When do we begin?
Bringing Up Baby with Joy (The first seven months)
Once the baby is born she (the baby) begins to have a part in the growing process. This adventure will be one step at a time, in concert with God who made her and knows her best. We have the privilege to help our child begin, in very gradual steps to take responsibility for what she is developmentally able to do.
As a newborn she will still be very dependent on the adults in her life to meet her needs but there are small ways that we can help our infant to begin to move to maturity and to help her be a part of our family routine. She needs to be given the responsibility to learn to sleep a longer period at night, and to sleep apart from her parents’ arms.
Sleeping:
Newborns have as great a “need” for sleep as they do for food. Developmentally, the best way for a baby to sleep is on his tummy, undisturbed, in a fairly secluded place. (Later we will discuss the controversy of tummy sleeping.) In the first three weeks she will probably sleep most of the time when she is not eating, burping or being changed. (18-20 hours of her day she will be asleep, so don’t be surprised!) Sometime in that third to fourth week she may start to stay awake longer and be more aware of what is going on around her. We can then help her learn the routine of first eating, then awake for a short time and then falling asleep on her own. That will give us time to do what we need to do and is what The Baby Whisperer calls E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Awake, Sleep, You).
One of the first steps to growing up is learning to sleep when her family sleeps. From the beginning she will have one stretch that is longer than the others (4 to 5 hours). We can begin to help her learn to move that longer stretch to the middle of the night by making sure she does not have a long stretch during the day. That means we won’t let her sleep longer than four hours between feedings during the day so we may have to wake her when it has been four hours since she last ate. Until she has gained her birth weight and is continuing to gain we should still wake her up after that five-hour stretch. As she gains weight we can then let her determine how long to sleep. She will probably start with a five-hour stretch and then it will lengthen gradually as she grows. Many babies can sleep 10 to 12 hours at night by the time they are eight weeks old.
At my first two-week check up after our first baby was born my great doctor gave me advice for what we now call “20 minutes of grace.” I wish I could tell him how many happy babies and joyful parents he has helped! He assured me that crying for 20 minutes is really very healthy for the baby. It is the only aerobic exercise they can get at this age. When she is over tired it gives her a way to wind down.
Here is how it works: When we have done everything she needs -she is well fed and has a clean diaper and is starting to get fussy - put her down to sleep (on her tummy). Walk out of the room and set the timer for 20 minutes. (When we first do this if we don't use a timer we will think 5 minutes has been 20 minutes!)
If after 20 minutes she is still crying then go in and check the diaper, pat her or check for whatever else you think she might need at this point. Do not try to feed her again unless it has been more than two hours since you last fed her. If she just won’t sleep, wait for the two-hour mark, feed her and try again. Use this time to pray hard. Pray for our selves while waiting for the crying to stop. Pray for our baby. Keep asking God to calm her and calm us as we train and nurture her.
The father, will need to help his wife with this. He can send her out for a walk or into a room with music. Tell her you will watch the clock for her. Pray with her. Remind her that she was fussing no matter what we did. This isn't any different except we are now giving her a little piece of responsibility - to learn to put herself to sleep. The sooner we do it, the less painful it will be for both her and us. If you wait until she is 9 months it could take a longer period of crying to change the habits formed.
My son's first good cry only lasted 19 minutes. He fell asleep right before I was ready to run in and rescue him and he slept 5 hours, instead of waking up after 20 minutes, which was the rut we were in. The next evening when I put him down and let him cry it was only 12 minutes. By the end of the week it was less than a minute and he became a great little sleeper - sleeping through the night for 12 hours by 8 weeks. It worked for all my children and now for my grandchildren and many others who have been willing to try using the “20 minutes of grace.”
When moms call about a baby that used to sleep through the night but now doesn’t this is what I tell her:
To help her start going longer at night here are some things I recommend. When she wakes up the first time don’t go in. Let her fuss and see if she goes back to sleep on her own. (Try the 20 minute plan – look at the clock and say I am going to let her fuss 20 minutes before I go in. This is my advice for people who are trying to cut out a night time feeding and it usually works in combination with the good sleeping during the day and the good butter fat intake on the nursing mother’s part.
Sometimes we are tempted to think that if we let her fuss that she’ll wake up too much to go back to sleep after nursing and so we rush in at the first sound. But helping her stretch longer is helping her grow to the next stage of development.
There are always glitches along the way that will through off good routines. Baby or mom gets sick. The family travels. Teething. And when the storm is over we wake up and realize that the routine is still going like it did during the storm and it is time to get back on track. When that happens, just plan to take a week to work back into the routine of sleeping through the night. Babies are incredibly adjustable as we patiently and bravely help them adjust. When dealing with an older baby, she may have to fuss longer than 20 minutes. Ask God to give wisdom about whether she is stubbornly trying to hang onto comfort or if it is something that is a true need.
