Help me with naptime please respond!

pointyshoes

Fri, Aug 28 2015, 7:59 am

My 4 month old DD has terrible sleeping habits. Im a FTM and didnt realise there need to b official naptimes!
So how long should she go without sleep?
How can I get her to sleep without nursing?
How long should I leave her to sleep?
Also she feeds sometimes even every hour at night and im going nuts. Im exhausted and frustrated. How can I get her to drop those night feeds? How do I teach her that day is for eating and night is for SLEEPING!??? (I wish it was anyway.....)

mummiedearest

Fri, Aug 28 2015, 8:17 am

ok, in order to schedule sleeping, you need to schedule nursing. I don't recall how long to wait between feedings at this age, maybe three hours? check with someone who is still dealing with an infant. basically, if you feed the baby whenever she wants, she learns to snack, she never really fills up. if she's not full, she can't sleep a full stretch. so try dealing with the nursing first, hopefully the sleeping will fall into place at this age.

gp2.0

Fri, Aug 28 2015, 11:11 am

The problem with scheduling feeds is that babies go through growth spurts when they will nurse every hour to increase supply so there's enough milk for them as they need more. Your body only produces as much milk as is used so that is why during growth spurts babies nurse every hour. The growth spurt lasts about 2-7 days Ime. Between growth spurts it's normal to nurse every 2.5-3 hours with one 6-7 hour stretch once every night and maybe another 3-4 hour stretch during the day. many people try to schedule the 6 hour stretch from 12-6 at night instead of from 8-2 so they get a normal nights sleep.

"Common times for growth spurts are during the first few days at home and around 7-10 days, 2-3 weeks, 4-6 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months and 9 months (more or less). Babies don’t read calendars, however, so your baby may do things differently." --copied from kellymom

So basically the first 4 months you won't notice that sometimes baby nurses every few hours. It will seem like baby nurses every hour ALL the time because the 2 day growth spurt melts into the 10 day growth spurt which melts into the 2.5 week growth spurt which melts into the 4 week growth spurt...you get the idea. Things calm down and settle into a routine around the 6 month mark. (and then the teething begins and they want to soothe their gums by nursing every hour again! Oy)

Kellymom has tons and tons and tons of great advice about nursing and all things baby related. I found her site so helpful. theres a LOT of info there you don't need to read it all at once and you can just search her site for the specific questions you have.

http://kellymom.com/category/bf/

amazingmommy

Sun, Aug 30 2015, 10:13 pm

Hi op, I'm a full time mom going back to work now, and my ds is turning 4 months, I also nurse on demand? And ds is not on a feeding schedule, however it is possible for babies to still have some sort of sleeping and napping schedule. I found that first I needed to have a rough night time schedule give or take a half hour abt, I put my baby to sleep at around 9, I wake him at 11:30 to feed him, he I am still working on daytime naps, although I learned how to listen to his cues... When he guys really cranky I nursr him.abit and put him into his crib? Patting his back