Babywise “Waketimes” for a Newborn
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As Henry is coming out of his hazy sleepy newborn phase and starting to notice the world around him some more, it’s time that I try to find that ideal wake time before he settles down for a nap during each Eat Wake Sleep cycle.
Babywise
What does that mean exactly?
Babywise is huge on a baby getting enough sleep during the day so that they will sleep more at night. Sleep begets sleep. Those aren’t my words (who says BEGETS?) but they are true words. At least in our household.
While it may seem logical that a baby who stays awake most of their day will crash and sleep hard all night, that isn’t usually the case. Those babies often have poorer sleep because they have become OVER tired.
And overtired is the worst!
The same is true for each Eat Wake Sleep cycle. If the baby is awake too long during the wake stage, that next sleep stage may not come easily (or at all!) thanks to them being so overtired and irritable.
So, going into week three with Henry I am paying super close attention to his ideal wake time. Watching for yawns and sleepy cues is important as is just seeing what times have worked or not worked so far.
Here is what I think may be ideal for him:
7:00 eat then wake time
7:45-10:00 morning nap
10:00 eat then wake time
10:45 – 1:00 mid day nap
1:00 eat then wake time
1:45-4:00 afternoon nap
4:00 eat then wake time
4:45-5:15ish cat nap
5:30/6:00 small bottle for cluster feed, followed by wake time at family dinner/hang with brothers daddy/then bath/bedtime routine. This is the witching hour of fussiness!
7:00/7:15 book/eat/no wake time and straight down for bed
10:30 don’t wait for him to wake, do dream feed then right back to bed
then feed him whenever he wakes up at night of course
Lord knows our days have not been like this, although parts of some days have and sometimes he’ll even have several great Eat Wake Sleep cycles in a day– I can see it working 🙂
A few days ago Henry ate well at 10:00, had a happy wake time and then as I went to wrap him up in a blanket to get him ready for a nap he literally yawned/smiled/and fell asleep. In his bed while I was wrapping him up and planning to pick him back up. I guess we hit that wake time on the nose and he slept 10:45 until I woke him at 1:00.
Typically I would turn on the sound machine and hold him in his room/walk around with him or even use the paci til I knew he was good and sleepy before expecting him to nap like that.
On the other hand, yesterday we completely missed the afternoon nap for the first time. He fussed in my arms for the better part of 2 hours. Could it have been that I got distracted and attempted the nap after 2:00 instead of 1:45? Maybe so, overtired is a powerful thing.
His very fussy and usually napless mornings that have come to be his norm can probably be attributed to the fact that 7:45 is a busy time in our household. Big bros are either rushing out the door with dad or we are all loaded up in the car with me dropping off at school and daycare. No wonder by the time we are ready to think of a nap he can’t settle. By 8:15 he is overtired.
Stay the course
One of my favorite things about Babywise is that if you miss a nap or have a rocky Eat Wake Sleep cycle, you can just adjust and try again after the next feeding. If you and baby have an entire day that’s off you can just try again tomorrow.
There is always a clean slate just around the corner so you don’t feel yourself drowning in an endless day of baby screams and wishing you knew what to do. I have felt like that before…
Stay the course and know that there are going to be sooo many things with a new baby that don’t go as planned and that is okay!
But also know that all of your hard work and attentiveness is going to help you see these patterns emerge so that you know exactly what your baby needs and you can give them that “gift of nighttime sleep” as the book coins it.
Sound crazy?
If you haven’t tried Babywise before or you have a newborn who doesn’t nap or takes 1 or 2 short naps throughout the day, you may be surprised to see 4 naps as well as a 12 hour night.
I have so many people balk at how much my kids sleep.
However, even my pediatrician reminded us as we took home our 2 day old that babies his age will be sleeping up to 20 hours a day. So a 12 hour night and 7-8 hours combined of day time naps is actually spot on as far as what the baby needs.
I think so many babies don’t get that sleep they need because it does seem counter-intuitive to take so many naps and go to bed so early.
But as they grow, their sleep needs scale back. Which is why, as they grow, your wake times each cycle increase and you eventually start dropping naps one by one.
If you look up ideal sleep for a 3 year old you’ll see 11-13 hours. So our middle boy Tom sleeping 11 hours at night and taking a 2 hour nap really isn’t excessive. It would also be completely normal if your 3 year old were sleeping 11 hour nights and not napping a bit because of the range of normal.
Sleep is so important, I just think kids are short changed on it all the time because we adults only need about 8 hours of sleep and often convince ourselves we need much less than that.
Let the experimenting begin…
Here’s to experimenting with wake times and the science that is baby sleep!
I know the trick is just finding a happy balance. All babies are going to differ thanks to that range of normal. And on top of that they tend to like to change it up on us once we think we’ve sort of figured them out 🙂
We’ll see how it all shakes out with Henry when I post about Babywise with a 2 week old!
