bedtime ???s

Future R. Murray!!

 Beware my post is all over the place (kinda thinking while typing)

My LO is 7 weeks and eating about four ounces at every feeding. She is currently eating about every three- 4 hours, during the day and at night.  A few nights she has slept from 11-5am, which is great and has worked for us since, but most of the time she is getting up at around 330 and wanting to eat.  

 Here are my questions/ comments

I kinda want to get her go to bed a bit earlier than 11 because she gets fussy between 9-11 and is obviously tired, but would really like to avoid the 2am feeding,I  dont mind getting up with her if she isnt ready to give it up, I just feel like most babies this age are sleeping much longer than 3-4 hours.

 What is your evening schedule for feedings and bedtimes? 

bumpuser4307348

We do bathtime between 6 and 6:30.  We then swaddle LO, turn off the lights, and I give him a 5 oz. bottle and then put him to bed.  He's usually asleep by 7.  He'll wake up between 2 and 4 for another 5 oz bottle and then wakes up for the day between 5 and 6.

If you want to get her to bed earlier, try moving your bedtime routine back 20 minutes each night.  Also,I found the book The Baby Whisperer very helpful.  It addresses sleeping, eating, etc.

ar52kortlang

LO usually eats around 6-7 for her last feeding, then every other night she is bathed in johnson and Johnson's bedtime bath and then a little naked tummy time. Then she is out down for the night between 730-830 when she falls asleep. Then she is up at about 4ish to feed and back out till 815ish.

Qmommy

Most babies this age are NOT sleeping longer than 3-4 hour stretches at night.  Yes there are babies who sleep longer stretches at this age but it's not the norm.  

Bedtime for DD2:  I aim for 8:00 bedtime (meaning asleep and in crib) currently but really I want it at 6:30/7 like DD1. Somehow I'll figure that out.   DD2 usually gives me 4 hour stretches but there are some nights where she'll sleep 6 hours for the first stretch.  

MrsT2008

at this age, babies set their own schedules and you just have to go with it.

We got very lucky - DD has set her own bedtime for about 8pm (give or take 30 minutes).  She eats about an hour before she falls asleep and then she's out for about 7 hours (once she falls asleep - so going about 8 hours between feedings), eats around 2:30/3am, and then sleeps until 7ish.

While it's awesome that we have this schedule - we did NOTHING to get her here.  Like I said, she did it on her own.

junebug_07

Our "routine" such as it is looks like this:

7:30-8:30: Bath (sometimes), feed, change/swaddle for the night, rock until she falls asleep...the timing is a little loose depending on when she last napped...last night she didn't go down until 9:30 

8:30 (ish)-5:00(ish) Baby sleeps!  She's been sleeping this long for a few weeks now

5:00 (ish): Feed; baby goes back to sleep (usually) while Mommy gets ready for work

Like a PP, I think we just got lucky.  I noticed that LO was falling into the trend of taking her last bottle around 7:30ish and then taking her longest stretch of sleep soon after so we just built up our little routine around that.  It sure is nice, though!

blu-eyedwife

Just a thought - putting her to bed earlier might not equal a 2am feeding.  It doesn't seem to matter what time my guy goes to sleep, he still gets up at the same time.  Putting her to sleep earlier might give you a little extra sleep. 

(But remember, with babies, not only is there no guarantee, but there's also no consistency - the hours she sleeps is going to change a lot in the first months.)

DH is in charge of bedtime routine in our house.  He gets home from work between 5:30 and 6.  He gives our boy a bath, then dresses and swaddles, gives a bottle and reads a story.  Then he puts him to bed.  In the early days this whole process took about 2 hours, so baby was in bed between 7:30 and 8.  Now he's usually asleep around 7. 

Around 7 weeks, he started doing a 5 hour stretch, followed by a 4 hour stretch of sleep.  Around week 10 he would sleep until around 4am, wake to eat, and go back to sleep till around 7am.  Last week he decided sleeping till 4am was for the birds.  So he wakes up sometime between 12 and 2, and then at 5:30 on the dot.

caro123caro

we do't get more than 3 hours of sleep at a time... still waiting!

dbagniefski

We don't have a routine, we just follow LO's lead. But he usually goes down between 9-10, is up between 1-2, then 4-5. 

A few nights in the past week he's fallen asleep early, like 7:45. In order to make sure I'm not up an hour after I go to bed I sneak in  a "dream feed" right before I go to sleep. I just quietly pick him up, put him to the breast, let him eat while sleeping, then put him back. Works great!! 

sugarpumpkin716

my son was exactly the same way then all the sudden at 9 weeks he started to sleep through the night. i honestly have no idea what the change was but i'm certainly not going to question it haha. i'm sure your LO will eventually form the habit. i'm sure my son isn't the only baby ever to start sleeping through the night without a forced schedule or routine ya know? so i'm sure it'll happen for you before you know it and without even knowing how it happened! granted, the earliest he goes to bed is 9:30 but the usual is closer to 10:30. we don't do bath time at the same time like i had wanted to, because very often (oops) my son pees through his clothes so i just bathe him when i need to.

sweetjangmi

My answer may be a little all over the place, but it may give you some ideas:

We try to start the bedtime routine between 7:30 and 8:00.  We start with a bath (but only every other day, sometimes once every 2 days, depending on our schedule).  Our baby likes bath time, so we let him marinate in the tub for a little bit.  After that is the diaper change and lotion, and then the feeding.  We try to give him a bath not too close to his last feeding (or else he will poop in our arms) and close to the next feeding (although I did read that it's not a good idea to have a feeding be the last thing in your routine as the baby may not be able to sleep without a bottle in the future).  We do try reading to him, but are still trying to figure things out since he falls asleep whiel feeding and doesn't seem smart to read to him while he's sleeping and risk waking him up.

Our baby was pretty good at falling asleep until recently.  At around week 6, he started getting fussy at bedtime.  We can tell he's sleepy but he won't fall asleep.  I am OK with letting him cry ti out a little, but he has a hernia, so we dont' want him to stress out too much.  So we've resorted to bringing him out to the living room and putting him in the swing as a last resort unfortunately