Starting EASY for 6 week old - lack of A time?

[khary]

Hello, this is my first post, hope it's okay to ask this! 

I have a 6 week old daughter, and I'm a first time mother.  I've spent the last 6 weeks reading up on different parenting books and decided that this was the most down to earth approach and the only one I really felt 100% comfortable with.  So I'm trying to implement EASY!  Her dad was home with me for the first 5 weeks of her life so there was absolutely no schedule, we were just winging it.  Now that I'm home alone with her all day though, I really need a schedule to get some ME time back!

So my question, at 6 weeks should my baby be having alot of awake time?  She has a morning period where she'll stay awake for a while, but afternoons she's really out of it after a feed and nothing will wake her up from her sleep!  Also,  I've been trying to get her days scheduled to 9am to 9pm,  is there any reason that this shouldn't be done?  My husband gets up for work at 9am, and doesn't get home until after 7pm, I'd like him to be able to do things like give Sarah her bath and do some bonding things with her before she goes to bed.  I figure as long as she gets the sleep in it shouldn't be a problem but maybe I'm overlooking something?

This is what I've been doing so far.  There is not much of a difference between her days and her nights really at this point it seems.  She is formula fed if that makes any difference.

Yesterday:

E  - 8:00 am  4 oz
A - awake straight through till next feed
S - no sleep, fussy baby
E - 10:40 am 4oz then another 1.5 oz
A - until 11:35
S - 11:35am (from this point on, no real awake time all day other than eat/diaper and bath)
E - 2:00pm  5oz
A - none
S - 2:35pm
E - 4:35pm  6oz
A - none
S - 4:30
E - 7:00 - 2 oz
A - bath
E - 7:50  - 2 oz (was hungry then!)
S - 8:00 pm

E - 10:15pm 4oz
E - 2:45am 4 oz
E - 5:20 am 5 oz
E - 8:30am 5oz

Tried to do a dream feed as well at midnight but she didn't want it at all.

Any suggestions on a doable schedule?

[Grace's Mom]

Welcome to the site and congratulations on your new baby.  It has really helped and pretty much saved my life (sanity  ).  I am also a first time mom and read ALL the books.  I was so stressed out until I found this site when my daughter was around 2 months old.  You will love it here. 

-At this age my daughter was awake maybe 1 hour or so and then slept for 2 hours and she did this 4 times per day.  She would sleep through her 9pm feed so she really was asleep for the day at 7 or 8pm and then woke around 7am for the day or earlier.  At this age 12 hours is hard for some babies to handle at night but for others it isn't. 
-My daughter also would fall asleep eating sometimes and NOTHING would wake her or we couldn't get her to wake for a feed.  One day I remember she slept for 6 hours straight (I fed her but she didn't wake) and I was so confused/scared.  I kept calling the Dr.  It is funny because now I am praying for her to sleep longer during naps. So many changes are going on right now and with in the early weeks they just need tons of sleep.  Take advantage of it as long as you are staring to teach your lo independent sleep and good patterns.  Routines are wonderful!

I don't know about at this age (someone else may know) but as your lo gets a bit older you will want her bedtime to be more like 7pm or 8pm as an earlier bedtime is ideal for babies. 

Other mom's on here will have some great advice for you.  Best of luck. 

Melissa

[khary]

Thank you Melissa! 

Sarah was awake again this morning until noon or so, and has been sleeping since.  I just fed her and she is conked out again, she just will NOT wake up in the afternoons!

[tylersmommy]

Welcome! My DD is 6 wks as well, and we did EASY with her big brother. At this age, like the other Melissa said, 1 hr of awake time is usually about all they can handle. That said, we have a LOT of skipped naps where she'll decide to stay awake the entire time between feeds and there's not a thing I can do about it. I think that's pretty common, although it drives me crazy. And when that happens, she's pretty snoozy for the rest of the day. Grrr.

I don't see anything wrong with having a later bedtime. With #1, he went to bed at 8 and woke at 8:30. It worked for us and was never a problem. Give it a try and see what happens.

Your routine looks good, just remember to keep that 3 hr interval between feeds (or less, if she's hungry) and A time afterward if you can, even if that means her eyes are only open for a couple of minutes. If memory serves, we didn't have a predictable routine until around 8 wks with #1, and he was on EASY since birth. Good luck!

[*Mona*]

hi

I agree with both Melissas
6 weeks is still very young, too young to expect a set routine. as long as you try to maintain eat-activity-sleep order, don't stress out too much about anything else if she's gaining weight and napping/sleeping enough.
you may try to keep her awake during/after the feed by rubbing her cheeks or holding her straight up.
there is nothing wrong with 9-9 awake-bedtime. if you wanted to change her day to i.e. 6am-9pm that would be a bit too much for such a young baby, but if you all start your day at 9, that's ok.
and eating often at night at 6 weeks is also perfectly normal.
but maybe if you tried to stick a bit more to 3 hrs routine [not neglecting your baby's hungry cues ofc!] and cluster feed before bed she would eat less often at night.
have you tried settling her in some other way than feeding at night? have you tried pat/shuss?

let us know how your day goes.

[khary]

Thank you Monika. 

I try to keep her on a 3 hour schedule but it often ends up being 2.5 hours or 2.75 hours between feedings because that's when she asks for them.  I try to never go over 3 hours though.  She has pretty distinct hunger signals (she looks at me and starts trying to eat her fists) and if I ignore them after 5 minutes she goes into full blown meltdown mode.  At night it's the same thing, she wakes up hungry and nothing else will satisfy her, no shush pat or anything.  She's a very good baby, she doesn't have too much trouble falling asleep on her own and doesn't usually wake up just to be fussy, she wakes up to eat and then goes right back to sleep. 

I am not managing the cluster feeds well though.  She will not eat every 2 hours at night, she refuses the bottle when she's not hungry.  No amount of rubbing the nipple on her lower lip or anything will make her take it if she hasn't asked for it. It ends up being every 2.5 hours or so, it's the best I can manage.   Last night I managed to get 2 ounces in at 11:15pm which I can't usually do, but she woke up as usual at 2:30am, so she didn't get that 4-5 hour stretch that she usually does at night between 9ish and 2ish.  Maybe it's just something she needs to get used to, but as I said, she generally will not take a feed unless she's really hungry.

[Grace's Mom]

Cluster feeding and dream feeding both did not work for us.  Grace is not a big eater and getting her to eat closer together just wasn't going to happen and doing the dream feed actually made her wake more at night. It is different for each baby so if she really isn't eatting too much at the dream feed maybe just see how long she goes at night with out it.  At 10 days old our Dr. told us to let her sleep after her last feed and she surprised us and slept for 6 hours.  It is all trial and error and if it doesn't work now, it may work later.  I would just give each thing you try about a week before fully deciding if it works or not.

You are doing great.

Melissa