Sleeping at night?

nbc2015 · March 2016

FTM here, and I've been reading a lot about baby sleep habits on the board. My LO is 5.5 weeks, and is still waking every 2 hours to feed. Even at night. It seems like all these other LOs on here (and around his age) are sleeping for much longer stretches at night. Any suggestions from others who have done this before? Maybe I'm jumping up to feed too quickly? I'm at a loss, but momma needs sleep!

mommaz1 · March 2016

My LO is 6 and a half weeks and gets up every 3 hours, maybe 4 hours if I'm lucky. I EBF him with zero supplementation so he digests the breastmilk faster than he would digest formula and this is up and hungry. Our pediatrician said it's completely normal!

robinj716 · March 2016

My LO is waking every 3-3 1/2 hours to eat at night. We're not getting 6 hour stretches like others either. Sometimes I wonder if I'm feeding him too quick, but he will cry for at least 15 minutes even while trying to soothe him back to sleep and as soon as I feed him he's ok, so I figure he must be hungry.

Edit to add: he's 6 weeks and is formula fed.

ashton2190 · March 2016

My LO is one month old and she typically gets one 4 hour stretch at the beginning of the night and then gets up every 2.5-3 hours the rest of the night to have her diaper changed and eat. We had two random days where she went 6 hours straight but definitely not the norm. I don't let her cry for very long either, I go get her as soon as her fussing turns into longer continuous crying.

MississippiCatfish · March 2016

My LO is giving me good stretches for his age, but my first two kids really slept much more like yours - up alllll the time. It's tough. I'm sorry.

I am trying to give baby five minutes or so to work it out on his own when he wakes up, so long as he's not crying. I'm actually amazed that he does fall asleep about half the time on his own! With my first two, I really did struggle with this, almost always went in right away, and they unfortunately learned that to get mama's attention all you have to do is fuss and grunt for 20 seconds;). Anyway, hard to say if that is helping or if he just happens to be a good sleeper, but it might be worth a try to wait a little while. Good luck!

VitaLuna · March 2016

My LO is up every 2hrs, sometimes 3. Lately she has been crying an hour after I put her down, I think with a gassy/upset stomach? Whatever it is, she doesn't go back to sleep in her own.

DD1 was up every 2-4hrs until she was over a year, so there's that.

middy411 · March 2016

My LO is almost 3 weeks and just a couple days ago started actually having a sleep "routine". She sleeps for about 3 hours the first put down of the night and then for about 2-3 hours every time after that. But I've been going to bed so late (11pm is late to me) that really she only ends up waking me once or twice before morning comes. She does feed for FOREVER and I'm usually up for a good solid 1.5 hours changing and nursing her. She's EBF. I learned not to take advantage of her feeding quickly and that if I keep offering her my breasts until she refuses then she sleeps a lot better. Seems like common sense but in the beginning I was just trying to get back to bed quicker. Now I know the longer she nurses, the longer we sleep. And I really want to promote lengthy sleep at nighttime. During the day she wants to eat every 1-2 hours.

mwmiller4 · March 2016

LO is EBF and 5 weeks old. She'll sleep for a 4-5 hour stretch a couple times a week and then do a 3 hour stretch usually after that. On the other nights, she does consecutive 3 hour stretches. When we went in for her one month check up, the doctor said her sleep habits were more like a 2 month old and told me to enjoy the sleep and our good fortune. (I think LO and my husband are on the same page in trying to convince me she needs a sibling by being a good sleeper and trying to trick me into thinking that baby 2 would also do a good job).

@middy411 I did the same thing with just trying to get the feedings over with, so I'm really glad I'm not the only one! It really helped when I started having her eat more and staying up for longer during the middle of the night feedings.

nbc2015 · March 2016

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I don't feel so alone anymore. I'm going to try to give him longer periods of crying/fussing before rushing to feed. Right now I'm lucky if we make it 5 minutes of fussing before I offer him food. I guess we will have to wait it out, and patiently wait for him to sleep longer!

Cheryl Renee · March 2016

My baby is 5weeks and 4 days and he is still nursing every 2 hours. He will go one 4 hour stretch around 11pm-2am, and then its back to every 2 again. He is breastfeeding so he digests it quickly. I'm so ready for him to stretch out his feedings but every baby is different. As long as baby is healthy let them eat! This phase wont' last long.

nackie · March 2016

Lurking from January - my LO is 7.5 weeks and up until a few days ago he was only sleeping 2-3 hours at a time. Sometimes only 1 hour at a time. In the last couple days he finally started sleeping 4+ hours. Make sure he's getting enough to eat in the evenings and hang in there!

middy411 · March 2016

LO slept 4 hours tonight after I first put her down! Not sure if I should credit her fighting her sleep all day and being fussy or if it's because I was more patient and waited out her non-crying grunts to where she kept falling back asleep. At 3 weeks old, I'm very excited that I may have a girl on her way to sleeping nice stretches. I even had to wake her up once I did get up bc she was still so sleepy and out of it, hadn't started crying yet. Hope this sticks!

g8trkim · March 2016

nbc2015 said:

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I don't feel so alone anymore. I'm going to try to give him longer periods of crying/fussing before rushing to feed. Right now I'm lucky if we make it 5 minutes of fussing before I offer him food. I guess we will have to wait it out, and patiently wait for him to sleep longer!

If your baby is just grunting, squirming, maybe a little whine and isn't really awake then yeah maybe see if he falls black asleep. If it's true crying I wouldn't let him be. He's telling you he needs you. As frustrating as it is (my daughter was a terrible sleeper and still is at 3) what you're experiencing is totally normal. But I promise it gets better.

Latina211508 · March 2016

My baby, my fourth child wakes usually every 2 hours to eat. He is EBF. Sometimes he sleeps 3-4 hours but that's rarely. All 3 of my older children woke up to nurse every 2 hours for months. That was just their own routine. Every baby is different. I also wait till an actual cry to nurse him. He grunts a lot so I just let him make all the noise he wants and don't bother to grab him to nurse.

Vkrosa · March 2016

Mama I am in the same boat too! LO is now on formula and she is still trying to pull 2oz every 2 hrs. She will be 6 weeks on Wednesday I swear I just want to sleep. I have tried to offer her more I've even tried to keep her awake to eat more but no luck. I guess we can only keep trying our best.

mamacastro · March 2016

Penny will be 1 month old tomorrow and she still wakes up every 1-2 hours to eat during the day then at night she wakes up around midnight and doesn't go back to sleep all night! She just wants to eat or be on the breast for comfort all night. I had to start supplementing because she lost 10% of her birthweight so we had to make it up but most of her feedings are still breastmilk. To say the least this first month has been rough

Sleeping at night?

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