pod ep 21 first 3 things with my newborn
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[00:00:00] Welcome to this sleep by Alex podcast. I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a mom of three, and I will be bringing you quick science backed sleep advice to get you and your baby or a toddler sleeping well. Hi everyone. Good morning. Well, I guess it's probably not morning for you. I'm actually recording this at, let's see, it's 5 38 in the morning, so I've been up for like 45 minutes already, but, and I've had some coffee and I've done my little morning routine, so hopefully I sound a little bit awake and not half asleep.
But you know, as a mom of a lot of little kids running my own business at home, sometimes, this is when we have to record a podcast at five 30 in the morning. So we're just gonna roll with it today.
Ah, we are coming off of a nice long three day weekend. I had so much fun as a family. I'm trying to just like soak up any downtime [00:01:00] the five of us have together before there's six of us. So we just did little things like went out to breakfast, went and rode at the bike park. I,
you know, little things like that. And we had a great weekend. I survived my organizing phase of pregnancy a few weeks ago. I know I talked about that. Now I've entered the scrubbing phase of pregnancy, and if you've been pregnant, you know what I'm talking about. I'm scrubbing a lot of things and it's exhausting and I really, really hate this phase, but it's just, it's just part of it, isn't it?
So this weekend what I tackled was the kitchen. And I'm not kidding. I like scrubbed all the grout and cleaned every cabinet inside and outside, upside down. But the kitchen is so great now, and I'm so happy and I'm glad I got it done. But of course now I'm sitting here like, okay, what's the room I'm gonna tackle today?
What room am I going to vacuum and scrub?
So we'll see.
I might just [00:02:00] move on to my room, so I feel like my space is extra, extra clean, and can be my little sanctuary when I bring this baby home.
I am 35 plus weeks now, so I'm really getting into baby mode. I am due in about a month and remember that I'm going to be sharing my sleep journey with this baby and kind of what I'm doing week by week and what sleep slip been looking like, um, on this podcast. That's really why I started this podcast.
So make sure that you subscribe so that once the baby comes, you can hear all about everything I'm doing when it comes to sleep, and how my baby is sleeping, and how we actually put all of these tips and tricks into action.
Okay. Another update on the toddler bed transition. I know last week I dropped an episode all about transitioning from a crib to a toddler bed, and I let you know how it's going with Calvin and I said I'd keep you updated. So we're another week in and it is going. So much better. Last episode, I said I was still checking in [00:03:00] quite a few times at bedtime and he was taking a really long time to fall asleep at bedtime, and now that it's been another week, the last few nights, I haven't had to check in at all.
I just say goodnight to everyone. Everybody goes to sleep. They all three are in there. They sleep all night. It's amazing. We're done with the cuckoo crazy bedtime. Thank goodness. It's amazing what some commitment and time and consistency can do. So I'm really glad we made it through that transition before this baby comes and I don't need to worry about it as much.
Okay. That's enough for my updates. As far as this week's episode, as I approach this time where I'm going to be giving birth,
I just wanted to share the first three things I plan to focus on with my newborn, to set myself up for good sleep. Or as good of sleep as I can get in the newborn period, right?
So these are three things that from day one, when I bring my baby home, I'm going to choose to focus on when my [00:04:00] baby is born. I'm not gonna worry about like contact naps and independent sleep or nap schedules. I'm really just gonna focus on healing and bonding with my baby. I'm not gonna be stressed about all that when my baby is a fresh newborn, but I will work on these three things.
These three things. You can literally start day one with your baby. The first two are pretty straightforward. Like most people are going to be on board with doing these things. The third one, you may actually have a differing opinion on. You know, you may actually think differently than I do on the third one that I'm gonna choose to do, but that is okay.
Like how boring would life be if we all agreed on everything so of course that one might cause some feelings and be a little controversial, I guess, but it's what I choose to focus on with my babies.
These things are not required of you. I'm just sharing my opinion and what I choose to do.
The very [00:05:00] first thing I am going to focus on when it comes to sleep and my baby, right when I bring them home, is orienting day and night. So sometimes when our babies are born, they may have their days and nights sort of switched around. I mean, they've been in a womb for 10 months.
They don't know when it's daytime and when it's nighttime, and when their longest stretches of sleep should be and when they should be awake more. So I'm going to help my baby orient their days and nights and understand when it is day and when it is night, when we should have our longest stretches of sleep and our shorter stretches of sleep.
This is really important because I want those longer stretches of sleep at night so that I can sleep at the same time and I can get some restorative rest. Okay, so here are four things you can do to help your baby orient day and night when they are first born.
