Who's on the night crew?

l4rk · March 2016

Hey Mamas,

I keep seeing posts where people are stoked their baby slept 5+ hours. Well... that's not us. Not even close.

Baby girl will sleep for 3 hours at the start of the night, then a couple 2 hours, then she wakes hourly. And that's a good night. On a bad night, we are up every 45 to 60 minutes. All. Night. Long.

So, who else is suffering through the nights? Share your tales below...

emcarl24 · March 2016

That's us! I am stoked if he sleeps for 3 hours. More often it's 2... And after the first stretch he refuses to easily go into his bassinet so there is a lengthy negotiating process

failuretofly · March 2016

My little man sleeps great between 7-11 pm (sometimes midnight!) But after that it's a crap shoot. Occasionally I'll get a 3 hour stretch but that's like winning the lottery. Lately it's been even worse since I think he's going through a growth spurt at 6 weeks. How old are your LOs?

EmmyMommy123 · March 2016

My nights sound exactly like yours @l4rk !!! It's driving me insane. Except that we are also lucky if the first stretch reaches 3 hours, and after the second stretch he starts the hourly or less wake ups. He also is a crappy napper where it's a struggle to get him to nap more than 20 minutes. Forget about putting him down!!! It's been like this since 4 weeks and it's now 7 weeks.... When will it get better!?!?

grkgdss00 · March 2016

Yep here too. 8w and we get a 3-4 hour stretch at the start of the night, then 2 hours then starting at 4 it's every hour. I feel your pain!

l4rk · March 2016

kvacmak said:

My little man sleeps great between 7-11 pm (sometimes midnight!) But after that it's a crap shoot. Occasionally I'll get a 3 hour stretch but that's like winning the lottery. Lately it's been even worse since I think he's going through a growth spurt at 6 weeks. How old are your LOs?

We're at 5 weeks and it's been consistently like this since week 2 when we started swaddling. Before that it was even worse...

SBH041815 · March 2016

That's us! She occasionally has the unusual 4 hour sleep but she usually does 2-3 hours for her longest stretches and can be up every 1-2 hours depending on the night. Swaddling has actually been the factor that let her sleep 3 hours at a time. She's 8 weeks old now and I'm hoping for improvement soon!

teachmegs817 · March 2016

DS is still on a at best, 4 hour in between feedings at night schedule. He will be 12w this Wednesday, but is 6w adjusted age, so I am not sure if we are still battling some newborn tendencies with the sleep issues. It's so tough because I think of him as a 3 month old and say to myself; "GAH! When is he going to start giving us 5-6 hour stretches?"

The last 3-4 nights though he is just making it to 3 hours in between feedings and is only sleeping anywhere from 2 1/2-3 hours on the dot. And it's usually because DH or I have to go an readjust him in his RnP or rock him for a few minutes because he'll wake up crying and fussy. The pacifier and/or rocking him, usually do the trick and he'll go down for another 45 minutes to an hour. He goes down around 9-930 and lately has been waking around 11:45-12:00 for his first feeding. He may end up going until 3:30-4:00 until the next time he wants to eat, but it's been hit or miss these last few days like I said.

claireloSC · March 2016

My baby slept 4-6 hour stretches for a whole week, then stopped. Now I'm lucky is she does 2 or 3 for her long stretch then she's up every two hours after the start of a feeding. So in reality I get like an hour in between or less and she's up again. She's 3.5 weeks but was 2ish weeks late so more like 5.5 developmentally. Definitely praying for her to go back to 4-6 hours...

maureenmce · March 2016

Our LO is still not up to her birthweight yet (though we're hoping she will be at her one month appointment next week!) and because of that we still have to wake her up to feed every 2.5 - 3 hours. Cannot wait until we can just go by her hunger cues! Nights are feeling endless right now.

claireloSC · March 2016

Oh man, that's rough @maureenmce! Fx she gained enough at your appt!

ctmamaoftwo · March 2016

maureenmce said:

Our LO is still not up to her birthweight yet (though we're hoping she will be at her one month appointment next week!) and because of that we still have to wake her up to feed every 2.5 - 3 hours. Cannot wait until we can just go by her hunger cues! Nights are feeling endless right now.

