For those with LO's sleeping 6+ hours

justkeeptrying · July 2015

DS was consistently going approximately 5-6 hours of sleep at night until the last week or so. He did one night of sleeping 7.5 hours (which was amazing!!!). Now he seems to have gone back to sleeping 3-4 hour stretches. Which isn't horrible but not great.

I'm just curious for those that are consistently getting these long stretches: EBF or FF? What is your bedtime routine? And what time is LO going to bed?

I know it's a long shot, but I'm hoping I can take some tips from those that are having success with this consistently! Who knows? Maybe we can find some common denominators and unlock the secret to long stretches of sleep at night!!

supersarah77 · July 2015

DS goes 5-6 hours for the first stretch and then is up every couple hours after that. I will say in my experience with DD things are always changing. Growth spurts, developmental milestones, teething... Lots of things can and do mess with sleep. So the good news is it's temporary! Hopefully your LO will go back to longer stretches very soon.

I EBF and definitely have a nighttime routine. After dinner we go on a family stroller walk in the neighborhood and I think that starts the wind down. Then a bath with DD, jammies, and he hangs out in the room while I read DD a book or two with dimmed lights. Then it's lights out for DD and DS and I leave. Then I nurse DS one last time - sometimes it's a top off - swaddle him and bounce on the ball until he falls asleep. Then I transfer him to the crib. There's also a white noise machine going. He's down at around 8:00 pm every night.

Fingers crossed you get more sleep soon! I-)

canadianmom89 · July 2015

dD sleeps about 10 hours every night and has been since she was 8 weeks old ( she is almost 13 weeks now). Around 6 pm I let her start cluster feeding,(she is breastfed) feeding her every hour, at 8 we give her a bath, then I use a little baby lotion and massage her arms and legs. After that I feed her again and keep the room dark and I rock her while DH and I watch tv, sometimesDD sleeps sometimes she just lays peacefully in my arms. Around 10 I change her diaper, put her in her sleep sack, feed her one last time and within minutes she is out like a light until 8 or 9 am..... Mind you we bed share so all that might change when she starts in her crib next week.

MrsWhiteToBe · July 2015

I don't really have a big routine, I just feed her and change her and then we cuddle in a dark quiet room for about an hour before I put her down. Melatonin (the hormone that makes you sleep) only starts to work when you turn out the lights.

ltcamacho · July 2015

supersarah77 said:
DS goes 5-6 hours for the first stretch and then is up every couple hours after that. I will say in my experience with DD things are always changing. Growth spurts, developmental milestones, teething... Lots of things can and do mess with sleep. So the good news is it's temporary! Hopefully your LO will go back to longer stretches very soon.

This! My LO sleeps about 10 hours a night but I'm not banking on it staying that way forever. There is always something happening that could disrupt their sleep. Just enjoying it while I can

With that being said, your LO could very well go back to those long stretches soon!

stephv18 · July 2015

My LO sleeps about 11 hours every night and has been doing it since 5 weeks, she will be 11 weeks tomorrow. I exclusively FF and have a bedtime routine also. Around 7 every night we start winding down. Every other night we do a bath, change into jammies and then a bottle and she is out like a light. If we are out, she now gets extremely cranky if she isn't in bed at her normal time. She does sleep in her own crib in her own room, our pedi said that babies that sleep in their own room are more likely to sleep better.

rachelarynxo · July 2015

My DS is almost 8 weeks and exclusively FF. He sleeps from 8pm to usually about 630 or 7, or if he missed a short nap during the day, even 8! I know it won't last forever, but I'm enjoying it while it's here.

Napping during the day actually somehow facilitates good night time sleep. He takes about three hour long naps, and maybe a three to four hour one in the afternoon. During the day our routine is feed, play/awake time, and then a short nap except for that one.