The first thing you can do is [00:06:00] use lightness and darkness. So think about how you can use lightness and darkness, both sunshine and lights in your house. So. Getting your baby out in the sunshine first thing in the morning if the weather allows, is super helpful, especially that low angle sunlight. As the sun comes up and as the sun goes down in the evenings, if we can get our babies outside and get that sunshine directly on their eyes in the morning and the evening, this is really going to help with their sleep and help them orient that day and night sort of rhythm.
And I know it can feel a little daunting to take your newborn outside. That sounds kind of crazy, but it can like, it can feel so much easier just to stay inside and not worry about them getting cold or getting hot or blah, blah, blah. But really, it's gonna be so good for you as well mentally and physically.
Grab your coffee, grab your baby, bundle them up. Either sit outside on the porch if you're still healing.
If you're able to go for a little morning [00:07:00] walk, then even better for you, right? And once again in the evening as well. The low angle sunlight will be really helpful. Another way to use lightness and darkness to orient day and night is to keep daytime naps in the living room with you, a bright and noisy room.
You have the lights on, you're watching tv, or you're listening to music, or you're chatting with a partner or a friend. This is where your newborn can be napping. I know there's all this information that they need to be in a dark room with blackout curtains in a sound machine, and that is totally true in a couple months, but the first six to eight weeks really to help them orient day and night, it's totally okay to have them just taking their daytime naps wherever you're hanging out, wherever there's some stimulation, it's okay for it to be bright or noisy as long as they are napping.
Okay.
On the flip side of that, at night, you really wanna keep stimulation very, very low. When it is nighttime and when they wake up in the middle of the night, you want to keep your lights off. It's okay if you have like a [00:08:00] dim nightlight, obviously, so you can see what you're doing when it comes to feeding and changing.
But the lights need to be off. The TV needs to be off in the middle of the night. If you're on your phone, make sure your screen is off. All the way dim. I usually just read on a Kindle in the middle of the night because I cannot go back to sleep if I've been looking at my phone and I don't have social media on my phone or anything, It's better for my sleep if I just use a Kindle in the middle of the night and I have it on the dark mode, so it's not going to cause any disturbances. But really we want it to be quiet. We want the lights off, we want stimulation very low. We wanna make it clear like it is nighttime right now. It is not time to be awake.
Another thing you can do to help your baby orient day and night is feed them every two to three hours during the day. Night feeds are totally normal with a newborn. But we still wanna get in as much of their calories as we can during the day. 'cause eventually the goal is that they do need [00:09:00] less to eat at night.
So making sure that they're getting a feed every two to three hours during the day is really helpful. Yes, this does mean that I wake my baby up to eat during the day. If it's been three hours since they lost eight and they're still sleeping, I'm gonna be waking them up ' cause I want those feeds no further apart than every three hours during the day.
The next thing I'm gonna do is cap daytime naps at two, sometimes three hours. If they're gonna get a 3, 4, 5 hour stretch of sleep, I want them doing that at night. So two hours is typically a good sort of rule of thumb to wake them up after two hours of sleep. But if your baby isn't feeling well, if they need more rest, if they seem extra tired, if they could take a three hour nap and it doesn't affect their nights.
Then please, please let them nap for longer. But you don't want them going past their daytime feed frequently anyways. And if we're feeding them every two to three hours during the day, that really doesn't leave a [00:10:00] whole lot of wiggle room for them to nap longer than that, two to three hours at a time.
Finally, to help my baby orient day and night, I'm going to set the tone when they wake up. So set the tone of where we're at in the day or the night. Each time they wake up. If they wake up after a nap, I'm gonna smile, talk to them, make it clear that, hi, good morning. It's a wake time. It is time to be stimulated and be awake.
. If they wake up in the middle of the night, I'm gonna focus on stimulation being at a minimum. I'm setting the tone that when we wake up in the middle of the night, we're really just up to eat and go right back to sleep.
Once again, with the lightness and darkness and stimulation, I'm just making it very clear. Right now we're gonna get up, we're going to eat, we're gonna go right back to sleep. We do not want periods of awake time in the middle of the night. Okay? So those are all the things I'm gonna do to help orient my baby's days and nights.
And that's something I'm gonna start focusing on the very first day that I bring them home. The second thing that I will focus on [00:11:00] when I bring my baby home, and this is already mentioned, but I want to dive into it a little deeper, is full feeds every two to three hours during the day. And once again, yes, this means that during the day I'm gonna wake my baby up to eat.