Eating:
During the first week of life we will want to feed her every two and half to three hours to help build up the milk supply (if breastfeeding) and to help her gain her birth weight back. We will probably have to wake her up to eat but if for some reason she is still awake an hour after the feeding ended it will be harder to hold her to the two-hour mark. It will be to her advantage to sooth her until the milk from the last feeding has had a chance to digest completely. Breast milk takes two hours to digest and formula takes slightly longer. It is important not to feed a baby on top of undigested milk or it can form gas. Because of the gas, she will act like she is hungry. If we feed her again in that two-hour mark it can start of cycle of snack eating and she will not get a good full feeding, which includes the richest milk, which comes when she has drained a full breast. Hence, a good rule of thumb is to make sure we do not feed her until it has been at least two hours since the beginning of the last feed. If she is asleep, that won’t be hard to accomplish. As we introduce the E.A.S.Y routine she will probably shift to eat every three to four hours.
By the way, she should still be sleeping between every feeding. By six weeks we can expect about 1/2 hour awake time before she goes back to sleep. In my experience, the more naps a baby takes during the day, the better she will sleep at night. (Which is exactly opposite of what we think because we are thinking about adults or older children when we think about sleep.) Getting the feeding schedule during the day to a good three to four hours between feeding and having her sleep during the time between, will really help both us and our baby.
From my daughter Allison: Listening to a new mom complain about how people were telling her "if your baby eats well, she'll sleep well" lead me to realize that this worldview is not true. Sleeping and eating are related but it really is "if your baby sleeps well, she/he will eat well" which is why the sleep training is such a vital aspect of the feeding routine. The two definitely go hand in hand but if you are trying to make sure your child is "well fed" before you let them sleep, than you end up tempted to let them sleep at the breast & also to feed more frequently until you are ready to put them down to sleep.
I have had lots of calls or emails from moms asking about their four or six month old baby who is no longer able to go 3 to 4 hours between feedings. That can happen for a couple of days when the baby is going through a growth spurt. It also can mean that the mom has quit eating well or is not drinking enough. I have a question to ask them to help diagnose what is going on - Are you eating enough butterfat? The fat in your milk will be proportionate to the butter fat you are eating. If we want rich milk that will last long in our baby’s tummy we need to be eating butter and cream regularly throughout the day. Smother our toast with butter. Add heavy whipping cream to fruit for a snack. Eat ice cream that is made from cream (Some flavors of Breyers are great. Just read the ingredients and make sure it has cream.) Drink whole milk. The biggest problem I run into when talking to new moms is that they start thinking about loosing weight and take this important fat out of their diet. If you pump milk you can see the difference. Creamy breast milk will have cream that rises to the top when it cools.
Also, at some point (around four months) some babies will be able to get all the milk they need in 10 or less minutes of nursing, since the let down and her sucking are now in sync. Moms often worry that he or she is not getting enough milk and try to re-feed. Whether we are doing this as an attempt to get her more full or in response to her fussiness, this doesn’t help her sleep longer, it just disrupts the good cycle. But if we let her go at least three hours before feeding again we will see that she did get enough!
During that three hours we can help her have an appropriate amount of awake time and a good nap between every feeding. After she eats, we may be tempted to play longer than she actually needs because she is so much fun! But if we don’t put her to bed in the next hour it will really be hard for her to go to sleep because she will start to feel hungry—even though it’s just the beginning of the digestion process. So at four to six months of age 45 minutes of changing, playing, burping, bathing, etc. is really optimum and then right back to bed. Ideally she will sleep two hours, then wake up ready to eat again! But if she does wake up sooner it is best to hold her off for the full three hours so that the breast milk will have time to build up to include the hind milk that is richest. We can distract and cuddle and give her to Dad to play, use a pacifier, etc to “hold her off.”
Introducing solid foods:
Then before we know it, she will be ready to be introduced to solid food. There are a couple of milestones developmentally that will help us know she is ready. Eye-hand coordination will develop to the point that she will actually be able to pick up something and put it in her mouth. This usually happens about the time her teeth start coming in but not always – some babies get teeth later or earlier. Now she is ready to start experimenting with food. I recommend letting her pick up small soft pieces of food from her tray. We can help by giving her tastes of different foods by putting them in her mouth. Once she realizes the joy of eating then she will be ready to feed herself. Remember this is just an introduction – her main source of nutrition should still be milk, so nurse her first or offer food in between feedings. Keep it fun and exploratory! Read more on eating habits here
Once the baby is born she (the baby) begins to have a part in the growing process. This adventure will be one step at a time, in concert with God who made her and knows her best. We have the privilege to help our child begin, in very gradual steps to take responsibility for what she is developmentally able to do.
