Thursday, May 27, 2010

On the road and in need of some sleeping advice!

On the road...

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend. Emma and I are heading to see the family who live about 4 hours away - sans hubby. This will be the first time I've driven that far alone with the little one. Hubby is going to be living it up with friends in NYC for a bachelors weekend. I have no problem at all with him going but I told him that I hope he appreciates being able to just up and do something like that. Being a baby's food source definitely limits that flexibility!

And in need of sleeping advice...

Emma is a good napper during the day and a good sleeper at night. She usually gives us a 7-8 hours stretch at night. Last night she went from 12:10am-9am!

It is the stretch from about 8pm-12am that I don't really know what to do with. She won't sleep much and is pretty/really fussy during this time. We try to start her bedtime routine - bath, snuggling, swaddling, etc - and then put her down about 8 or 8:30pm. We may get an hour or so out of her and then she wakes up crying. But it isn't time to eat yet. What do I do with her??? Any suggestions??? (She is on a pretty set routine of eating every 3 hours, which usually puts her last feeding of the day around 11pm or 11:30pm.)

5 comments:

  1. Is she getting tired earlier? We had some issues getting our boy to stay down after putting him to sleep, until we shifted his bedtime about an hour earlier. Often he is asleep by 7 or 7:30 PM.

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  2. well, i've had three babies. my advice is this- they are still only 2 months. at that point i was letting them sleep and eat whenever they wanted. i would still do a bedtime routine just to get them used to it. then around 4 months is when we really started sticking to a schedule and getting them to bed around 8pm. hope that helps at all.

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  3. Caleb would never go to bed that early when he was Emma's age. Maybe try to keep her up another hour to hour 1/2. Try a 9 or 9:30 bedtime, and start the routine around 8. That may help her tire out for actual bed.

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  4. I would agree with moving up the bedtime. Is she fussy before your bedtime now? When she wakes after the hour, do you treat it like a middle-of-the-night feeding (low lights, little interaction, no play)?

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  5. What? - sleep and eat whenever they wanted??
    Not good advice! Babies need a schedule ( you are teaching them, not the other way around!! )
    It sounds like you are doing everything right.
    If you are getting between 7-9 hour stretch at this age - just push her bedtime a few hours later..have her last feeding be at 10pm..then put her down for the night...
    I put all three of my breast fed babies on a schedule and had all of them sleeping through the night 10 pm - until 6 am at 8 weeks...that streched out as they got older..but at 8weeks, I never had their actual bedtime ( last feeding ) before 9 pm..

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