Should I wake baby in the morning?

[t_ickle]

Hi, first time poster - hope I'm in the right place.

I've searched and searched and googled and read the books but can't find the answer to my question anywhere!

With my first baby we made a lot of mistakes and only introduced a routine at 4 months with the help of controlled crying which involved a 7pm feed, dream feed, no night feed and a 7 am wake up. It was the best thing we ever did. Worked great and everyone was happier. It obviously wasn't from Tracy's methodology though, it was a local expert who helped us.

I'm keen to implement an EASY routine with next baby due in September ASAP but I can't find advice on whether we are supposed to wake baby at the same time every day. If so, great and I'm happy to do as I'm used to it and it makes sense to me but, if baby wakes 5/6am for a feed how do we treat it and should I then wake again at 7am?

Also, re getting started, should I just follow baby's lead for first 4-6 weeks (while paying attention to cycle length) or do I aim to get baby on a 3 hour routine ASAP?

Thanks!

[boykelso]

I would not wake a sleeping baby that’s younger than 3 months old, or at any age really. The EASY routine worked for me so well because you adjust based on what time they wake up. My son would wake up between 6am to 9am during the first three months. If it was 7:30am that he woke up, we’d start the routine from then and adjust naps accordingly.

Sleep is so important for development that it shouldn’t be cut short on a regular basis to fit our schedules. If baby wakes for a 5/6am feed, let them go back to sleep until they want to wake up. Obviously sometimes things get in the way and you need to make adjustments, but as a general rule you should let them sleep.

[Katet]

I volunteer for a baby sleep help centre as part of a hospital here ( they have 8 centres across our state and one in another state and two in China) they base everything they do on research and best practices and research essentially says feed on demand in the early months, but establish good routines based on patterns of behaviour not the clock to help establish sleep. So more the feed on waking (even if only 1-2 hours since last fed) and comforting to sleep.
Controlled crying is not recommended in BW or in any current best practices. Rather an understanding that night feeds are actually normal for at least 50% of babies in their first year of life, not just from a nutritional value but the emotional wellbeing.

[t_ickle]

Thanks both.

To be honest, thinking about it now I'll be doing the childminder drop off with the toddler on some days so baby will have to be woken anyway! I know BW feels strongly that baby has to fit in with family life so I'm comfortable with that.

I know BW says she doesn't believe in completely baby-led feeding on demand which is where the confusion was coming in - I breast fed on demand for three months with my first and it was horrendous, partly why we got ourselves into the problems we did! No routine, frazzled mum and baby etc. I won't be doing that again, hence wanting to get into a routine from a reasonable young age rather than waiting till four months.

The controlled crying wasn't because we wanted to drop night feeds or anything like that (he'd dropped them by then anyway), it was for literally not sleeping for more than 20 mins at a time and only going to sleep in our arms, not being able to self-soothe because we'd completely overridden it with what I now know to be accidental parenting. Life was hell on earth for a month I know BW doesn't believe in it but controlled crying was truly a miracle - worked within one or two nights (so never longer than five minutes without soothing) and he was so much happier afterwards that genuinely I can't fault it. Obviously I'd rather not get to that point again so fingers crossed the BW routines and 4S's work this time around.

Thanks again!