Evan is doing so, so great. He's such a happy baby, it's hard not to smile at him when he's around because his cheeks are always so rosy and he's just so cute and smiley.
He's on a 4 hour feeding schedule with 4 liquid feedings and 3 meals of solids. He's doing much, much better with the spoon in his mouth so now that he's officially 6 months old I'm introducing a wider variety of solids: squash, sweet potato, banana, avocado, green beans, pears, applesauce, carrots, and prunes. The solids have made his digestive track slow way down, so we do prunes one meal a day to keep things moving. Breastfeeding is still going great and I'm still off dairy.
He's almost sitting up on his own now, and he's found his feet which will likely lead to rolling over back to front soon. He lays on his back and grabs his feet and kind of rocks back and forth. Although he hates tummy time, so I doubt he's that motivated to roll onto his front.
He's getting coordinated at grabbing toys and bringing them to his mouth to explore, so we have to make sure there aren't things within his reach that he shouldn't have because he's quick!
His 6 month appointment isn't until next month because I lined it up to coincide with the kids 2 and 4 year well-child visits, so I don't know Evan's stats right now but my guess is he's on the same growth curve and doing just fine. He's so adorable and we love him so much!
Hi there. I was hoping you would be so kind as to give me some advice and your opinion. I've read the Babywise book and I've scoured the internet for schedules etc and I need to know if I'm missing something or doing something wrong with my five week old baby.
ReplyDeleteHe's still eating roughly every three hours about 4 oz and sometimes 5 yet he's still waking in the night every three hours as well. So we give him a dream feed at 10 and then he's up again at 1 and 4 to eat full bottles. Sometimes he's not even making it to theee hours.
What am I doing wrong? I've even tried giving him more ounces during the day.
I don't expect him to sleep through the night yet but maybe 4-5 hours for one stretch would be nice.
I'm losing my mind because I also have a very active toddler that's trying my patience.
Is my five week old normal? Thanks, jen
Hi! I know how hard it is to think clearly when you're tired, have a toddler, and are trying to help your baby eat and sleep. It's maddening. Fortunately, it sounds like you're doing great with baby and just need to keep going. If he's taking full bottles every three hours during the day, that's wonderful. Still needing two feedings after the dream feed is normal at 5 weeks. The other thing happening at 5 weeks is baby is still learning the difference between night and day; this is often talked about as "baby has their days and nights mixed up". The best thing you can do to correct this is bright, happy feedings during the day time and making sure baby is exposed to natural light during the day, and then dark, quiet, feedings at night time (I liked this little nursing night light: http://amzn.to/2szvrDs). Usually at night I change diaper and then fed so that baby can just fall asleep directly after eating and be put back to bed. Another thing you can do is delay the 1am feeding by attempting to put baby back to sleep with a paci, rocking, etc. That may not work in terms of baby actually going back to sleep, but if you can push that feeding out 15-30 minutes several nights in a row, they may then drop it on their own. So it's okay if you try to comfort baby to no avail and baby ends up taking a 4-5oz bottle at 1:30am; you've at least pushed that feeding back just a bit and that helps with the process of merging the 1 and 4 am feeding into a 2-3am feeding.
DeleteIf he's still sleeping in your room, make sure you've got ample white noise - if you or hubs make any noises while sleeping and baby happens to be transitioning between sleep cycles, baby will easily wake up and then of course be hungry - whereas baby might have otherwise slept a bit longer.
In short - YES, your 5 week old is normal and you aren't doing anything "wrong". There are things you can do that help more than others, but you're feeding your baby, trying to help your baby learn to sleep, taking care of your toddler, and yourself...you're doing just fine :-)
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated. Ok great advice about trying to hold off on the 1am feeding. I'm gonna try that tonight. I have nothing to lose really since I'm already getting hardly any sleep.
DeleteAlso what you said about ambient noise in the room makes me wonder if I should move him to his own room now. With my older boy, we had him with us for four months but he slept through the night at eight weeks and didn't wake up easily. This one is so different.
Thank you!
That's a decision that's totally up to you. I would check with your pediatrician for the most current recommendations, as I know the APP recently updated their stance on this. Personally, we moved our babies to their own room at 3 weeks (1st baby), 1 week (2nd baby), and 3 days (3rd baby). We always swaddle baby in a secure swaddle and place them on their backs in a crib free of blankets, pillows, lovies, or stuffed animals. I personally don't sleep really at all if baby is in the room next to me, so when baby is in our room they go in a moses basket on my husband's side of the bed so I can get just a little space away from baby while sleeping.
DeleteSo - I support you moving him to his own room now but I want you to research this and understand the pros and cons of keeping back with you in your room. If you do that, definitely use ample white noise.
And yes - every baby truly is different. My second baby was my hardest - which was such a hit to my pride because "I knew what I was doing". Nothing like a baby to humble you as a parent!