As a newborn she will still be very dependent on the adults in her life to meet her needs but there are small ways that we can help our infant to begin to move to maturity and to help her be a part of our family routine. She needs to be given the responsibility to learn to sleep a longer period at night, and to sleep apart from her parents’ arms.
Sleeping:
Newborns have as great a “need” for sleep as they do for food. Developmentally, the best way for a baby to sleep is on his tummy, undisturbed, in a fairly secluded place. (Later we will discuss the controversy of tummy sleeping.) In the first three weeks she will probably sleep most of the time when she is not eating, burping or being changed. (18-20 hours of her day she will be asleep, so don’t be surprised!) Sometime in that third to fourth week she may start to stay awake longer and be more aware of what is going on around her. We can then help her learn the routine of first eating, then awake for a short time and then falling asleep on her own. That will give us time to do what we need to do and is what The Baby Whisperer calls E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Awake, Sleep, You).
One of the first steps to growing up is learning to sleep when her family sleeps. From the beginning she will have one stretch that is longer than the others (4 to 5 hours). We can begin to help her learn to move that longer stretch to the middle of the night by making sure she does not have a long stretch during the day. That means we won’t let her sleep longer than four hours between feedings during the day so we may have to wake her when it has been four hours since she last ate. Until she has gained her birth weight and is continuing to gain we should still wake her up after that five-hour stretch. As she gains weight we can then let her determine how long to sleep. She will probably start with a five-hour stretch and then it will lengthen gradually as she grows. Many babies can sleep 10 to 12 hours at night by the time they are eight weeks old.
At my first two-week check up after our first baby was born my great doctor gave me advice for what we now call “20 minutes of grace.” I wish I could tell him how many happy babies and joyful parents he has helped! He assured me that crying for 20 minutes is really very healthy for the baby. It is the only aerobic exercise they can get at this age. When she is over tired it gives her a way to wind down.
Here is how it works: When we have done everything she needs -she is well fed and has a clean diaper and is starting to get fussy - put her down to sleep (on her tummy). Walk out of the room and set the timer for 20 minutes. (When we first do this if we don't use a timer we will think 5 minutes has been 20 minutes!)
If after 20 minutes she is still crying then go in and check the diaper, pat her or check for whatever else you think she might need at this point. Do not try to feed her again unless it has been more than two hours since you last fed her. If she just won’t sleep, wait for the two-hour mark, feed her and try again. Use this time to pray hard. Pray for our selves while waiting for the crying to stop. Pray for our baby. Keep asking God to calm her and calm us as we train and nurture her.
The father, will need to help his wife with this. He can send her out for a walk or into a room with music. Tell her you will watch the clock for her. Pray with her. Remind her that she was fussing no matter what we did. This isn't any different except we are now giving her a little piece of responsibility - to learn to put herself to sleep. The sooner we do it, the less painful it will be for both her and us. If you wait until she is 9 months it could take a longer period of crying to change the habits formed.
My son's first good cry only lasted 19 minutes. He fell asleep right before I was ready to run in and rescue him and he slept 5 hours, instead of waking up after 20 minutes, which was the rut we were in. The next evening when I put him down and let him cry it was only 12 minutes. By the end of the week it was less than a minute and he became a great little sleeper - sleeping through the night for 12 hours by 8 weeks. It worked for all my children and now for my grandchildren and many others who have been willing to try using the “20 minutes of grace.”
When moms call about a baby that used to sleep through the night but now doesn’t this is what I tell her:
To help her start going longer at night here are some things I recommend. When she wakes up the first time don’t go in. Let her fuss and see if she goes back to sleep on her own. (Try the 20 minute plan – look at the clock and say I am going to let her fuss 20 minutes before I go in. This is my advice for people who are trying to cut out a night time feeding and it usually works in combination with the good sleeping during the day and the good butter fat intake on the nursing mother’s part.
Sometimes we are tempted to think that if we let her fuss that she’ll wake up too much to go back to sleep after nursing and so we rush in at the first sound. But helping her stretch longer is helping her grow to the next stage of development.
There are always glitches along the way that will through off good routines. Baby or mom gets sick. The family travels. Teething. And when the storm is over we wake up and realize that the routine is still going like it did during the storm and it is time to get back on track. When that happens, just plan to take a week to work back into the routine of sleeping through the night. Babies are incredibly adjustable as we patiently and bravely help them adjust. When dealing with an older baby, she may have to fuss longer than 20 minutes. Ask God to give wisdom about whether she is stubbornly trying to hang onto comfort or if it is something that is a true need.
