Sleeping babies

There is an old adage let sleeping babies lie and yet they dont always and lack of sleep in mum, day and the family leading to exhaustion is not fun for anyone.

When my daughter had her child she  had to decide many things and like all young mums worried if what she was doing was right. All parents want to do the right thing by their child and so I explained that most importantly it was love they needed then care and you could follow either demand feeding or scheduled feeding.

Demand feeding is; as most of us know, when bubs wakes and demands to be fed, scheduled feeding or routine feeding is when mum says you can eat now. I experimented with both but found routine preferrable especially when the others came along 15 months apart. At this point I will state routine feeding is easier with a bottle however i breastfed my oldest for 8 weeks and my daughter did the same and both were routine fed.

To establish routine decided what time works well for you I chose 9am, 1pm, 5pm, 9pm, 5am...you will notice that 1 am is missing thats because they didnt wake up and neither did I, bubs would be woken for their feeds which worked in an around our meals and other commitments.

5pm feed, bath and bed, my daughter did the same but added a story after bath and before bed.

9pm change feed in a room illuminated only with a nightlight, no talking just attention to babies physical needs. I believe this helped our children to develop an early understanding of night and day.

During the day I went about my business of looking after kids and housework. Our hours was never quiet during the day, lots of laughter and games during the day because night time was quiet time.

During teething gel was applied and panadol given, babies in pain or cranky from lack of sleep are just as difficult to deal with as mums who are exhausted.

This worked well for me and has worked well for my daughter babies sleeping 8 hours at night from 7 weeks of age and then 12 hours when they were put on solids.

Yes there were dummies (pacifiers) or thumbs along the way, babies like to suck it is a comfort rather than 'Im starving' type of thing, I wasnt happy breastfeeding so after a feed the rest of sucking time was with a dummy. My childre grew and flourished into the young adulst they are today, my oldest grandson eats well sleeps well and plays well.

Whilst this wouldnt work for everyone I decided to share my experience as I felt that there is a need to provide an alternative for exhausted nursing mothers who have not had success with demand feeding.