We do have a bedtime routine. I've told others about the baby bedtime lotion. Every other night we do a bath but I put that on his chest and legs/feet every night. I also make sure to change him into pjs so he knows it's getting close to bedtime. We start our routine around 7 when he gets a bath, read a book usually after, then feed him his night time bottle. He usually takes an extra ounce in it, and then he's out like a light by the end of it.

jrecine · July 2015

I give my little guy a bath, put some night time lavender lotion on his skin which he loves. Then I get him in his sleep gowns, let him kick around a little to get tired and get out his energy. Then I turn out the lights, warm his formula, then feed him in the rocking chair while rocking. He's usually out cold within a half hour and sleeps from 10:30-7:00 am consistently! If he wakes up at all in the middle of the night I just give him his binky and he's back to sleep! Hope this helps!

jodi1008 · July 2015

My ds has been sleeping all night since 3 weeks old. Before then we woke just once a night. My ds is pretty laid back so once it's about 8 he begins to feel ready for bed so we sit in the rocking chair and breastfeed and once he's asleep I move him to his bed and there he stays for about 10 hours. Once he wakes in the morning he wants to eat and then go to his swing to have his morning nap. He sleeps in a halo sleep sack and is ebf

he's also slept in his crib in our room since the day we came home from the hospital.

saric83 · July 2015

We keep it simple with no specific time since it depends on his naps and cycle throughout the day, but it usually starts somewhere between 7-9pm. We give him a bath every three or four days, and if it's bath day, we just do that around 6pm before the bedtime routine starts.

Make it quieter and darker once he starts to show signs of being hungry
Feed him (I exclusively pump)
Burp and rock with him for 10-15 minutes
Change his diaper
Put on PJ's and halo
Carry him up to his RnP in our room where the sound machine, fan and nightlight are already on, and he passes out within a minute or two

He sleeps in his crib during the day for naps and has been in his RnP for nights while he was waking up around 3am since we could just more quickly get to him and start to feed him as soon as he was up instead of by the time he was screaming. But as he's starting to drop that wake-up (about half the time) more, we'll try the crib overnight.

ali0608 · July 2015

I think the key to sleep at our house is more of the daytime routine. If he gets enough to eat and takes good naps, he goes longer at night before waking up. Right now he gets a bath around 7:30 and is in bed by 8 or 8:15. He will wake up anywhere between 1 and 5 am. He will go back to sleep easily until 8 am.

toddabunny · July 2015

My LO has generally fell asleep around 10pm ever since we bought her home, she used to wake at 3am for a feed but was back in bed within 30mins and then up again at 8, Now she feeds and I put her in her crib around 10pm and then she sleeps till around 8-9am

mamadraper · July 2015

My LO is FF and has been sleeping through the night since 4 weeks! We have noticed though if she is not in her swaddle me she wakes up through the night (has to be her swaddle me or sleep sack though, can't just be swaddled with a blanket )
Our routine is:
Change bum
Put Jammie's and swaddle on
Feed bottle
Check bum again
Rock to sleep
Wait 5-10 mins to make sure she is out
Then put in her crib

MooByrd · July 2015

DD usually sleeps around 8 or 9 hours (although last night was 10 hours! from 930-730). We have a very casual bedtime routine-- she starts cluster feeding around 7:00, I put her PJ's on around 8 (unless it's a bath night). Feed again. Lay with brother while he goes to sleep. Feed again, and then rock to sleep. I then put her in her crib, swaddle in an aden and anais blanket, turn on her white noise machine. It's usually 930 or so and she's out until 630 to 7. Once she started sleeping 6+ hours it has just gotten longer, so I'm hoping she doesn't revert back to every 3 hours!

