Cluster Daytime Feedings
In terms of baby sleep, one of the first goals of parents is often to get their baby to sleep more at night than during the day. Once their baby has the hang of this, the next big baby sleep goal is often to help baby sleep through the night. This tip will help you be successful with both of these goals, in no time flat.
The idea is simple: feed your baby more during the day than at night. What you’re trying to do is to help your baby come as close as possible to meeting their daily calorie needs by the time bedtime comes around at night. The more you are able to feed your baby during the day, the less hungry they will be at night, and if they’re not hungry at night, that’s one less thing that you need to worry about waking them up.
How this works in practice is also simple. Make sure you are intentional about feeding your baby on a schedule during the day. Don’t wake them from napping, but if your goal is to feed your baby every 3 hours during the day, make sure that you try to stick as close to this schedule as you can. If you’re baby is sleeping at the 3 hour mark when you’re “supposed” to be feeding them according to the schedule, don’t worry - just feed them when they wake up and resume your schedule from there. With this example, the point isn’t to feed every 3 hours to the minute, but rather to do your best to get your baby to eat regularly during the day, so they have to eat less (or for older babies, not at all) during the night.
I encourage you to give this a try, if you’re not already doing it. Do a little experiment. Cluster your baby’s feedings during the day for a few days in a row, and see what happens at night. I bet that your baby will sleep more at night than during the day, and will sleep longer at night too.
Andrew Dolbin-MacNab
Pediasleep LLC
About the Author:
Andrew Dolbin-MacNab is a father, sound-engineer, and the founding member of Pediasleep LLC, a leader in the production of white noise and other soothing sounds to aid the healthy sleep of infants, cosleepers, and parents. Having successfully survived his daughter's early sleep problems with the help of white noise, he is also an expert on infant sleep problems and their solutions. Pediasleep can be found online at http://www.Pediasleep.com.
