New Baby – Feed, Wake, Sleep. Best guide to helping your baby sleep through the night.

According to Jen…..

Now remember when I started these blogs I was very clear that I am not always right and that I am only sharing my very slanted one sided takes on life’s little quirks, life lessons and stuff that has worked in the past. I am not always right, but sometimes, just sometimes I am (surprisingly) exactly right.

Having lunch with a few girlfriends the other day and my very good friend says “Oh Jen, I talk about you all the time in my mother’s group?” (My very first thought is, ‘oh god who did I annoy or suffer foot in mouth with??’)
She went on to say “You were right Jen and I tell everyone…….before we left the hospital you sat myself and my husband down and told us to take notes on what you were going to say cause you were going to give us the best piece of advice that we would be grateful for one day to help our baby settle and sleep” ( yes there are times when I am that forward…). “We did exactly what you said and it worked!!!! He self-settles and he sleeps with no dramas. Everyone at Mother’s Group always asks me how and why and what did I do. I just tell them that they need to go and see you”.

In this particular blog I probably should be honest and say that prior to this worldy notion of Feed – Wake – Sleep, I did use this routine and theory with my own children and they both slept through the night 6pm- 5am from six weeks of age. I did however read about 10 books on sleeping and settling and before the world of google, I spoke with people who worked in sleep clinics and I worked in a sleep clinic too (it wasn’t really work, it was more like me soaking up their knowledge and asking thousands of questions). I took bits and pieces from everywhere and made a model that worked for me.

Feed – wake – sleep. How to get your baby to sleep for longer and through the night?  This is the routine that I talk to my friends, family and clients about whenever I am asked. So what does it mean?

New Baby Routine According to Jen:  It starts from the day your baby is born.

1. Early Days – For the first 10 -14 days when your baby is born, just concentrate on your baby having a full feed. Don’t worry about anything else except your baby getting a full belly and not falling to sleep during a feed. Whether you are breast feeding or bottle feeding, just focus on your baby having a full feed. For breast fed babies this is a little tricky, because how do you know if they have had a full feed? The answer lies in waking your baby half way through a feed and then giving them more. Once your baby is more awake, he/she will then take more milk and will then sleep longer with a full content belly. For example: Put baby on the breast and let them suckle. When baby becomes sleepy or not sucking as enthusiastically (you can see if baby is moving their jaw), then pull baby off (gently using your finger to un-suction their mouth from your breast, otherwise you will be sore!) and you need to change baby’s nappy – yes, change your baby half way through a feed. By changing baby, you are cleaning their bottom but more importantly you are waking them up – which is the plan as you want them to wake up to ensure they are having a full feed. Also in most cases you will find that your baby will burp as well – which is another plan as it gets rid of wind or pain and helps to ensure a full feed.  After you have changed and burped your baby, then put them back onto the breast for more milk (some medical practitioners say put baby back on the same breast, some say put on the other side. I seem to find this information changes depending on who you are talking to, so feel free to do what feels right for you).

The same above information applies for bottle fed babies. Feed baby and stop when baby is tired or falling to sleep. Change and burp and make sure baby is awake before giving the rest of the bottle.

Even if baby isn’t sleeping and seems to want all the feed at once, I have always found it helpful to stop the feed at some point and change baby and burp baby. Babies who drink fast tend to either get a pain in their belly or wind – which leads to crying and an unsettled baby.

2. Day and Night Feeds – After the first few days help your baby to distinguish between day and night feeds. Day feeds should be seen as an opportunity for you to attach (by that I mean, build a relationship) and bond with your baby. Talk to your baby, sing to your baby, stroke their hair/head and stimulate their body through touch and massage. Keep the household noisy and normal. With day sleeps you should encourage your baby to sleep in the same place during the day and the night. The only difference should be the buzz of the everyday. For day sleeps keep the blinds a little open so that light can come in, keep the door open and go on to your usual daily activities.

