My Baby’s Sleep and Feed Schedule When She Was a Newborn (0-8 Weeks)
I remember the very sleepy nights of late 2022 like they were yesterday. My sweet Bebe had just been born and I was deep in the throes of new motherhood. The first night out of the hospital was completely wild and my memory of it is blurry now. The only thing I know for sure is that Bebe didn’t let us sleep almost at all and we knew she was still going to be up early the next morning.
In the beginning, that was the hardest part - the lack of sleep. It took us a little while to get into a solid routine, and once established, that helped us tremendously. Within the first 4-6 weeks of Bebe’s life, she started sleeping at least 6 hours at a time at night, which was fabulous for us. Prior to that, she’d only been sleeping about 3-4 hours at a time, which was hard to cope with. Therefore, I am writing this article to give you an idea of an effective sleep/feed routine for a newborn. Of course, not all babies are the same and I wouldn’t expect what worked for us to work for everyone. You can adjust what I’ve suggested and make it fit into your life and your baby. Of course, talking to your pediatrician about what they recommend is always a good place to start.
Before diving into our newborn schedule, I would like to mention that when Bebe was a newborn, we woke her up every three hours to keep her on a schedule and because her pediatrician had told us that we needed to feed her every three hours until she started showing steady weight gain. Not everyone agrees with this, however. I came to learn that a lot of people simply never woke up their babies; they would only feed on demand. In fact, my own mother was appalled that we would wake the baby up instead of letting her sleep. But we (Bebe’s dad/my partner and I) followed the pediatrician’s orders militantly until Bebe’s weight consistently increased. Only then did we start letting her sleep until she woke up on her own.
As a disclaimer, I am not a nurse or any kind of medical professional. The only baby I’ve ever consistently taken care of is my own. My purpose in writing this is to relay my personal experience and describe what could possibly work for other parents; not to attempt to provide medical advice.
Our Sleep/Feed Schedule: 0-4 Weeks Old
6:00 a.m. Wake up baby for her 1st feed of the day, change her diaper, and then bottle time. For the first month or so, she was drinking about 2-3 ounces of breastmilk per feed (I still hadn’t gotten the hang of nursing directly yet). Bebe’s wake windows were very short at that stage of her life, so she would fall asleep shortly after being fed.
9:00 a.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 2nd bottle of the day. She would stay awake for maybe 30 minutes, then fall back asleep.
12:00 p.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 3rd bottle of the day. Again, she would stay awake for approximately 30 minutes, then back to sleep.
3:00 p.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 4th bottle of the day. About 30-40 minutes of wake time, then back to sleep.
6:00 p.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 5th bottle of the day. Maybe 45 minutes of wake time, then back to sleep.
9:00 p.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 6th bottle of the day. Maybe 40 minutes of wake time, then back to sleep.
12:00 a.m. Wake up baby, change diaper, then 7th (and final) bottle of the day. Then we would rock her until she fell asleep, which didn’t take too long.
Originally, we were feeding Bebe at 3:00 a.m. too, which would make a total of 8 feedings per day. However, we decided early on to skip the 3:00 a.m. feeding if (and only if) Bebe was still asleep at that time, which she usually was. If she woke up during the night, we would always give her an extra feeding but that seldom happened. Being able to sleep while she slept for 6 hours straight improved our mental and physical wellbeing substantially. If you’re not a parent yet, you’ll come to learn this very soon: the sleep deprivation that accompanies being a new parent is unreal! Before having a child, I only thought I knew what being tired was.
Our Sleep/Feed Schedule: 5-8 Weeks Old
During this time frame, Bebe was drinking approximately 3-5 ounces at a time and we had cut down to 1 less feeding per day (a total of 6 feedings daily). Our routine was also slightly less structured than the first 4 weeks of Bebe’s life because we were no longer waking her up to feed and her wake windows had gotten longer. If it was time to feed her but she was still sleeping, we let it ride. So what I’ve described below was the average day for us, but certainly does not reflect what every single day looked like. However, we always made sure to give her at least 6 feedings per day, no matter how much she slept.
6:00 a.m. Wake up baby for her 1st feed of the day, change her diaper, and then bottle time. During this time frame, the average wake time for Bebe was about an hour, or slightly more than an hour.
10:00 a.m. Change baby’s diaper, then 2nd bottle of the day. She would stay awake for maybe 60-80 minutes, then fall back asleep.
2:00 p.m. Change baby’s diaper, then 3rd bottle of the day. Again, she would stay awake for approximately 60-80 minutes, then back to sleep.
5:00 p.m. Change baby’s diaper, then 4th bottle of the day. About 80 minutes of wake time, then back to sleep.
8:00 p.m. Change baby’s diaper, then 5th bottle of the day. Maybe 2 hours of wake time (her longest window of the day), then she would doze off.
10:30 p.m. Change baby’s diaper, then the 6th (and usually final) bottle of the day. Maybe 50-60 minutes of wake time, then back to sleep.
When Bebe was 5-8 weeks old, she was still sleeping through the night pretty well - about 6-7 hours at night. But if she happened to wake up in the middle of the night, we would give her an extra feeding and that would help her go back to sleep.
So, that’s it for Bebe’s routine as a newborn. As I’m wrapping up this article, I am feeling a deep nostalgia for those days. Sure, it was tiring and the nights seemed like they would go on forever, but your baby’s newborn stage is going to feel like it only lasted seconds. Please snuggle your newborn a little tighter tonight and every time you get a chance. Do NOT listen to your mother/mother-in-law when they inevitably tell you that you’re “spoiling the baby.” LOL.
Xoxo, Alexis