Please. No, I said during the day people get very worked up on social media because I think they think, I mean, at night, I'm not sure why people get so upset about this, but. Yes, I'm waking them up during the day to eat. I am not waking them up during the night to eat. Don't worry. Although at first you may be waking them at night as well.
So usually when you first have your baby, they're a very fresh newborn. You are waking them up every three-ish hours to eat around the clock, even all night long. But this is typically only the first couple weeks. So babies, once they're born, they typically lose some weight after they're born.
[00:12:00] So those first couple weeks, we spend time feeding them around the clock, and once they reach their birth weight and your pediatrician gives you the approval, you typically don't have to wake them up anymore at night unless your baby of course is struggling with gaining weight or they're some other health reason your pediatrician wants them to be woken up at night.
But for the most part, at first. When baby comes home, yes, you're gonna be setting your alarm, feeding them every three hours around the clock. But once they've reached their birth weight, once your pediatrician gives you the akay, it usually doesn't go past the first couple weeks. You don't need to wake them up at night.
Okay? So I'm just talking about during the day. During the day, I'm gonna wake my baby up to feed. If it's been three hours. I am also gonna work on those being full feeds every two to three hours. And by a full feed. I mean, I want my baby to be as awake as I can get them so that they can take in a nice full feed, not just like.[00:13:00]
A nurse for a couple minutes and then pass out because I don't want my baby to be in a habit of snacking all day long. This is when they have small, frequent feeds all day long, and it so often leads to crappy sleep. So not every feed is going to look perfect, especially with a really sleepy newborn who is hard to keep awake.
Bye. I am going to try time and time again to make sure they're awake and getting in as much of a feed as possible before they pass out. Newborns are going to pass out at the end of a feed that is really normal, but I'm just gonna put in some effort to make sure we're getting as much of the feed in as we can.
We, before they pass out. So if I have a sleepy baby, which I usually do in the very beginning, every feed, I'm gonna undress them all the way down to the diaper. I'm gonna get them sort of un uncomfy. I don't want them super warm and swaddled up and cozy.
I want them to be down in their diaper, skin to skin on me. And [00:14:00] do my best to keep them awake during the feed. So I might like pick up and put down their little arms and legs. I might talk to them. I might stroke their face a little bit and like tickle their back a little bit. If they're super sleepy, I may even use like a little wet washcloth
I know this sounds evil in some way, but I promise it's important to keep your baby awake for a full feed.
Once again, sleepy newborns. It's not always going to be perfect, but we just wanna put in some effort to get at least a bit of a full feed in before they fall asleep. I am gonna finish one side. I'm assuming that I'm gonna be able to nurse.
Of course, that may not be the case. So also, this is for bottle fed babies as well. You may finish half the bottle, finish one side, burp them, and then do the other half or the other side. Offer the other side.
See what they'll take. And then guess what? After that nice full feed, if they're getting fussy 45 minutes, 60 minutes later, they're probably not hungry. They are tired, so no need to feed again. We don't need to get [00:15:00] on the snacking cycle. Just get them down for a nap. And when they're up from the nap, then it's probably been two to three hours since they last ate, and they'll be ready for another full feed.
One more thing to mention about the full feeds every two to three hours during the day is that the timer of that two to three hours starts at the beginning of their feed. So even if they take 30 minutes to nurse or take a bottle, that two to three hour timer started at the beginning of the 30 minutes as they started their feed.
That's when the timer starts and you're gonna wanna feed them. Every two to three hours from the beginning of their last feed. I feel like most of you know that because even like all the apps that we use now to track feeds, it does that automatically for you, but I just wanted to throw that out there in case someone doesn't use the apps and needed to know that.
Okay, here is the third thing I will focus on when I bring my baby home. And this is the one you might not agree with, and once again, that is totally okay. I told you these are three things I'm going to focus [00:16:00] on. . These are what I find work well with hundreds of people that I have worked with and they are important for me.
And this one is nursing or milk is food not comfort.
So me personally, I choose to use milk or nursing or the bottle as food and not comfort when they're upset or need to sleep. Once again, this is me. If you enjoy using milk or nursing as comfort and you are totally fine with your sleep situation and you feel like milk as comfort is sustainable for you, good, please keep doing so.
But it is not sustainable for me, and this is why I choose to use nursing or bottles as milk and not comfort.
One reason is because these babies tend to get on that snacking feed cycle. They take smaller feeds more frequently throughout the day and night, which really can lead to crummy sleep.