Night feeds should be almost the exact opposite. Keep the lights dim (personally I used to feed my babies in the lounge room with the range hood light on), try not to look at your baby and limit any talking or smiling or singing. Sit quietly and with no television, no phone (yes, no technology as the light from these things stimulates their brain – and yours) and no music and no talking to anyone. Night time feeds should be quiet, calm and limit any stimuli for your baby. As boring as it sounds, it isn’t about you it is about your baby and helping them to distinguish between a day feed and a night feed.   And as tempting as it is, never ever take your baby to bed with you and fall asleep in bed with your baby while they are feeding or after they are feeding. I understand sleep deprivation and I understand that it makes sense for everyone to sleep, but as the primary care giver you have to resist the temptation to bring baby into your bed as you will only make a rod for your back in the long run when your baby will learn that they are unable to self-settle and will need you and your smell in order to sleep at all.

I have had many people talk to me about how their baby ‘needs’ music to sleep, ‘needs’ white noise in their room to sleep, ‘needs’ the house to be quiet and the list goes on. The fact remains that it is the primary carer that sets the tone for sleep and settling. If you use music in your baby’s room to assist in sleep, then your baby will learn that this is the pattern it needs in order to sleep. If you rock your baby to sleep, your baby will learn that it needs to be rocked in order to sleep. There is no right or wrong in establishing your own routine. However, you need to be mindful that whatever you introduce you need to be prepared to follow through with and it will be tricky to take it away.

3. Wake time – This is the time that you play with your baby and interact with them straight after their feed. When babies are very new they tend to sleep from one feed to the next so there isn’t a lot of wake time. However, as the week’s progress you will find that babies stay awake for longer periods after their feed and they like to play and learn and be stimulated. So the routine starts, as soon as your baby wakes up from a sleep you need to feed them straight away. No play time or finishing your cuppa or watching the end of your TV program, you need to focus on baby and feed them! Straight after their full feed is the time for WAKE time (aka play time). Keep baby awake for as long as your baby wants and gradually you will learn their cues that they are tired or sleepy. Watching and learning your baby’s cues is essential as your baby grows. It may sound strange at first, but after a few weeks you will be able to tell the difference between a tired cry and a pain cry and a whingy cry and a hungry cry. Your baby will give you cues that they are tired – they may yawn, rub their eyes, stretch their arms, start whinging for no reason and just be irritable. When you can see that your baby is tired, then you need to listen to their cue and take them to bed.  For me personally, when my baby used to start becoming annoyed and irritable I would pick them up, lay them in my arms, put a towel/wrap over their head and over my shoulder and start walking to their cot. While I did this I would simply say “shhh shhh” and repeat lots of times until I reached their room. I would put them in the cot awake, pat them for 5-10 seconds and say “shhh shhh” and walk out the room.

Now I understand that this sounds very easy, but it isn’t. The earlier you start this routine the easier it is for you to assist your baby to learn a routine that you establish. It was my philosophy that a baby shouldn’t cry or scream for food. So as soon as they woke up I would feed them and then play with them and then wait for the cues that they needed to go back to sleep. In following this routine, my children always woke up happy as they knew they were going to be fed and they knew when it was time for bed. They quickly learnt that day time feeds were fun and night time feeds were for feeding only. I put my kids to bed in the same place most days and focused on understanding my baby first before I focused on socialising and going out.

4. Cot is for sleeping – In the early weeks when you are establishing your role as a parent and getting used to your new little being, it is important to help your new little person distinguish what and where they   No doubt you would have bought a cot and sheets and have an established space for your baby? Well you need to use it.  It is important for babies to learn early on in their life where they sleep. Familiar surroundings, smells and sounds will assist for your baby to feel calm and sleep soundly.   Letting your baby sleep in the bouncer, on the couch, in a rocker or anywhere else only confuses baby and adds to the drama of having a baby that ‘naps’ and thus has a difficult time going through all their sleep cycles – including self-settling.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, FEED, WAKE, SLEEP. Change baby half way through a feed; distinguish between day and night and utilise the cot as much as possible.

There is so much advice out there and it can often seem overwhelming. Most parents I have ever encountered socially or through work, always try their best and do what they can in the best interests of their little bundle. And everyone always says that the first born is the experiment!!!!!!! So we learn from that and we do things differently the next time.