Restfully Sleep Coach - Whitney

📌Save this one for future reference!

Have a baby who is 4+ months and up every hour or couple of hours to feed?

Or, maybe you have a baby who wakes to take a full feed and easily goes back to sleep.

Sometimes it can be confusing to know the signs of whether your baby needs to feed for hunger or if he’s feeding to comfort himself to get back to sleep. Whichever it may be, you can reference this list to look for the signs!

If you have a baby who has been ok’d by your pediatrician to cut out some night feeds, and feeding through the night for comfort has become an exhausting cycle for you and your babe, reach out to us at for some help! We know how to coach babies to sleep independently and to wean them from night feeds when appropriate.

**Notes about night feeds:
- you CAN still teach an infant to sleep independently and keep biologically appropriate night feeds
- newborns NEED to feed as often as every 2-3 hours even at night so dropping night feeds is not appropriate (unless babe does it on his own and is gaining steady weight) until closer to 4 months
- your pediatrician SHOULD be consulted first before dropping night feeds to make sure there are no issues with baby gaining weight or that he may have some other medical issues requiring multiple night feeds

The newborn phase is like a marathon, it requires endurance and consistency. The exhausting around-the-clock care is a lot to handle for parents. It can be an overwhelming period of your baby’s life and even more so when you get advice and opinions all around you on how to take care of your baby....well Mama (and daddies too!), I’ve come up with a list of stress-free, non-overwhelming tips to help you through the newborn phase:

* Do give yourself grace, there will be plenty of up and down days
* Do love on and hold your baby as much as you want, spoiling is allowed😉
* Do know and remind yourself often that this is a short phase of his/her life, it will pass, and it only gets better
* Do be kind to yourself and take care of YOU as well as baby
* Do track your baby’s feeds and watch the clock so baby doesn’t get overtired (but don’t obsess over this, and ask for help if you’re not sure about the feeding/sleeping relationship of your newborn; that’s what Restfully sleep coaches are here for 😄)
* Do be consistent with your routine even when tough days are upon you
* Don’t expect him to sleep on a predictable schedule, this will come with maturation, sleep shaping and/or training baby independent sleep skills at the appropriate age
* Don’t be hard on yourself for not always knowing what to do, newborns can be confusing and you’re just doing your best! Just stay consistent!
* Don’t fret if you think your baby is picking up bad habits or negative associations, baby can be trained to have positive associations when he/she is developmentally and biologically ready