I said in my last post that I have questions – questions, questions questions… So maybe you can help me out ’cause this parenting thing is all new to me!
Q1 – I let Sierra sleep for her naps and at night for however long she chooses. I put her to bed when she tells me she’s tired gets fussy. Some nights she sleeps for 12-13 hours, some nights only 10. Some naps are only 30 minutes, some are as long as 3-4 hours. Should I enforce a sleep schedule? Bed at a certain time, up in the morning at a certain time, scheduled nap times? Or is she too young (her corrected age is 3 months). (For instance – today she has been sleeping for 13.5 hours and is still going strong…)
Q2 – I nurse Sierra on demand. Usually every 2 hours but sometimes she’s hungry more often. She nurses about 7 times a day. As she’s 3 months now, should I start a feeding schedule? Or will that interfere with the supply/demand theory of BF’ing?
Q3 – I rock/nurse Sierra to sleep. Dr. Ferber says to begin Ferberizing at 6 months. Although she’s 4 months her corrected age is 3 months – should I put her down sleepy (not already asleep) when she’s 6 months old (corrected age 5 mos) or 7 months old (corrected age 6 months)?
I know these are minor questions in the grand scheme of parenting but they’ve been nagging me for quite a few weeks – especially the first question ’cause she’s all over the place with her sleep. The only constant is she takes 2-3 naps/day with a long sleep at night.
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I’m sure you’ll get better advice from others, but I say at this age – let her sleep when she’s tired, eat when she’s hungry. Schedules and such are more for adult convenience than for the baby at this point. At least that’s how I see it. Can’t help you on specific nursing questions, being male and all that I don’t have any practical experience…
I have all the same questions so am curious to see what responses you get, but I suspect that the best advice is that she is your baby and you should do what feels right to you. For what it’s worth, I feed Mia whenever I think she is hungry and I try to get her to nap and go to bed at roughly the same times each day but so far she sleeps whenever she wants. I do wake her up from naps after three hours, if she goes that long, and she usually sleeps at least 12 hours with one or two short feedings at night.
Sounds like you have a happy healthy baby! That’s all that matters. If she’s eating well and sleeping through the night, you’re doing better than most mommies.
My baby slept and ate well early on, too… and I nursed as well!
Having said that, my personal opinion is that children need a schedule. Julia has been on a schedule since she was about 3 months old… if she was hungry before the 2 hours was up, I’d feed her – but not after trying to convince her to wait that extra 10 – 15 minutes out by playing with her or singing or whatnot. But I dunno … some moms think I was evil by not feeding my kid when she said to feed her.
I always let J sleep when she wanted, but she was always very consistent. From day one, I believed you should feed the baby then let baby have “awake time” and then a nap.. in that order. Julia would nurse for 20 to 30 minutes, be awake for 30 mins to an hour and then sleep for an hour or so… two or three times a day. Worked out great for me because I always knew what she was going to expect next.
I’ve never believed in rocking a baby to sleep. I always let Julia fall asleep on her own. I always laid her down awake so she would learn to fall asleep without me. Some people would say I was evil to my newbord for not rocking and hugging her to sleep – but I just say, that was my personal choice. She knows I love her and I milk every second of her “awake time” to cuddle and love on her. I’ve never heard of Dr. Ferber.
But hey – whatever works for you! Again, I think it’s great that your baby is eating well and sleeping through the night. Many new mommies would love to have that!
Schedule Schedule Schedule!!! you will thank yourself when Sierra is older. Now, with Sierra being less than 6 months, you should be flexible with your schedule, but what we have done is map out during a day when Ryan has been hungry and sleepy. We now a tentative schedule on what to do with Ryan. This is very helpful for me since I am not at the house 8-9 during the day. I know what to expect when I get home because we have Ryan on a schedule.
To avoid losing your Milk Supply, you can suppliment by pumping on the off times that Sierra mightbe asleep. if you don’t give her the milk via bottle, then freeze the milk. You can use it to make cereal when she is eating solid food (which will be sooner than you think). you also don’t have to pump your breasts dry, just enough to avoid engorgement which can be painful for you and harder for Sierra to latch.
Sleeping. If you train Sierra to fall asleep via rocking and holding, then that’s what you will have to deal with at a later time. The method that we use, and you may or may not want to do this… is that we put the baby down while awake, but is obviously sleepy. If he starts crying, then we let him cry for 5 minutes or if the cry is the ‘panic’ cry. After 5 minutes we come in and comfort him, reassuring him, etc. Tell him a simple bedtime song and that it is nap time. We then put him down again and if he cries let him cry for another 5 minutes. we did this with our 2 yo and we have no problem putting him to bed… none at all… it’s actually scary he is so easy. It may have more to do with his personality than anything we did, but I truely feel that what we did helped
Marie, I know you’re doing great. I can only tell you what worked for me. I hate to tell anyone what to do (even my oldest and dearest friend!!). What worked for me was: At three (four) months old I would defintiely let a baby sleep when she wants and eat when she wants. I never enforced an eating schedule (breastfeeding at least) for Kaitlyn and once she was older she automatically adopted one of her own. I have also been told by my doctor that you never need to wake a healthy sleeping baby. If Sierra is sleeping then I’m sure she’s tired. Again, as she gets older and more developmentally advanced she’ll settle into “routine” which will probably be a certain time to wake each morning, a morning nap, an afternoon nap and going to bed at a certain time. Even waking up at the same time each night. For example: Kaitlyn would wake each morning between 6:30-7:30, have a nap around 10:30 for a few hours and an afternoon nap around 2. She’d go to sleep each night around 6:30 and sleep through the night. If she woke up it was always at midnight. Like clockwork. But it took more than three months to get to that point – and she did it all on her own. We had that pretty much under control before we ferberized Kaitlyn. By ferberizing I mean we just continued with her routine, but put her in bed before she fell asleep and had her put herself to sleep. And when she was about 9-10 months old we also let her put herself back to sleep when she woke in the night. It really only took 2-3 nights before it stuck, and she never cried for more than 15 minutes (an excruciating 15 minutes).