I feel like your struggles are exactly what I went through. Almost to a T but ended up switching to just formula at 3.5 weeks And my little guy made the weight at 4.5 weeks. Fingers crossed you get there too soon!

jrouge12 · March 2016

My baby can on occasion sleep 5 hours, but I still get up to pump (trying my best to up my supply and pump enough to build a stash). Most of the time I wake LO up to nurse anyway. She's only 5 weeks.

Becky012016 · March 2016

I'll preface this by saying DH is really helpful at night and idk how ebf mommas do it without any help. BUT some nights are so bad that I seriously contemplate letting LO get his days and nights confused again. I constantly have to wake him up from naps during the day but at night we're lucky to get a 3-4 hour stretch of sleep. It gets better right? Lol

charliesmommy6 · March 2016

Love this thread! I was starting to think my LO was the only one not sleeping for 4-6 hour stretches. We are lucky if he goes 3 hours between feedings which means 1-2 hours of sleep at a time. But he's 6 weeks now and gaining weight like crazy so I'm hoping he starts to sleep longer soon

nackie · March 2016

We're on a 3-2-1 schedule as well. He still needs to be nursed to sleep which takes an hour. I'm exhausted and he refuses to nap during the day.

fishee333 · March 2016

Similar stuff going on with us and she's 6 weeks. I'm exhausted

looking forward to longer stretches, whenever that may be

krrpe99 · March 2016

Thanks everyone for sharing! I'm also on this schedule, and get super frustrated hearing how so many are sleeping much longer stretches. Both my husband and I are big sleepers. I don't know how we got a non-sleeping baby!

Becky012016 · March 2016

This may be complete nonsense (ftm!) but I've read multiple places that the magic sleep combinations are 8+ weeks old and 12+ pounds heavy.

ctmamaoftwo · March 2016

012016 said:

This may be complete nonsense (ftm!) but I've read multiple places that the magic sleep combinations are 8+ weeks old and 12+ pounds heavy.

I'm lucky to have a good sleeper. I have been using the routine from the book "healthy sleep habits, happy baby" since he was born. (Asleep one hour after waking up in morning and never awake for longer than 1.5 - 2 hours during the day. It's easier for me because I am a FTM SAHM so I can dedicate more time to this, also FF so I know it's easier to establish sleep routines than with breastfeeding). And this worked well for us but In there he states that a small percentage of babies will start to fall asleep for 5-6 hours around 6-8 weeks but some babies it takes till 3-4 months. Also it says it's common for them to have their long stretch before midnight and then after only sleep 1-2 hours sets. So I feel like most of you ladies are still right on track as frustrating as the lack of sleep may be. They will get there!

danasphillips · March 2016

Anyone else think most of these sound like typical sleep patterns for LO's our age? DD does pretty much the same (3-4 hour stretch followed by 2 hour stretches) and I feel like it's great! Babies this age sleeping through the night is the exception, not the norm. My first only slept 1-2 hours at a time until he was 9 months old, so yeah, count your lucky stars.

l4rk · March 2016

WineBaby122 said:

Anyone else think most of these sound like typical sleep patterns for LO's our age? DD does pretty much the same (3-4 hour stretch followed by 2 hour stretches) and I feel like it's great! Babies this age sleeping through the night is the exception, not the norm. My first only slept 1-2 hours at a time until he was 9 months old, so yeah, count your lucky stars.

This is what I suspected but needed to hear! I was getting a bit tired of hearing all these great sleep stories... I wanted to hear from all the people in our sleep-deprived boat!

kaym6 · March 2016

I don't care if my baby wakes 30 times to eat at night if he would just go to sleep after, it's the hour of screaming after the waking I can't stand! Lol

2winterbabies · March 2016

DD was born on 12/30, not too far along you ladies. Here is my experience. She just slept 7 hours last night for the first time and she is 9 weeks. She started to sleep through the night at around 6-7 weeks for a good 3-4 hour stretch. She still needed to be fed once or twice during the night but she is real easy to put down.

SBH041815 · March 2016

@WineBaby122 I think you're right, these probably are typical sleep patterns. My children have so much spacing between them that I tend to forget.

EmmyMommy123 · March 2016

WineBaby122 said:

Anyone else think most of these sound like typical sleep patterns for LO's our age? DD does pretty much the same (3-4 hour stretch followed by 2 hour stretches) and I feel like it's great! Babies this age sleeping through the night is the exception, not the norm. My first only slept 1-2 hours at a time until he was 9 months old, so yeah, count your lucky stars.

