Our Babywise Experience

First of all I just want to say, I know that Babywise isn't for every parent and is not for every baby. Secondly, I don't appreciate any negative or unhelpful comments or opinions. If you don't agree with schedules, fine, but this post isn't the time to tell me that. Maybe you tried a schedule and it didn't work or aren't a schedule/routine type of person, that's fine, you can tell me. I just don't want to hear that I'm wrong and you're right, etc. Third, I'm not strictly following Babywise (obviously...Evan still sleeps in our room in his bassinet!). I believe that Babywise has great scheduling guidelines and that with some aspects you can pick and choose what is right for you and your baby. That's what I've done and it's worked great so far.

We started Babywise from "day 1." The first week we didn't worry about a schedule at all, we fed Evan when he was hungry, no more than 3 hours apart during the day and no more than 5 hours at night like his pediatrician told us to do. Unfortunately those first few days he went more than 3 hours several times because of our problems breastfeeding, but he made up for it after that. :-)

The second week we loosely started the schedule. We started out by just trying to get him to stay awake for awhile after he ate. I think that was the most important thing. We also started feeding him every 3 hours during the day (most of the time we had to wake him up and keep waking him up as he ate) and at night would let him go longer (but no more than 5 hours) if he could. We didn't have long wake times, but they gradually got longer and longer each week.

After he was a month old we let him go longer than 5 hours at night if he could. His wake times were about an hour long after he ate. He really started getting into the routine at this point. He would wake up at exactly 3 hours to the minute wanting to eat.

At 6 weeks we went to from 3 hours between feedings to 3.5 hours. The way I knew he was ready to go longer between meals was because I'd have to wake him up to eat almost every time. Babywise says you can go to a 3.5 hour schedule between 5 and 8 weeks and sure enough, that's when Evan was ready.

At exactly 7 weeks old he slept through the night for the first time and has done that almost every night since then except for the week the time changed and for a few days that 7th week (growth spurt). I'm not sure if it was the time change or the fact that I was deviating from the schedule that caused him to start waking up during the night again the week of the time change, but after I got back into the exact schedule he started sleeping all night again!

Helpful things I learned:

• Feeding/naptime at the same time everyday is more important than the time increments. For some reason I was under the impression that feeding every 3.5 hours was the key. So if we accidentally slept late, I'd keep feeding him every 3.5 hours. However, the time is more important. So if you accidentally sleep half an hour late, you should then feed the baby again after 3 hours instead of 3.5 so that it's at the same time as normal. Sometimes if you get way off you can't completely get back on track until 2 feedings, but keep trying to extend or shorten the times between feedings (I usually do this in 30 minute increments) until you get back to your normal times.
  
• It's not imperative that you do things at the same time to the minute. I usually try to do it the same time, but don't mind feeding/nap time 15 minutes before or after the usual time.
• It took about a month to get Evan really into the schedule. Now he knows that wake time is after he eats. Occasionally he'll doze immediately after eating (before I even take him off my breast) and I'll let him for a couple of minutes (usually because I'm reading), but after I change him he's awake and will stay that way at least an hour.
• Evan has to sleep after about an hour and a half or he gets overtired. At the hour and a half mark I put him down for a nap even if he doesn't seem sleepy. I just rock him and walk him around and put his pacifier in until he starts getting drowsy.

Obviously I still have some work to do with the nap times. As far as I know, Babywise doesn't say what to do if your child just doesn't want to nap. Well, it does say to let them cry it out, but so far this hasn't really worked with Evan. I feel uncomfortable with him crying for more than 15 minutes at this point though, so I'll admit I haven't tried it much. But the thing is, he'll usually go to sleep just fine, but wake up after about 30 minutes and fuss. After that he'll only doze while the pacifier is in his mouth, after it falls out he'll start with the thrashing around and fussing again.

Next post I'll write down our schedule at this point and my plans for changing it to exclude the "dream feed" (last feeding of the day) and extend his nighttime sleep and to change his day schedule to eating every 4 hours instead of every 3.5.