Hopefully you’ll be able to put all the advice together with your own sense of what is right and get to a point where Sierra, Cosmoboy and you are all happy!! Before you know it she’ll be off to school, your boobs will be yours and bedtime will pretty much mimic your own. LOL.
I agree with Ben and with Kimmmer everyone doing their own thing. From my own personal experience I can tell you that both my boys were very different babies. Older could not be scheduled or Ferberized(we tried really hard), Younger scheduled himself for feeding and sleep(honestly)I didn’t have to do a thing.
I will say I am not fond of Ferberizing, I find it a little harsh and cold. I prefered placing a hand on Older’s back until he fell asleep or rocking him. Think of it this way they grow up way too fast, why not enjoy them?
Again, my personal opinion, is that scheduling is more for adults. I tried to put myself in their shoes-would I want to go to bed learning to cry myself to sleep or would I prefer to be held knowing that I was snuggly safe and secure and that Mom/Dad loved me. Just my opinion.
First, you are doing a great job. You have a happy, healthy beautiful baby. Ultimately, you will make these choices for what is best for you and your family.
But since you asked…
I never enforced a feeding schedule for Ben, and at a year old, I still don’t. Kids go through spurts where they eat more/less, so I watch his signs and struggle to get daycare to do this also.
Around 3 months is when I started adapting Ben to a sleep schedule, but it was more for our sake than his. I returned to work full-time when he was 3 months. I found that limiting his daytime naps to 2 hours allowed him to sleep more at night, but I’m sure other kids have different needs. The most important thing I learned was to take it slowly. The changes need to be incremental. It took a long time to get him to go to sleep at 8pm vs. 11pm.
I (still) rock him before bed, although I often put him in his crib before he’s asleep. Again, this is for me, because I love the quiet time together. He has always been so active, it is usually the only time we can snuggle. He was much older before we started letting him cry, and then it was usually when he was so overly tired that we couldn’t comfort him. Now, as he has started to have temper tantrums, I’ve found that this “time-out” is still effective.
The other thing I have learned is that the schedule changes as the child gets older, so I try to stay flexible and not depend on any aspect of the schedule.
Whatever you decide to do will be the right thing. Good luck. -R
Your father and I almost always rocked you and your brother to sleep for the first few months. Neither you or your brother had any problems putting yourselves to sleep. I would put you down for your sleep when you were sleepy. Michael almost never cried. All he did for the 1st 3 months was eat, pee, poop, and sleep. The only time he cried was when he was hungry. You would cry if you had a wet or dirty diaper or were hungry. As long as I changed you, you would usually settle right down again for your sleep. Personally, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with rocking a baby to sleep. It makes them feel secure and loved. There comes a time, however; when you need to let them go to sleep on their own because you can’t rock them to sleep forever! Put Sierra down when she’s tired and sleepy but don’t let her cry too long if she doesn’t settle or she will get over tired, but you already know that.
I’ve never heard of Dr. Ferber and frankly a lot of the advice you’re going to get will work for some babies but not all babies. I believe very strongly in Mother’s Instinct. The majority of mothers know what’s best for their child.
Marie, you are an excellent mother and you are doing everything right for Sierra. For someone who’s never had any experience with babies you have far exceeded my expectations of your mothering skills.
I have to admit that I did give both you and your brother a bit of baby cereal mixed with a small amount of formula so you would sleep through the night when you were both only 4 weeks old. I learned that, believe it or not, from the nurses in the new born nursery where I used to work. It may or may not have affected the amount of breast milk I had for you cuz, as you know, I only breast fed you for 3 1/2 months. On the other hand, I was very uptight with you and was afraid I did not have enough milk for you as you were so tiny and I feel that my worry may have affected my milk supply more than the bit of cereal I gave you. With Mike, on the other hand, I had lots of milk and breast fed him for 10 months. But, with Mike I didn’t worry about it. My attitude towards breastfeeding had changed and I had decided that I would give it a go, and if I didn’t have enough milk, I would just put him on the bottle. I didn’t need to worry as I did have lots of milk.
Don’t listen to your inlaws. They’re not with Sierra every day and like you’ve told me, as far as they’re concerned formula is the only way to go.
I think you should just keep on doing what you’re doing and like Kimmie said, Sierra will put herself on a schedule.
I love you sweetie, and I for one, along with your father and Cosmo Dad think you’re doing an excellent job of raising Sierra.
Sorry I’m late…as usual. I htink you’re doing a fine job. I did exactly what you are doing and mine are both happy and healthy. Noah is 2 (almost 3) sleeps in a big boy bed…goes to sleep by himself. Weaned him self (at 18 months) and is now fully potty trained. We rocked him to sleep for the first year and half of his life. I loved every second of it and would not change it for all the worlds chocolate. I nursed on demand for both of mine. The first one nursed AROUND the clock for 4 months (colic) and the other slipped easily into his own routine. You do what feels right to you. You’re doing great!
awww I am so glad you received some positive feddback. Nothing beats knowing u r right
chelle