Newborn Schedule - 7 Weeks!

Cannon is 7 weeks old! And quite frankly he has not had the easiest time adjusting to earth, ha. Week 1 was a breeze (sleep sleep sleep), and then weeks 2-5 were pretty brutal (see posts here here and here). But guess what? The last week has been so much better!! Not amazing, not perfect, but we are definitely on the upswing! Knock on wood :). So I just wanted to share what we've been doing so I can look back and remember, and maybe it will help one of you guys too!

The most impactful change as of late is my night routine.

At 7:30pm (right after I put Lydia down), I now feed Cannon 4oz of formula. And guess what? I don't even feel mom guilt about it anymore because it's working! And I am a 100% better mom when I can get at least 4 hours of sleep, and if formula is the key to that then so be it! Haha. Also I give him his reflux medicine at this time.

Next I do the basic night routine: change his diaper, pajamas, swaddle, white noise, sing a song - and whisper to him to sleep till 4am! I'm a little superstitious ;). I put him in his pack n play and leave. On dream nights he falls right to sleep. Most nights I have to go in a few times and put in his binky. But either way I get a couple hours to myself! Clean, dishes, blog, laundry, whatever.

Then at 10:30pm I do a dream feed. The goal is to feed him without waking him up! So I pick him up in his swaddle and keep all the lights off and feed him as much of another bottle of formula as he will eat, typically 2-3oz. Then I don't even burp him or unwrap him, I just lay him back in his bed. And then I go right to sleep!!

He wakes up to eat anywhere between 2:30-3:30am, and I nurse him in bed with all the lights off. I try and make sure he at least gets one full side before letting him fall back asleep. If he wakes up earlier than 2:30 I don't feed him - I let him cry a little, put in his binky, etc. I want him to learn that he is not going to get food any earlier than 2:30.

Then on good nights he doesn't wake up again until 6:30am! I nurse him, change his huge diaper, and by then Lydia usually wakes up and we start the day. If he wakes up before 6:30 I do the same thing as before - just give him a binky, let him cry, if he's really screaming I'll rock him. But I try not to let him eat before 6:30.

So I totally realize this sounds like what normal newborns should be doing on their own. But for us it's a huge improvement!!! If that gives you any idea of how bad it was before ;). A few weeks ago he was waking up to eat every 1-2 hours the whole night. Yikes. So my next step from here is to stretch out the middle of the night feedings and let him cry until closer to 4am, then 5am, etc. But at least for a couple weeks I don't wanna mess with this new good thing!

Then throughout the day I try and stick to a typical 3 hour eat-wake-sleep cycle. Usually I nurse him around 9am, 12pm, 3pm, and then again at 6pm before his formula bottle at 7:30pm. At this point he's awake for about 1.5 hours at a time and then takes a 1.5 hour nap.

9am - eat, play
10:30am - nap
12pm - eat, play
1:30pm - nap (which is perfect because Lydia naps right then too!!)
3pm - eat, play
4:30pm - nap
6pm - eat, play, bath
7:30pm - bottle, night routine, sleep
10:30pm - dream feed bottle
3am - nurse
6:30am - eat, play
8am - nap

If we're running errands in the morning he usually stays asleep in his carseat for 2+ hours, but I don't stress about it and just make sure he has lots of awake time in the afternoon (aka no long errands!).

This whole post is kind of common knowledge for new moms, but it took us a while to actually get on this schedule even though I tried so hard! I think most of that had to do with Cannon's inclination to snack, so he never got a full feeding which resulted in him being hungry ALL DAY. Boo. But now that he's bigger and eating better he can go the full 3 hours throughout the day and longer at night. Halle-freaking-lujah!

Any tips from other moms out there?? How did you stretch out the middle of the night feeding?? It's amazing, Lydia's only 20 months old but already I've forgotten so much. I'm not sure how long she was giving me in the nights at this point, but we eventually did cry it out at 4 months. It'd sure be nice to avoid that if possible! Ha.