Starting EASY with a 4 week old, who was born 4 weeks early.

[lesleyb75]

Hi

I wonder if anyone could give me some advice?

Our daughter was born 4 weeks ago today, 4 weeks early. She was 5lbs 13 at birth, went down to 5lbs 2 as she was jaundiced but is now 6lbs 11.  Emma is our second child.  our son was born sleeping last year.  I am an anxious parent as a result but I try hard to keep it under control.

Emma was not a sleeper- even as a preemie in special care.  Now we are home, I am trying to find my feet and we are keen to develop EASY.  So we started yesterday. I am a teacher and the whole ethos and theory behind Baby Whispering fits in with my own thoughts about child development and emotional health.  It seems the best and we want that for our daughter!

Last night I fed (bf) at 7pm, 9pm and 11pm.  She slept 2 hours, fed, 2 hours, fed then 2 hours fed.  She has today fed, short activity(mainly nappy change) then slept.  for us that is amazing as daytime naps have not existed before! 

So what I am wondering is,
1.  How long would you expect a 4week old to sleep for?  And do I class hard as a 4 week old or a newborn as her due date was today?
2. How do walks in the pram fit in with EASY?

We are working our way through the Baby Whisperer books. Yip, we should have done that before Emma was born so we were not playing catch up.  However, we never truly believed we would bring her home  and as a result, had not considered life beyond the hospital.

Thank you for your help
Lesley
x

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Lesley,

{{{{{hugs}}}}}

I think you are supposed to consider her a newborn, as her corrected age would be just that. Sounds like she is having a good day! Spencer's awake time at that age was quite short (45mins-1h, including her feed) and she was doing about 2.5 -3 hours betweens feeds, so 1.5 - 2 hour nap each time, we didn't let her go longer than 2h because then she was up all night.

Unfortunately she never was a fan of sleeping in a stroller, but we did managed a couple of catnaps in...it's called APOP (accidental parenting on purpose!) We did it with our oldest, every catnap was done in the stroller or sled in the winter. We just fit it in when she would normally have had a nap.

HTH
Heidi

[charmie]

I agree with pp.  You should treat her as a newborn.  Just feed, wind, change nappy and back to sleep.  The 4s wind down routine will help her to understand when sleepy time is coming.  She might need to bf more often than 3hrly and that is fine. 

I also didn't read the bw books before K was born, but we did just fine 


xxx
charm