Starting Babywise at 5 Weeks - How Long for Waketime

I think 4 hours periods are great!! You probably won't have to increase her wake time very much for her to go to 6 or 8 at night pretty quick. It'll only change 1 feeding for her and she'll adapt really soon. If you try to keep her awake too much and she gets over-tired that can back fire on you, because she won't sleep as well. I'd just hold off on the last night feeding a bit, as long as she'll let you and then maybe she'll get to 5-6 hours at night sooner. Also, if she wakes up in the night and you feel like she needs consoled a bit, have your husband do it. She can smell your milk and won't quiet down for you near as easily as for him. Hope this helps!! E. (yes, I'm a babywise, childwise, and now pre-teen wise, momma and SO grateful for the training!! I didn't pay too close attention to exact times, more the order of things, and that seemed to go really well with my kids. Don't stop with babywise, the rewards FAR out-way the perceived struggle of the time.) :-)

Well, let me preference by saying that I am not a babywise momma, so this may not be your cup of tea. Babies at 5 weeks are essentially too young to dictate a strict schedule. If she is sleeping 4 hours in a stretch...she is doing very well. At around three months you will be able to determine time frames of your day, say, she gets up around this time, will be up about this long, will feed, will play, will nap, etc. At six months, you can actually put a time to it and things really start to click.

I know it is exhausting at first, but she is so small to be trying to force her to stay awake for periods of time or to go too long between feedings.

Good taste in her name---I too have a Madi.

Good luck and hang in there.

we did babywise too with great success- i think the suggestion of 45-60 min is MUCH too long at that young age- we were lucky to get 15 min. before she went down for a nap. i would start with a small goal- 5-10 and then keep adding minutes as you see baby being able to be awake longer. watch for signs of time to go down for nap (to avoid being overtired and then not being able to go down) rubbing eyes, boredom, looking away, fussiness. we always caught her right before she needed to go down and it was cake. feel free to email me for more help- i think babywise is really great with a little flexibility and i am happy to help!

I would say about 45-60 minutes. It's been a few months since mine were little like that but I remember when they woke up this was their routine: Feed, burp/change diaper, finish feeding, "awake" time, sleep. All of that was about 1 1/2 hours or so. I did babywise with my first baby and it worked really well. My baby slept very well and was a very happy baby. With my second it was harder just because we come and go so much so we just went with what worked for each day.

As your baby gets older with each month the awake time will lengthen. By 4-6 months she'll be up for 2-3 hours at a time.

Hope this helps!
M.