welcome to our sunday q a i think this is week three of us answering your questions uh every
week this week we're going to be talking about sleep training nighttime feeds and
some breastfeeding between six months and a year of age yeah and so just in
case it's your first time meeting us i'm kurt i'm a board certified pediatrician
i'm sarah i'm a board certified ob gyn and we are the doctors bjorkman
all right we are back and again this week had so many great questions from you we are kind of going
to keep with that theme of sleep learning or sleep training um after our video from this week but
before we dive into that i think we both wanted to say that you know sleep training sleep learning is
just one way for a family to get some rest and at the end of the day you know your heart and
your baby the best like you are the expert on them and so sleep training is right for some families
and it's not for others and that's okay whatever your parenting philosophy or style is that's okay
and we support y'all doing whatever works for you yeah and our episode from this past week we really
just wanted to go through some of the research to show that there is not evidence that it is
harmful right and that many families and infants do very well with it and maybe even have some
improved outcomes in certain metrics granted the studies it's really tough to study sleep
and so you know some people were very thoughtful and saying hey some of this research doesn't seem
very strong and you're exactly correct on that totally um so ultimately just wanted it to be
a resource for you all as you are exploring trying to figure out what is going to work best for you
and your little one so good luck with that yeah um and so our first question is going to dive
into that so from kimber wolfe at what age can you sleep train also what age do you not wake them up
to feed my eight week old has been so easy he is already sleeping five to six hours a night i wake
him to feed him sometimes i hear both perspectives on this some people wake them at this age and some
say let them sleep he's healthy and gained weight but i love your opinions great so this is a couple
questions here we're going to take this bit by bit the first one is at what age can you sleep train
so the first piece of this that we mentioned in our video from this past week
is in terms of just where baby's sleeping in this and sometimes it's the sleep training
is nice when it baby has their own room but the aap does recommend that babies sleep in the same
room as their parents until six months of age to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome
having said that it is nice to be able to sleep train do sleep learning when they're in their own
room so whenever that transition happens for you is a good time to think about it the other piece
is your baby needs to be old enough have gained enough weight shown that they're healthy to be
able to sleep longer stretches of time and general recommendations are about starting sleep training
sleep learning processes no sooner than four months some people say five to six months so in
that window is generally accepted for that right so let's let's unpack that next part my eight week
old has been so easy he's already sleeping five to six hours a night amazing don't tell all your
mom friends um i wake him to feed sometimes i hear both perspectives on this some people wake them at
this age and some say let them sleep he's healthy and gain weight but i love your opinions so i
think always if you're ever having any questions always talk to your pediatrician they know your
baby they look at that little growth curve and can tell you more about your baby generally speaking
i i know the opinion you're hearing in your head is that old saying to never wake a sleeping baby
and that's sort of true i think that saying should we never wake a sleeping baby at night
and we'll go into that a little bit more but it is really important that you wake your baby
up during the day to make sure they're eating every two to three hours so that they are getting
all the calories in that they need during day time and then you can start stretching
those nighttime feeds as it sounds like you is sort of happening naturally which is awesome
that's for the eight weeks thing yeah so in terms of how long can your babies
safely sleep at night the rule of thumb that we shared in our video this past week was generally
for every one week of age they can have a stretch overnight about that length so if they're
four weeks old they could have a stretch of sleep overnight about four hours they're five
weeks old five hours six weeks old up to six hours overnight up until they're about 10 to 12 weeks
really no baby is going to be in the crib for more than 10 to 12 hours at one stretch at night
the biggest reason for this really has to do two-fold so one you don't want them sleeping so
much that they aren't getting adequate calories in the fact that your baby is growing well and
following their growth curve says babies getting enough to eat every 24 hours which goes back to
making sure your baby is eating during the day time so that they can sleep longer at night and
still have adequate calories in the other piece that comes with really recommendations of why
for a newborn you want to wake your newborn to feed them every two to three hours for that first
month of life is that babies aren't able to store nutrition as efficiently or get those calories
from stores as efficiently either and a lot of this has to do with how the liver processes things
how they store glycogen and break glycogen down from the store stores in the liver as they start
to get closer to a couple months of age two three four months of age especially they really have the
