I’m glad you found some clothes too and thank you for your purchase!

This schedule has you feed the baby every 3 1/2 hours… (I was instructed to feed for 15-20 minutes on each breast)

6:30 am-bottle/breastfeed
After 6:30 feeding, put baby down for a nap, in his/her bed. (Doesn’t matter if it’s 7:30, 8:00 or 9:00)
10:00 am- bottle/breastfeed
1:30 pm- bottle/breastfeed
After the 1:30 feeding, put baby down for a nap, in his/her bed.
5:00 pm – bottle/breastfeed
8:30 pm – bottle/breastfeed – then bedtime.

So about the schedule… keep in mind that although it’s helpful to follow a schedule, you can always tweak it to fit your life. In other words, don’t stress out when things get a little off track, you will catch up at some point.

When you bring the baby home, you can choose to feed him/her every 3 – 3 1/2 hours, or you can feed on-demand. It’s your choice, but the baby will be sleeping through the night the sooner you get on a schedule. And don’t worry about your baby starving for 3 – 3 1/2 hours, even my preemies were put on a 3 1/2 hour schedule in the NICU.

The schedule will start as a ‘work-in-progress’. So let’s say you get the schedule pretty close to the one above, but the baby wakes up at 6:00am, you feed her/him and put her back in bed for a nap as soon as she’s finished eating. She naps for 45min or so and wakes up. Now you do your mommy thing and your goal is to try to get her/him to 10am for the next feeding. It’s a little longer since you fed the baby at 6:00, but maybe you’ll make it maybe you’ll only get to 9:30? No big deal, feed the baby and worry about it later… Now your next goal is the 1:30 feeding, maybe you go for a walk around 1:00 and you’ve been able to catch up and feed him/her at 1:30. When you’re done with the 1:30 feeding, it’s nap time. I say in bed, because that is what my doctor told me to do. A lot of people have bassinets, and a play yard, or let their babies sleep on the floor. Do whatever you want, but I followed the doctors suggestion and to this day littleBee1 is still taking 2 hour afternoon naps in her bed… and she’s 4 1/2. How else could I have a blog??. Anyways, the afternoon nap should be longer than the morning one, maybe an hour, or two or three if you’re lucky.

Once you are able to follow the schedule, which shouldn’t take you long to get the hang of, you start to notice that the baby will wake around the same time in the middle of the night.

When you get to the point of getting the baby to sleep through the night, somewhere around 1 month, we can talk again. I started the sleep schedule, the one to get them to sleep through the night at one month, and littleBee1 was sleeping through the night at 1 1/2 months.

Yes, I semi-make my own baby food and that will be one of my next posts. I’ll let you know when it’s been posted.

Dr. Miroslav Kovacevic is our Pediatrician. He has an office in Hinsdale & Lisle.

I hope I answered your questions, and let me know if you have any more.

Sue

I had a question about the sleep schedule–because I highly believe in that. Can you explain more about the feeding (which i will be breastfeeding my baby) and the the naps.

So you are saying and please explain!
6:30 am-baby wakes up–breastfeed and play
nap (in bed)-whjat time nap in bed?
10:00 am-another feeding
1:30 pm-do you mean 1:30pm nap in bed
nap (in bed)
5:00 pm
8:30 pm

Let me know also how you make your own food–and what you kinds are your favorite!

And last–your peditrician sounds great–what is his/her name? What practice?

Thank you,
Kelly Barista
bigfeetgirl
kbarista1980@gmail.com
kelly.barista@nl.edu