I would wait another month or so. In the meantime try to nap while the baby naps (I was horrible at doing this but next time I will force myself, I was a bit of spaz in the beginning. You know first baby, know idea what I was doing). |
| posted by Suzanne on 01/19/2009 11:45 AM
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| I am a first time mom too. That sleeping pattern is normal. My daughter had me spoiled. She would sleep through the night until at least 6 am by eight weeks. But before she spoiled me, she would wake up every three - four hours to feed. |
| posted by Jeannette on 01/19/2009 12:23 PM
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| my daughter started sleeping through the night at about six weeks.She now sleeps from about 10 pm to 6 am. I had to establish a bedtime routine. Before that she was up until 2 or 4 in the morning before she would go to sleep. Good Luck |
| posted by Jennifer on 01/19/2009 04:32 PM
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