ability to store and then metabolize that energy easily and so it's much easier for them to sleep
longer stretches at night your baby who is eight weeks old now two to three months of age should
have no problem sleeping longer stretches at night and you wouldn't have to wake them from a safety
like physiologic needs standpoint so you know zero to four weeks you want to be waking them every two
to three hours to feed them because they need that because they don't have those body fat stores but
after you know with your pediatrician's blessing it sounds like you may be able to let them sleep a
little bit longer so just to bring it back if your baby is less than one month of age you definitely
need to be waking them during the night probably every three to four hours at least during the
night to feed them to make sure they're getting enough calories in that they have and so they
aren't having low blood sugars and things like that right once they're passed that first month
and even as they get closer to that two-month mark and now your baby that's eight weeks old
they have the ability to go long stretches of time overnight without needing that feed
in order to like keep their blood sugar up as long again as they're getting the calories they need
during the day time yes our next question comes to us from e and they asked how often should baby
be breastfeeding from six months to one year my baby is almost nine months and it's tough
to find a recommended schedule for frequencies of breastfeeding in solids currently i'm nursing
five times a day and an occasional overnight so six times with two or three meals as well
when should i cut back on how many times i nurse a day or is it up to me and baby
and so the short answer here is it's kind of up to you and baby as different babies kind of
transition from breast milk to solids at different rates in general breast milk intake really starts
to decrease between that nine to 12 months of age mark as the babies are starting to eat more
substantial amounts of solids and at nine months of age many babies are still eating
needing that 24 to 30 ounces of breast milk a day for 24 hours or maybe a little less
now from nine to you know that nine to 12 months mark that really drops off as around the 12 months
of age mark babies need about 12 to 16 ounces of milk a day to make sure they're getting adequate
calcium intake yeah i think a good thing to think about here is just you know the transition from
six to 12 months as you said is really different for every baby and every mother totally um when
your baby is six months of age they're just starting solids we think we did baby lead weaning
at like five months of age but really that those solid foods and those extra snacks during the day
are non-nutritive meaning they're there for baby to learn how to eat like right um but not getting
substantial calories or nutrients from them and it's really until they're about nine months of
age that they're getting enough calories from that to really even see a change in the amount of milk
they're taking okay so your baby's nine months they're right at that stage where maybe they
aren't gonna be wanting to take as much breast milk because they're starting to be able to eat
more solid foods it's a good time to then you start giving those snacks before a feed and
you'll see like oh you just had a big snack maybe he doesn't want to feed it nurses watch right
or before their meal yep yeah and then just to say it again as sarah already mentioned
generally that 24 to 30 ounces of milk a day if you're bottle feeding is about what babies need
even as they add in the solids because then the solids are like helping they're a bigger
baby they need more calories in a day but then in that nine to 12 months you'll see that drop off
so at that nine month mark i think that's about the time we started offering those meals that
meal time or that snack before offering a bottle or nursing and so then it just kind of gradually
happens if their tummy is full and then it's time to nurse maybe they don't nurse as much or as long
and the other thing that i will say you mentioned looking for good sleep or
not sleep schedules eating schedules solid starts has a great free resource
on baby feeding schedules that we will link in the description below and it goes through
different kind of bottle feeding and starting solid schedules from three to five months it talks
about how much breast milk or formula they should get it gives ideas for when to give the bottles
and offer snacks all the way um kind of each month up through 12 months 12 to 15 months and beyond so
i'm trying to remember i think for cecilia we were doing maybe four feeds a day at that nine month
mark four breast milk feeds and then maybe like three solid meals a day too but like four to six
breast milk or formula feeds a day kind of in that nine-month window is pretty standard
um and then you'll see they're just taking less breast milk yeah she just one day was over it
and it was very sad um and so then that was how we weaned so that journey looks different for
everyone and wish you the best as they uh your little one transitions to eating food it was kind
like it was so fun but i also was like oh bottle feeding was easy or you just didn't have to think
about as much in terms of feeding them so cheers to toddlers and feeding them anyway thank you so
much for joining us make sure you're tuned in for our weekly episode on wednesday um and if you have
more questions for us let us know we'll try to get to those next week for our sunday sit down q a
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've said in this video
is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not medical advice
any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider