Three weeks - Around three weeks it is normal to see a growth spurt. It is also the time they sort of "wake up" to life around them. It is during this time she might start being awake more. She doesn't know what to do with herself when she is awake. I'm awake it must be time to eat. This is when the awake time after she eats begins. It is still a short time but take those twenty minutes or so and stretch her arms, talk to her, lay her on her back to look at toys above her, etc. The tricky part is not to let her stay awake too long or she will get over stimulated and get a second wind. When she starts to show signs she is sleepy put her down to sleep before she starts to feel a little hungry. It is a trial by error balancing act as you get to know her.
Continuing on - If you haven't started the process outlined in "Starting from Day One" go ahead and begin that now. If you have, and your baby has gained back her birth weight and is continuing to gain, you can begin to be more aware and thoughtful about her routine and help her move in that direction. Sometime in that third to fourth week baby may start to stay awake longer and be more aware of what is going on around her. Most people acknowledge there is a growth spurt around this time, and appetite can grow/change. Now you can begin to help her learn the routine of first eating, then awake for a short time and then falling asleep on her own. This is what The Baby Whisperer calls E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Awake, Sleep, You). The awake time will lengthen as she grows, but at three weeks is is still shorter than you might expect, usually less than 20 minutes after she finishes eating.
One of the first steps to growing up is learning to sleep when her family sleeps. If she has already started sleeping for a
five-hour stretch at night, this too, will lengthen gradually as she grows. Many babies can sleep 10 to 12 hours at night by the time they are eight weeks old.
So, you ask, how do I help my baby to sleep through the night?
We feel the key is helping (training) her to fall asleep unassisted. This skill will set a foundation for the coming two years (at least) of major growth spurts, teething, and huge developmental milestones that wear out a child. During sleep, the brain is working hard to make sense of everything that was experienced that day. Very important neurological connections are made, and information stored while a child sleeps, making sleep crucial to brain development. Being awoken in the middle of a cycle can be very disorienting for a child or baby.
The E.A.S.Y. routine is a crucial precursor to falling asleep unassisted. Sleep is linked with activity and digestion. If the baby is used to having a full meal and time to digest it, then falling asleep will be a natural next step. Sometimes she will need to fuss and cry in order to get good aerobic exercise and be ready to sleep. We call this time of fussing "20 minutes of grace."
Helping them sleep through the night
This question came from a mom with a 9 week old who was still waking every 4 hrs at night:
How do I know if I should be letting him attempt to cry for one of those middle feedings? ( like midnight or 0400) he has had a handful of 5-5.5 stretches but that was a couple weeks ago :( or is this normal and stretches should start back up in the future and I need to be patient? Hehe
My answer:
I would encourage a gradual move to encourage the longer sleep at night. Don't go in to feed him until he is full out crying. (A common spoiler of the longer sleep at night is the mother thinking, "If I just go feed him, we can all go back to sleep." Or “I am awake anyway, I might as well feed him.” And so she jumps right up and goes in.) If you are using a monitor, stop. Make him really wail to wake you up. If he fusses off and on for 30 minutes, that is fine to just ignore. When you do decide to go ahead and feed him because he has been wailing for a full ten- fifteen minutes, still try to wait for a tiny lull in his cry before you walk in the door.
You also need to give him pep talks as you are putting him down at night. Tell him, “Tonight you need to sleep longer. This is what we do at night. Mommy is going to help you learn to be part of the family.”
Ask your husband to team up with you and help you not go in. If he needs to wear earplugs so he can sleep in order to function the next day, then he should. What I have found is that it often takes a decision that you are going to stand firm about helping him sleep, and generally it happens within the next week.
Here are some questions I would also ask. What is the normal way he goes to sleep? Does he know how to soothe himself to sleep? Is he rolling over and waking himself up?
In this time of development a tummy sleeper may inadvertently roll himself on his back. If he is unable to roll back to tummy he may have a problem going back to sleep. During this transition it helps to roll up a receiving blanket and put it next to his tummy and legs on the side that he is rolling to.
There are times when babies go through a growth spurt and will need to eat a little more often for a couple of days to step up your milk supply to a greater volume. It tends to happen in the middle of the night that his new hunger wakes him up sooner. Go ahead and feed in the night for four to six days and then you will have to gently help him remember how to sleep longer. It takes a little determination but by the end of a week of letting him fuss for 10-15 minutes before you go in, you should see him give into to the new routine.
If he has been showing good weight gain by three months*, and he is not making it longer than six or seven hours, you can help him stretch longer by determining not to go in at all unless he screams longer than 45 minutes. This is hard on a household but the benefits will pay off. Find a place you can put him that is further away from other sleeping children or a light sleeping husband. Close the doors and go to sleep. This will keep you from hearing all the light fussing but you will hear him if he works himself up to a loud roar. Sometimes parents inadvertently train a baby to wake up to eat because they hear him and rush in before he has had a chance to settle himself and go back to sleep.