Because as I mentioned earlier, someone might feed their [00:17:00] baby and then if they get fussy an hour later, 'cause they're tired and need a nap, they might try and feed them again. Now we've only fed an hour earlier, so we're taking a smaller feed. We're not able to stay satiated for two to three hours, so now we need another smaller feed, you know, an hour later.
Babies on this snacking cycle tend to wake more frequently at night, take shorter naps, just have a harder time in general, consolidating their sleep 'cause they're just so used to these small frequent feeds around the clock
Parents who feed for comfort often get stuck in a feeding to sleep situation at bedtime and nap time, so their baby relies on feeding to fall asleep when it comes to bedtime and nap time in the middle of the night.
Once again, if you're okay with that, that's totally fine, but I choose to avoid it because most babies who are feeding to sleep often struggle with short independent naps. So it's gonna be hard for you to get those one to two hour naps eventually when age appropriate in their crib. They usually have frequent night wake-ups.
They're [00:18:00] usually on snack feeds as well, because they conk out before finishing a full feed. It can be a little exhausting sometimes if you rely on feeding to sleep, because sometimes it can look like you feed your baby, they fall asleep while they're eating. You transfer them into their bed, they wake up right away, so you pop them back on the breast or the bottle, but they literally just ate.
So it's just this cycle where it can be hard for us to get some independent sleep.
Another thing that can happen is any time they wake up at night, even if it's only been an hour since they ate, the only tool you really have in your toolbox is to feed them. So this can lead to reverse cycling, which is when they're taking a majority of their calories in at night versus the day. Your baby may end up liking to feed every hour all night long, and then can go longer stretches during the day.
Because they're getting so much of their milk at night.
That's not sustainable for me. I'm having my fourth child. I, of course, am here to comfort all my children. I am totally [00:19:00] fine with being their source of comfort, and that can't look like them using my breasts for comfort. It just can't. For me, once again, if it works for you, it works for you, and I'm so glad that you found something that works for you.
I'm just sharing what works for me and that does not work for me.
This is actually why I'm such a big fan and like pusher of the pacifier because yes, we should never, ever, ever use the pacifier to prolong a feeding or put off a feed or offer the pacifier if your baby's hungry. But if your baby just had a full feed 45 minutes ago and now they're tired and cranky and ready for a nap, that's when I can pop the pacifier in and rock them to sleep.
And I don't need to rely on another feed or getting into any of these cycles that I don't wanna be in. That's where the pacifier can be super, super helpful. And that's why I always work to make sure that my babies can take one. Once again, not for everybody. You do you, but this is what works for me. And I've worked with too many parents that are stuck in like some [00:20:00] exhausting cycles to go down that rabbit hole.
Okay. I hope sharing these first three things I'm gonna focus on, were helpful for you. If they were, please, please consider subscribing and leaving a five star review, sharing it with a friend. It's really helpful. The more that you share with people, the better.
I also wanted to make a couple quick announcements. This Thursday, September 4th, we are starting September's Group sleep coaching session. So our first live call for this month is Thursday at 1215 Pacific Time and it will be recorded in case you miss the kickoff call.
But if you have a four to 24 month old baby and you are ready for more consolidated rest, you're ready for one to two hour naps in their crib. You're ready for cutting down unnecessary night wake ups. Maybe you're ready to move away from co-sleeping or feeding to sleep, or rocking to sleep, whatever it may be.
I've got you every step of the way. You can join our group on [00:21:00] Thursday. All you need to do is join the Sleep by Alex membership. Using the link in the show notes, you can actually use the code podcast to join this group for only $17. It gives you half off your first month. You're gonna watch the four to 24 months course that comes with the membership, and then on Thursday you can come with any questions that you have before getting started on your plan.
I have multiple methods to choose from. You can do this while keeping night feeds. You can do this while keeping some contact naps. You can do this in a way that is gradual or accelerated. You're gonna be able to send me your questions every day, all day. If you want for a quick response, you're gonna be able to come to up to five live calls each month, all for just $17 in your first month.
So go ahead and check that out if you're interested. Finally, as far as one-on-one consultation calls go, I'm only really doing them this week and next week, so there are a few time slots available. I don't wanna start any new clients further than like [00:22:00] s. 37 weeks along, which is why I've done that. That way if I'm working with you for a week or two, I try and make sure we're done with our calls before I have a baby.
If you are somebody who's already working with me and you have 15 minute calls that you haven't used, don't worry. I am not going to be closing off to those 15 minute check-in calls. I'll just be closing off to the one-on-one clients for quite a while. So if you wanna work one-on-one, now is the last chance for at least a few months.
Okay. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we will chat next week.