If my babe would regularly do a 3-4 hour stretch followed by 2 hour stretches I'd think that's a huge improvement!! It's the waking every hour or less thing that's really rough and babe ends up miserable. The crap naps are also a factor in this. I've started to treat this issue as a gas problem though as babe has stopped pooping at night but seems to struggle most of the night and have a huge poop in the morning. So every time he's awake I do tons of burping and bicycle legs until I hear some burps, farts, or he's too asleep to react. Last night it made for the first "back to normal" night (2 and 3 hour stretches) in weeks!!

l4rk · March 2016

@2winterbabies here's hoping my baby does the same as yours at 9 weeks! That would be lovely.

justmia · March 2016

As with most mom's here, I'm thankful if I can get my DS to sleep 3 hours! He was doing well with that and waking up only once or twice through the night but he's reverting back to sleeping for, at most, an hour throughout the night. I'm hoping it's a 6th week growth spurt!!

2winterbabies · March 2016

@justmia I think it may be! DD was like that around 5-6 weeks. Eating like crazy and pretty fussy. Found out there is usually a growth spurt around that age.

Becky012016 · March 2016

Just reading back through the posts here and it seems many of us have LOs around the 6 week mark so it makes sense that we'd all be going through similar sleep patterns. I think the ones with LOs who are sleeping for longer stretches at night are older than our LOs. If anything, it gives me hope that mine will sleep eventually! Haha

Ebiejay · March 2016

Think I'm with you all om the 6 week growth spurt. LO was doing great, waking up twice in the night for feedings (one magical night he only woke up once before 6am), but the last couple nights have been so rough. It takes an hour to feed, burp and change him, and I'm lucky to get an hour before he wakes again. He hit 6 weeks yesterday so I'm hoping this phase is short lived!

Do all your babies wake up because of a dirty diaper? LO can't stand even a wet one and always wakes up.

nackie · March 2016

This 6 week growth spurt is killing me . We were up cluster feeding from 2:30 until 5:30 last night and when he did sleep it was in one hour increments

Becky012016 · March 2016

Ebiejay said:

Think I'm with you all om the 6 week growth spurt. LO was doing great, waking up twice in the night for feedings (one magical night he only woke up once before 6am), but the last couple nights have been so rough. It takes an hour to feed, burp and change him, and I'm lucky to get an hour before he wakes again. He hit 6 weeks yesterday so I'm hoping this phase is short lived!

Do all your babies wake up because of a dirty diaper? LO can't stand even a wet one and always wakes up.

My LO would be perfectly content to never have his diaper changed. However, I used to work in a nursery and we had kids there who demanded (aka cried) until their diapers were changed immediately.

deedeecmc79 · March 2016

Yup, here too baby is 6 wks and wakes up maybe 4 hrs then 2 hrs after that and then every 30 min after. Worst part is that it takes him a good 1hr to get him down after the first wake.

failuretofly · March 2016

Ugh nighttime poops will be the death of me. If I don't need a diaper change we can do wake up, feed burp in 20-30 minutes then it's back to sleep but with a diaper change easily double that trying to get back to sleep!

Becky012016 · March 2016

We had one of those mythical 5 hour long sleeps last night! 6.4 weeks old

nackie · March 2016

We spent 4.5 hours trying to get DS to sleep. When we finally did, he slept for 1.5 hours before waking up again.

mbud926 · March 2016

@012016 I wish that were true with my DS! He's 8 weeks and almost 15 pounds (yes, he's a chunker) but still I'm thrilled if we get a 4 hour stretch--usually 2.

leap_frog · March 2016

Whoot! We got a 4 hour stretch last night and then a 3 hour! This comes on the tail end of my other son being sick and me getting up for the past 4 nights, so I will take it. Exhausted is an understatement.

EmmyMommy123 · March 2016

We got a 6 our stretch last night! I couldn't believe it! Only the second time ever! He was eating constantly and fussing all day yesterday and had an evening of more activity/staying up later than usual so that may have factored in, BUT I'm hoping it's actually due to the new Swaddle we tried - the woombie - and that its a turning point. He also turned 8 weeks today. Trying not to get too excited though...

claireloSC · March 2016

We've been doing so much better on sleep since we put LO in her own room at night. We started a few nights ago and we're getting 4-6 hour stretches, then another 2 or 3!

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