* Good weight gain: When baby's birth weight is around 8 lbs. he can generally sleep eight or more hours at night when he reaches 11-12 lbs.
Continuing on - If you haven't started the process outlined in "Starting from Day One" go ahead and begin that now. If you have, and your baby has gained back her birth weight and is continuing to gain, you can begin to be more aware and thoughtful about her routine and help her move in that direction. Sometime in that third to fourth week baby may start to stay awake longer and be more aware of what is going on around her. Most people acknowledge there is a growth spurt around this time, and appetite can grow/change. Now you can begin to help her learn the routine of first eating, then awake for a short time and then falling asleep on her own. This is what The Baby Whisperer calls E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Awake, Sleep, You). The awake time will lengthen as she grows, but at three weeks is is still shorter than you might expect, usually less than 20 minutes after she finishes eating.
One of the first steps to growing up is learning to sleep when her family sleeps. If she has already started sleeping for a
five-hour stretch at night, this too, will lengthen gradually as she grows. Many babies can sleep 10 to 12 hours at night by the time they are eight weeks old.
So, you ask, how do I help my baby to sleep through the night?
We feel the key is helping (training) her to fall asleep unassisted. This skill will set a foundation for the coming two years (at least) of major growth spurts, teething, and huge developmental milestones that wear out a child. During sleep, the brain is working hard to make sense of everything that was experienced that day. Very important neurological connections are made, and information stored while a child sleeps, making sleep crucial to brain development. Being awoken in the middle of a cycle can be very disorienting for a child or baby.
The E.A.S.Y. routine is a crucial precursor to falling asleep unassisted. Sleep is linked with activity and digestion. If the baby is used to having a full meal and time to digest it, then falling asleep will be a natural next step. Sometimes she will need to fuss and cry in order to get good aerobic exercise and be ready to sleep. We call this time of fussing "20 minutes of grace."
Helping them sleep through the night
This question came from a mom with a 9 week old who was still waking every 4 hrs at night:
How do I know if I should be letting him attempt to cry for one of those middle feedings? ( like midnight or 0400) he has had a handful of 5-5.5 stretches but that was a couple weeks ago :( or is this normal and stretches should start back up in the future and I need to be patient? Hehe
My answer:
I would encourage a gradual move to encourage the longer sleep at night. Don't go in to feed him until he is full out crying. (A common spoiler of the longer sleep at night is the mother thinking, "If I just go feed him, we can all go back to sleep." Or “I am awake anyway, I might as well feed him.” And so she jumps right up and goes in.) If you are using a monitor, stop. Make him really wail to wake you up. If he fusses off and on for 30 minutes, that is fine to just ignore. When you do decide to go ahead and feed him because he has been wailing for a full ten- fifteen minutes, still try to wait for a tiny lull in his cry before you walk in the door.
You also need to give him pep talks as you are putting him down at night. Tell him, “Tonight you need to sleep longer. This is what we do at night. Mommy is going to help you learn to be part of the family.”
Ask your husband to team up with you and help you not go in. If he needs to wear earplugs so he can sleep in order to function the next day, then he should. What I have found is that it often takes a decision that you are going to stand firm about helping him sleep, and generally it happens within the next week.
Here are some questions I would also ask. What is the normal way he goes to sleep? Does he know how to soothe himself to sleep? Is he rolling over and waking himself up?
In this time of development a tummy sleeper may inadvertently roll himself on his back. If he is unable to roll back to tummy he may have a problem going back to sleep. During this transition it helps to roll up a receiving blanket and put it next to his tummy and legs on the side that he is rolling to.
There are times when babies go through a growth spurt and will need to eat a little more often for a couple of days to step up your milk supply to a greater volume. It tends to happen in the middle of the night that his new hunger wakes him up sooner. Go ahead and feed in the night for four to six days and then you will have to gently help him remember how to sleep longer. It takes a little determination but by the end of a week of letting him fuss for 10-15 minutes before you go in, you should see him give into to the new routine.
If he has been showing good weight gain by three months*, and he is not making it longer than six or seven hours, you can help him stretch longer by determining not to go in at all unless he screams longer than 45 minutes. This is hard on a household but the benefits will pay off. Find a place you can put him that is further away from other sleeping children or a light sleeping husband. Close the doors and go to sleep. This will keep you from hearing all the light fussing but you will hear him if he works himself up to a loud roar. Sometimes parents inadvertently train a baby to wake up to eat because they hear him and rush in before he has had a chance to settle himself and go back to sleep.
* Good weight gain: When baby's birth weight is around 8 lbs. he can generally sleep eight or more hours at night when he reaches 11-12 lbs.