MrsS728 · July 2015

LO is 10 weeks old and we've been getting at least 6 hours a night consistently from 6 weeks on. We give her a bottle (50% formula and 50% breast milk due to low supply) around 8:30-9:00pm, we rock her in her room until she is just about out, in her crib and she will usually sleep until 4:30 am. Sometimes she will wake up around 3ish, but either way we feed her and she goes down for at least another 4 hours. During the day she takes a cat nap in the AM, a nap nap around noon and sleeps until 3-3:30 and another cat nap around 6:30 for 45 minutes or so.

mamajama3 · July 2015

I am EBF/EPing and baby is in bed usually by 9-10pm each night. I give her a bath every other night at 7pm, followed by a baby massage (basically me gently rubbing lotion over her in a massage pattern- she loves it!), change her into a diaper and use Eucerin salve on her bum and girl parts to prevent discomfort, and put her into her PJ's. Then it's feeding time. I ensure all lights are off in the house except for one or two (so I don't trip over anything getting her to bed lol), TV is off, a fan is circulating air on low in our room for when she goes to bed, and there's a sense of quiet in the house. I have her bottles ready, and everything set up in the living room, so we are good to go for feeding. By 7:30 I'm holding her and feeding her and she'll go through one and a half to two bottles usually over the next hour and a half and then she'll nod off on me. I hold her for 15-20 minutes once she's done because she has gnarly acid reflux and will throw it all up when I lay her down to bed if I don't let it digest properly before laying her flat in bed. Then I slowly walk her to bed and lay her down. She sleeps in her pack n play because she outgrew her bassinet and we aren't ready to transition her to her own room/crib yet. She'll typically go about 5-6 hours before waking, then take down a bottle and sleep for another 4-6 hours (I'm lucky). Routine has helped a lot and also I've found that the more she eats (comfortably) before she goes to bed, the longer she sleeps, so having a couple of "marathon feeding sessions" before I put her down (i.e. a couple of bottles over the course of a couple of hours) really helps me get her to sleep longer (which momma loves!). She just slept 5.5 hours last night, woke up for a feeding and is going on 5 hours this morning. She's 95th percentile for weight and height so I'm not worried about feeding her every 4 hours, she's healthy as a horse and a happy girl. One more tip, I may be crazy, but I started taking a tablespoon of coconut oil a day to boost my milk supply (it's good but I want to pump more milk to be able to freeze more for when I go back to work) and I wonder if the good fats in that are making their way into my milk, filling her up and helping her sleep better. Good luck! Who knows, my LO may go back to shorter sleep stints as she grows and teethes, but I'm hopeful this pattern will keep

babyblue0501 · July 2015

I said this in a previous post. I use the 4 B's. Bath, Boob, Book, Bed. My DS sleeps 8+ hours every night. At 7pm baby gets a bath, and a nice massage with lotion. I flip him on his belly for a back massage/tummy time/naked time. He fusses after a few minutes, and I diaper him and get him in his PJ's. He goes on the boob for about an hour(he eats on both sides, and is a slow eater), and then if he is still awake we read a book and rock to sleep. I'll let him sleep in my arms for another 20 mins, and I lay him down for bed. Right before I go to bed around 10, I sneak in a last minute diaper change. He gets up around 6:30-7:30 every morning. If I go off routine, my baby knows it! It's safer to stick to the routine. It's not worth it to stray from the plan!

vballgirl78 · July 2015

My DS is 12 weeks old and has been sleeping 8+ hours at night since he was 10 weeks. I agree with some of the other PPs that daytime naps help nighttime sleep. With my first, we never had any good daytime sleep and she was a mess. DS takes 3-4 hour naps in the morning and then 2-3 hour naps in the afternoon.

Bedtime routine is cluster feeding starting around 5:00. He is breastfeeding entirely. I try to feed him around 5:00, around 6:00 and then around 7:00. We do a bath every other day around 5:00/5:30. I then do a quick massage with baby lotikn, put jammies on and go back downstairs. I have a 3 1/2 year old and a husband who works evenings so its a crazy busy time. I balance feeding him with feeding DD and giving her a bath too. Around 7:30 we all go up to bed. I put DD down after we all read books together and then I swaddle and nurse for a very brief time before putting DS down around 8:15/8:30. He sleeps from 8:30-5:30 usually (sometimes a bit longer or shorter). He then gets up to nurse and play before going down for a 3-4 hour nap.

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For those with LO's sleeping 6+ hours

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