Babywise question

[SIZE=14pt]We're following the Babywise idea, mainly because it was a shorter book than Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Child, and I have a question:
Do you wake the babies to eat if they sleep longer than their 4 hour schedule?

Mine have been on a 4 hour schedule since the NICU. They have always been pretty consistent with the 4 hour schedule and seem fine with it, gaining weight well.

Also:
If you let the babies wake themselves up to eat overnight and it's longer than 4 hours how do you get back on the 4 hour schedule? For example they are supposed to eat at 4 but don't wake up till 5, do you feed again at 8 or 9 thereby adjusting the times they feed?

Hope these questions make sense to someone! ;o)
I'm so very confused!!![/SIZE]

 

Yes, according to Babywise - during the day you wake the babies if they sleep longer than their 4 hour schedule but you do not wake them at night. According to Babywise, you set a time for the first feeding every morning.
You set a wake up time and you wake them up for the first feeding at that same time every morning for the first feed, to get back on the schedule.

So for example, if you are following Babywise and the last feeding before bed is at 9 pm. You do the 9 pm feeding and then put the babies to bed. Say that night they sleep all the way from 9 pm - 3 am. You have set the first feed of the day time for 6 am. You would feed the baby at 3 am and then wake the baby up at 6 am if s/he doesn't wake up on her own at that time so that you can get back on the schedule for that day. Morning wake up time is the same time every morning according to Babywise.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any other questions or if I was unclear in my response and you still have questions.

 

Hello- We did follow Babywise, but I think we deviated from it on this one point. Our babies were on a 3 hour schedule. We had one twin wake like clockwork every three hours in the night and we woke the other up at that time. I don't think we woke them in the AM. (I think I was too tired from the night before to stomach waking them.) For example, if they woke at 3Am and slept until 7AM, I would let them. We would start the 3 hour schedule from whatever the waketime was. I realize that you are asking what Babywise states to do and we did the opposite I think HSHC also advises to control the wakeup time also. So, my comments are probably not too helpful. I just wanted to make a plug for BW in general though. It seemed like one day we were waking up every three hours, then the next month the babies were sleeping 11 hours through the night (that happened around 3 1/2 months). At 8 weeks I was ready to throw in the towel and say that it didn't work, but it did in the end. Also, I found it a little bit confusing too (maybe it was the sleep deprivation while I was reading it).

 

We're planning to do Babywise, too - and so I'm no expert but I have been reading it... I think that they say that babies younger than 7 weeks shouldn't sleep through the night (7-8 hours) as their tummies aren't ready to handle that. So, if your babies are younger you may want to wake them for a feeding. I do think that the wake-up time needs to be mostly consistent so your daily schedule and bedtime are also consistent. Good luck - it has worked for many of my friends wonderfully even though people who haven't read the book give it a bad rap!

 

sleeping 11 hours at 3 and a half months?? wow how did you do that?? i never heard of babywise, but now am considering it.. do you find it better than healthy sleep habits, happy child-- does it give more definitive ideas? how much do your babies eat during the day to sleep so much at night?

 

QUOTE(aimeethomp @ Nov 16 2008, 07:21 PM) [snapback]1072883[/snapback]
Yes, according to Babywise - during the day you wake the babies if they sleep longer than their 4 hour schedule but you do not wake them at night. According to Babywise, you set a time for the first feeding every morning.
You set a wake up time and you wake them up for the first feeding at that same time every morning for the first feed, to get back on the schedule.

So for example, if you are following Babywise and the last feeding before bed is at 9 pm. You do the 9 pm feeding and then put the babies to bed. Say that night they sleep all the way from 9 pm - 3 am. You have set the first feed of the day time for 6 am. You would feed the baby at 3 am and then wake the baby up at 6 am if s/he doesn't wake up on her own at that time so that you can get back on the schedule for that day. Morning wake up time is the same time every morning according to Babywise.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any other questions or if I was unclear in my response and you still have questions.



Thanks for the advice! We tried it this morning and the boys did very well! This will help out tremendously once I start back to work in Jan and the boys go to daycare.

Thanks again!!

 

QUOTE
sleeping 11 hours at 3 and a half months?? wow how did you do that?? i never heard of babywise, but now am considering it.. do you find it better than healthy sleep habits, happy child-- does it give more definitive ideas? how much do your babies eat during the day to sleep so much at night?


Hi- I checked their feeding logs and it looks like they were eating around 30 ounces during the day at 3 1/2 months. Regarding Babywise versus HSHC, Babywise is definitely shorter than HSHC. They differ on some key points. There are a lot of similarities too. They both advised that newborns can't tolerate being up for more than 1.5 hours at a time; they both talked about drowsy cues, etc. The main difference I found was that HSHC said 'never wake a sleeping baby' while Babywise advised you to wake them from birth every 2 1/2 - 3 hours to eat (during the day), presumably to regulate their metabolism. That's the theory behind the sleeping thru the night so early. Each book has its own science behind its theories. The other main point of Babywise was to have a 'routine' where you eat, play, sleep and it's a predictable cycle throughout the day. Anyway, there are great things about both books and some that I took from both. It got confusing though reading both at the same time when they had such conflicting advice at times, so keep that in mind if you do pick it up. While I liked HSHC, I thought it was long and jumped around a bit. Babywise was shorter, and I found it to be more "instructive" or "directive"- it tells you what to do step by step. But had its downsides too. I thought it didn't leave room for exceptions to the "norm." For yet another book recommendation, I thought "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" was a happy medium between the two. The Baby Whisperer Book talks about a similar "routine" as Babywise. It had a lot of the same priniciples, but was a little softer in its delivery. Both Babywise and Baby Whisperer have sections in the end about starting a routine with an older baby (with the ultimate goal of STTN). Anyway, I hope that helps!