[baronfamily2006]

Somehow I feel like I am a first time mom again. I just don't remember how we did things when Jayden was a baby. I remember starting him on a strict schedule when he was older, but I don't really know what we did with him as a newborn. My son is an amazing kid as far as sleep goes. We had strict napping times and a great bedtime routine that has resulted in him still taking good naps every day and going to bed at the same time every night. I really hope to do the same thing with Emma! But I know that I can't expect her to follow a routine at such a young age.

So... if it's getting close to YOUR bedtime and baby has been sleeping for 2-3 hours already, do you wake her up in the hopes of getting her changed, fed, and back to sleep at a reasonable time?

Emma sleeps so much during the day. We had a rough night last night because she just didn't want to go back to sleep. She kept acting like she was starving so we would feed her, check her diaper, and she would still cry. I was exhausted. Thankfully Jayden got to go to daycare today (I'm glad for him because he LOVES going, so it was good for him to get out of the house and away from Emma.) so DH and I took a 3 hour nap with Emma! It was amazing. But now here we are at 9:00 at night and she has just woken up from a 2+ hour long nap. We might be in for another long night! So far I don't really wake her up unless it's been 3 hours since she last ate. Don't want to disturb all that growing she is doing!

Another question... I am exclusively pumping (ugh) so Emma gets her milk in bottles. Sometimes she will eat about 1.5 oz all at once and will want nothing more to do with the bottle. Then 10 minutes later she will cry and act as if she is absolutely starving. So we fix another bottle for her and she will drink on it for a couple seconds and then just be done. We try to offer the pacifer to make sure she is actually hungry and 9 times out of 10 she spits it out, wanting the bottle. Normal? What's up with that!

[lil duckies mama]

She might not like the paci.

She also could be a snacker.

[BoogasMom]

I actually do wake my baby during the day to make sure he has a bottle every 3 hrs. I wake him by changing his diaper and usually he will realize that he is hungry and starting "rooting". LOL! A lot of the times, he will fall asleep on the bottle without finishing it so I wake him back up by burping him, rubbing his feet, tickling his tummy, etc and get him to try to finish at least 2 oz before letting him sleep again.

At night, it's a different story. I stay up for his midnight feeding and then put him in his crib. I only get up to feed him at night when he wakes me by crying. Amazingly enough, he has been waking up about every 3 hrs at night but won't wake up at 3 hr intervals most of the time during the day.

I do know that sometimes if the baby is really gassy, they will sometimes mistake gas pains with hunger pains. It makes it easier for you to tell if the baby has gotten enough because you are bottle feeding. I've had a couple of times when I could tell Ethan was gassy and couldn't possibly still be hungry because he just finished a 3 oz bottle but still acted as if he were hungry. I just put his paci in his mouth and rocked him until he settled down and had passed most of the gas.

[ElizabethS]

Only time I woke my baby was with Ethan....at first he had jaundice and he was super sleepy but they said that if I didn't feed him super often his jaundice would get worse. So I woke up him up often to nurse. I also had to wake him up to nurse quite a bit the first month because he was considered "failure to thrive" in that he only gained an ounce in the first 30 days. Funny thing is, he was 19lbs by 4 months old....

But yes that's the only time I've ever woken a child to feed.

[Clutch]

I wake DD to feed during the day. She was premature and jaundiced, so I try to get her to eat every 2-3 hours during the day. I let her wake up herself during the night. She'll sleep 2-5 hours at night.

Sometimes she still acts starving after eating a full 2oz, but she'll really eat another oz or two before she's finally happy

[squishyhomie]

hellz no!

i let that baby sleep.

the only time i wake the baby is if he's asleep in his carseat after we went out,
and i can smell his diaper, i like to get him out of the seat changed and fed.

if he falls asleep during his feeding time, i'm already in the routine of giving half the bottle, burping, changing and feeding the rest.

[mamabear4]

no i never wake her.

[luvmykids623]

In the beginning we woke them because they were preemies and needed to eat every 3-4 hours and very rarely woke up on their own. Now they wake more often to eat, but they have their days and nights mixed up. We wake them in the evening and try to keep them up a bit in hopes that they'll sleep better at night.

[STL_Beth]

That first week I was waking her every 3 hours regardless. Now I wake her every 3 hours during the day (if she hasn't already done it herself). At night I let her go and she will go 3-4 hours on her own. With my son, he went 6 hours very early on at night.

I will sometimes wake her earlier than 3 hours during the day if it's more "convenient" for me. For example, if we are getting ready to leave the house for errands or something, I might wake her at 2.5 hours. Sometimes she is fine with that and will eat earlier and sometimes, we can't wake her for anything and we just say oh well, we tried and leave anyway.

[*Shannon*]

I only woke him in the beginning because he was a preemie. Now I let him sleep no matter what. With my other term babies, I never woke them, never really had to.

[Club_J]

I wake mine to eat every 3 hours in the day if needed and don't let her go longer than 5 hours at night. I often have to wake her up, but I want to make sure she is getting proper nutrition.