Babywise With an Eight Week Old
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Week 8 is an exciting one after several weeks of more or less the same schedule. Henry is sleeping all night! Or at least he has been for one full week now. Of course this could change any moment with a growth spurt or who knows what…but I am absolutely enjoying it while I can!
On 8 weeks exactly, Henry started having the “45 minute intruder” during naps. It’s such a creepy sounding term but it means that the baby wakes up right around 45 minutes into the nap.
He did not do this until right at 8 weeks, which is common, thanks to Wonder Week
There are lots of other reasons a baby may struggle with the 45 minute intruder…but since Henry has been a great napper I am hopeful this will be short lived as we are moving out of the Wonder Week now.
So, here is what Babywise 
Sam
My sleep notes for Sam start at 8 weeks on the dot. Why? This is when he started with a sitter and I was so cray cray about his naps that I made a journal for her to write them down in, ha!
He schedule was:
7:00 wake up/bottle/wake time/nap 8:00-10:00
10:00 bottle/wake time/nap 11:00-1:00
1:00 bottle/wake time/nap 2:00-4:00
4:00 bottle/wake time/cat nap 5:00-5:45
7:00 bottle then bed
10:30 dream feed bottle
The journal shows that he stayed on schedule plus or minus about 15 minutes during week 8. Here is when he woke at night:
8 weeks: slept all night, woke a little early at 6:00 but used it as start of day
8 weeks 1 day: slept through the night but woke pretty early at 5:45, we treated it as start of day
8 weeks 2 days:woke at 4:30, we woke him to start the day at 7:30
8 weeks 3 days: woke at 5:00 to eat, we woke him to start the day at 7:30
8 weeks 4 days: woke 4:30, started the day at 7:00
8 weeks 5 days: slept all night, started day at 6:15
8 weeks 6 days: slept all night, started day at 6:30
Tom
If you’ve been following along you know I quit journaling his sleep when Tom was only like 4/5 weeks old. But I have social media 🙂
A Dec 10 Instagram post said Tom pulled his first 8 hour stretch. He was 8 weeks 2 days. He never gave us that one night teaser at 6 weeks old like his brothers did. But it definitely seems like 8 weeks is the common denominator for when my boys were ready to do some 8 hour stretches of sleep.
I cannot remember if he hit 8 hours and never looked back or if he went back and forth on needing middle of the night feedings. I do know by Christmas he was sleeping through steadily and he was more like 10 weeks old then.
Henry
Other than that 45 minute intruder, which has been better lately, what a great week of sleep! I still know he may have those nights where he wakes to eat so I make the overnight bottle every time.
His day time schedule is the one I wrote out above for Sam, verbatim. This was Tom’s too. So won’t type it all out again. I have had some questions from people about if I wake them to eat the bottle. The answer is yes. If the baby isn’t awake at the next bottle time, wake them up to eat. If they are snoozing hard and you want to give them 5 more mins, fine. If they wake up 5 mins early crying, feed them of course.
A lot of times Henry stirs right on the dot of bottle time, thanks I guess to us working on this schedule basically his whole life. He can be very much like clockwork.
Other times he is a tad early and other times I need to wake him. But sticking to the 3 hour schedule is important, per Babywise. Also note on morning wake up times…if it is before 7:00 am, baby woke on his own. If it’s 7:00 or after, I woke him to get the day started on track.
Here is when Henry woke at night:
8 weeks: woke at 4:00 to eat, started the day at 7:15
8 weeks 1 day: woke at 4:00 to eat, started the day at 7:00
8 weeks 2 days: slept til 6:45
8 weeks 3 days: slept til 7:00!
8 weeks 4 days: slept til 6:45
8 weeks 5 days: slept til 7:00
8 weeks 6 days: slept til 7:00
I feel like a new person with a week of solid sleep. Remember just 3 weeks prior to this I was feeling sort of like I had hit a wall.
I always come home with a baby and wake up once or twice a night with them and think–this really isn’t so bad! I can do this! It’s still plenty of sleep!
Then around week 4/5 the feeling of longer term sleep deprivation sneaks up a bit. I was feeling very anxious and off. Now with some serious sleep under my belt I feel better and have found the energy to start working out again.
Sleep is a powerful thing!
Check out this post for links to each week.