Eating:
During the first week of life we will want to feed her every two and half to three hours to help build up the milk supply (if breastfeeding) and to help her gain her birth weight back. We will probably have to wake her up to eat but if for some reason she is still awake an hour after the feeding ended it will be harder to hold her to the two-hour mark. It will be to her advantage to sooth her until the milk from the last feeding has had a chance to digest completely. Breast milk takes two hours to digest and formula takes slightly longer. It is important not to feed a baby on top of undigested milk or it can form gas. Because of the gas, she will act like she is hungry. If we feed her again in that two-hour mark it can start of cycle of snack eating and she will not get a good full feeding, which includes the richest milk, which comes when she has drained a full breast. Hence, a good rule of thumb is to make sure we do not feed her until it has been at least two hours since the beginning of the last feed. If she is asleep, that won’t be hard to accomplish. As we introduce the E.A.S.Y routine she will probably shift to eat every three to four hours.
By the way, she should still be sleeping between every feeding. By six weeks we can expect about 1/2 hour awake time before she goes back to sleep. In my experience, the more naps a baby takes during the day, the better she will sleep at night. (Which is exactly opposite of what we think because we are thinking about adults or older children when we think about sleep.) Getting the feeding schedule during the day to a good three to four hours between feeding and having her sleep during the time between, will really help both us and our baby.
From my daughter Allison: Listening to a new mom complain about how people were telling her "if your baby eats well, she'll sleep well" lead me to realize that this worldview is not true. Sleeping and eating are related but it really is "if your baby sleeps well, she/he will eat well" which is why the sleep training is such a vital aspect of the feeding routine. The two definitely go hand in hand but if you are trying to make sure your child is "well fed" before you let them sleep, than you end up tempted to let them sleep at the breast & also to feed more frequently until you are ready to put them down to sleep.
I have had lots of calls or emails from moms asking about their four or six month old baby who is no longer able to go 3 to 4 hours between feedings. That can happen for a couple of days when the baby is going through a growth spurt. It also can mean that the mom has quit eating well or is not drinking enough. I have a question to ask them to help diagnose what is going on - Are you eating enough butterfat? The fat in your milk will be proportionate to the butter fat you are eating. If we want rich milk that will last long in our baby’s tummy we need to be eating butter and cream regularly throughout the day. Smother our toast with butter. Add heavy whipping cream to fruit for a snack. Eat ice cream that is made from cream (Some flavors of Breyers are great. Just read the ingredients and make sure it has cream.) Drink whole milk. The biggest problem I run into when talking to new moms is that they start thinking about loosing weight and take this important fat out of their diet. If you pump milk you can see the difference. Creamy breast milk will have cream that rises to the top when it cools.
Also, at some point (around four months) some babies will be able to get all the milk they need in 10 or less minutes of nursing, since the let down and her sucking are now in sync. Moms often worry that he or she is not getting enough milk and try to re-feed. Whether we are doing this as an attempt to get her more full or in response to her fussiness, this doesn’t help her sleep longer, it just disrupts the good cycle. But if we let her go at least three hours before feeding again we will see that she did get enough!
During that three hours we can help her have an appropriate amount of awake time and a good nap between every feeding. After she eats, we may be tempted to play longer than she actually needs because she is so much fun! But if we don’t put her to bed in the next hour it will really be hard for her to go to sleep because she will start to feel hungry—even though it’s just the beginning of the digestion process. So at four to six months of age 45 minutes of changing, playing, burping, bathing, etc. is really optimum and then right back to bed. Ideally she will sleep two hours, then wake up ready to eat again! But if she does wake up sooner it is best to hold her off for the full three hours so that the breast milk will have time to build up to include the hind milk that is richest. We can distract and cuddle and give her to Dad to play, use a pacifier, etc to “hold her off.”
Introducing solid foods:
Then before we know it, she will be ready to be introduced to solid food. There are a couple of milestones developmentally that will help us know she is ready. Eye-hand coordination will develop to the point that she will actually be able to pick up something and put it in her mouth. This usually happens about the time her teeth start coming in but not always – some babies get teeth later or earlier. Now she is ready to start experimenting with food. I recommend letting her pick up small soft pieces of food from her tray. We can help by giving her tastes of different foods by putting them in her mouth. Once she realizes the joy of eating then she will be ready to feed herself. Remember this is just an introduction – her main source of nutrition should still be milk, so nurse her first or offer food in between feedings. Keep it fun and exploratory! Read more on eating habits here
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