Babywise with a Newborn

Can you really start Babywise with a newborn?

Sure! “Start as you mean to go” is one of my favorite takeaways from Babywise, after all.

Pick some Babywise principles and keep them in mind now. Full feedings, some independent sleep, consistent bedtimes and wake times. You can’t do it all but you can incorporate as much as you want.

There is obviously tons of room for flexibility in the first few days home from the hospital. And the great thing about it is–you choose just how much you’d like to start implementing Babywise and when.

Henry is 5 days old and we are already doing things we did not do until 2 weeks with Tom and 1 month with Sam because it’s our third rodeo and we felt good about it.

My personal goals for the first week of baby’s life this time around are to work on full feedings verses snacking, work on the 3 hour schedule (but feed baby when hungry!), have an idea of a set bedtime and wake time, and to let baby sleep without being held the whole time (trust me he is getting plenty of snuggles too, I just want to mix up naps for now–some while held, some in a bassinet, sometimes a flat surface, sometimes the good ole incline babies love.)

I do like to work on Eat/Wake/Sleep and if you can now, that is great! But newborns may be so sleepy that wake time is hard to come by or so fussy that you can’t swing a nap.

Other good goals the first week home are to be sure your partner is on the same page as well as getting rest and recovering. If possible, keep good habits in mind without stressing about them. Bringing home baby is enough.

Here are three real life examples of Babywise with a newborn:

Sam

Okay, we didn’t Babywise at this stage with our first born…

I have a distinct memory of napping with my husband on the couch one afternoon when Sam was 3 or 4 days old. We laid around and napped and watched TV for like 5-6 hours, as did the baby. We were so thrilled with our “sleeper” ha! Annnnd then that night we paid big time as he caught up on eating and was wide awake. It never even occurred to me to wake him during that day!

A post I made on Instagram the first week home reads that he liked to “sleep all day and party all night” and that’s about all the hard evidence I have on Sam man’s sleep at this age 🙂

Tom

This time around I knew Babywise worked. Our goal coming home was a 3 hour eating schedule and then on demand feeding at night.

Notes show he is all over the place doing more snacking and less full feedings and our bedtimes/waketimes were off. I was also not worried about nap times and did not record them until another week in.

3 days old – 7:30 eat, 9:30 eat, 11:30 eat, 1:15 eat, 4:00 eat, 6:30 eat, 7:30 eat then he woke in the night to eat at 12:00, 1:00, 3:00, and 5:30

4 days old – 8:30 eat, 10:15 eat, 12:15 eat, 2:45 eat, 5:45 eat, 9:00 eat, 11:30 eat then he woke on his own in the night at 1:30 and 4:30

5 days old – 8:00 eat, 10:45 eat, 1:45 eat, 4:00 eat, 6:00 eat, 7:45 eat, 10:15 eat then he woke on his own at 2:45 and 6:30

6 days old – started at his 6:30 waking to eat, 9:00 eat, 11:30 eat, 1:00 eat, 4:00 eat, 6:00 eat, 8:00 eat, 11:00 eat then he woke on his own at 2:30 and 6:30

Overall you can see he starts to organize his day verses night towards the end with less night wakings…I wish I knew what naps were like but I do know that we did not do any napping or sleeping in his own room until about 2 weeks old.

Henry

Goals this week were to work on this modified 3 hour/evening cluster feed schedule (7, 10, 1, 4, optional 5:30/6:00, 7:15, 10:30) and on demand feeding at night, of course. Remember, Babywise says o work on your days and the nights will fall into place.

Other goals were sleeping on his own a few cycles a day and working towards “eat wake sleep” practices so I started paying attention to and recording naps on day 4.

2 days old – 7:15 eat, 10:05 eat, 1:10 eat, 4:20 eat, 7:15 eat, 8:00 eat, 10:00 dream feed, then woke on his own at 3:15 and up at 6:45

3 days old – 6:50 eat, 10:00 eat, 1:10 eat, 4:05 eat, 5:30 eat, 7:30 eat, 10:30 dream feed, then woke on his own at 1:50 and up at 6:40

4 days old – 6:45 eat (no nap, awake til next feeding), 9:45 eat (no wake time, slept til next feeding), 12:45 eat (decent wake time, napped 1:15 to next feeding), 3:55 eat (very short wake time, slept til next feeding), 6:15 eat, 7:20 eat (straight down for bed), 10:30 dream feed, then woke on his own at 1:15 and 5:15, I woke him up at 7:15

5 days old – 7:15 eat (wouldn’t nap so we walked), 10:05 eat (good wake time then napped in his room for first time til next feeding), 1:00 eat (short wake time, slept til next feeding in his room) 4:00 eat (cat napped in daddy’s arms) 5:45 eat, 7:15 eat (straight down for bed), 10:15 dream feed, then he woke once at 3:15 and I woke him up at 7:00!

Note any time I mention him sleeping til the next feeding during the day, I am waking him up for said feeding. Often times he is out cold still.

The idea is to control the day with going no more than 3 hours between feedings so he can give me his best and longest stretch at night! At night I change/feed/burp in that order to shoot for going right back down as soon as he eats.

This is probably information OVERLOAD. But…if you have a newborn and are trying Babywise, I hope Pinterest led you here and it is helpful in some way. I’ve always loved reading the variety of schedules out there because it just shows that parents can really make it their own.

All in all I would say Henry’s first week home has been the easiest. I don’t know if I attribute that to an earlier Babywise focus, third time parent experience, or to Henry himself!

Stay tuned for “Babywise with a 1 week old” after next week.

To navigate through each week go here for links at the end of the post.