The Big Sleep Question

[Rebaby]

I am so sick of people asking me if Toby is a "good sleeper" and if he's "sleeping through the night yet?" It's beginning to really get me down. At the minute we still have those nights where he wakes every hour or cluster feeds the whole night long, but they are becoming less frequent and on the whole he goes 2-3 hourly between feeds during the night.

I can't help but wonder though- is this as good as it gets? Or can i expect slightly longer stretches in time?

I feel lucky that breastfeeding has been going pretty well so far but that still doesn't necessarily mean it's easy and particularly when folks seem to randomly expect that since your baby is now 5 weeks old he/she must be napping the night away and letting you get some shut eye when in reality Toby spends more time on my boob or being burped during the night than he does in his co-sleeper And ironically when i am burping him all i can think is "come on baby boy, lets go to sleep" then the minute he is down and asleep i feel wide awake and just want to spend the night staring at him!

So...sleep! How much is everyone with newborns getting and what can we expect later on? And does everyone else get asked the same thing re: "sleeping through" because it really does my tree in!

 

[Lunaty]

good question,
Cole is 2 weeks old, he has been sleeping one stretch off 5 hours usually from 11 till 4 since the last 3 days and then is awake for about an hour after a long feed and it's very hard to get him back to sleep in night!

*he cluster feeds in the evening before bed.. lets say 8 till 11 ish in the evening..

 

[TigerLady]

oh boy -- I am not the one to give you hope! My LO is 4.5 months old and wakes every 2-3 hours. :sigh: Thank the gods for co-sleeping and bed sharing! Once.... ONCE... he went 6 hours and I woke up in panic with aching boobs! I had to check to make sure he was still alive!

However, it seems most ladies that I chat with on here that have LOs the same age as mine, have had better luck. Most of them are getting 8-12 hours stretches of the LOs sleeping.

:LadyT turns a deep shade of green with envy:

hahahaha!

 

[TigerLady]

P.S. I have had ppl ask me the same thing from the time my LO was a month old. I just laugh at them as if they are daft.

 

[CountingDown]

At the newborn stage I was lucky if Olivia went for more than 2 hours during the night lol.

At round 7 weeks she got into a regular 3 hour feeding schedule day and night and at around 3 months slept from 9.00am until 6.00pm. Then she went through a huge growth spurt and started waking as many as 5 times a night.

At 8 months Olivia now wakes at least once a night but goes to sleep at 7ish and most mornings gets up around 6.00am xx

 

[Lani]

I will give you some hope. Thomas is 5 months and probably for the last 2 or so months, he has gone to bed at about 8pm, woken at 4am for a 10 minute feed then back to bed until somewhere between 6-8am. And personally, i think its heaven. I hate that I still get alot of pitying looks from people who say "oh hes still not sleeping through?" I always tell them that this routine suits us - i prefer him to go to bed at 8 so i have a few hours baby free. I could put him to bed later and then hed wake up later and i guess that would be classed as "sleeping through" but i need a few hours each night to chill or hang out with hubby.

At your bubs age, I used to put Thomas to bed for the night quite late as i always found it a struggle if i had to get up to feed him more than once per night. He'd have a nap about 6pm, then i'd feed him and put him to bed at 11pm, then night feed at 2-3am then we'd get up at 5-6am. I normally had a nap during the day to catch up. Gradually, he cut out his 11pm feed and his 6pm nap became his 8pm bedtime.

So hang in there. More sleep is coming! And in the meantime, try to nap as much as possible!

 

[polaris]

Ours seems to change all the time so I wouldn't say this is a pattern, but for the last couple of nights he has cluster fed from about 8 to 11 or 12, then woken for feeds at approximately 3 a.m., 6 a.m., and 8 a.m. It is quite exhausting, I'm hoping it improves too!

ETA: there was a time when I would have thought 3 hourly feeds were heaven as he was waking up at least every two hours throughout the night.

 

[pip holder]

Oh Rebaby I could have written your OP
You know who my worst offender is - my bloody MIL

After a particularly bad night with LO, she marvelled at the fact that he STILL wasn't sleeping through (this was at 4 weeks btw) as both hers were. Yeah? Well I'M MADE UP FOR YOU!!!!!!!!! Mine doesn't!

He was going from 12 -7am which was heavenly but has been cluster feeding again last three nights pretty much hourly, I was seeing in triplicate this morning with tiredness

Sod them

 

[sezzlebum]

oh boy -- I am not the one to give you hope! My LO is 4.5 months old and wakes every 2-3 hours. :sigh: Thank the gods for co-sleeping and bed sharing! Once.... ONCE... he went 6 hours and I woke up in panic with aching boobs! I had to check to make sure he was still alive!

However, it seems most ladies that I chat with on here that have LOs the same age as mine, have had better luck. Most of them are getting 8-12 hours stretches of the LOs sleeping.

:LadyT turns a deep shade of green with envy:

hahahaha!

Aimees still 2-3 hours in the night too, <<<me green too

 

[petal040]

My LO has always settled back to sleep no problem after feeds, which I really think has made things easier for us. At 6 weeks she slept for a 6 hour stretch during the night (not every night, but some). At 7 weeks she did 7 hours, at 8 she did 8. She now does a 10 hour stretch most nights (I can't remember last time she didn't). It's great.

The trade-off is that she feeds very frequently during the day lol... and she won't take a bottle

 

[lucilou]

Hamish wakes every 3-4 hours in the night at the moment, so I put him down around midnight, we have a feed at 3 or 4 whenever he wakes, and then we get up about 7 unless I manage to put him down again after that (not often!). I have found it can take a while to settle him back to sleep after his feed, so I have stopped changing his nappy when we get up in the night unless he complains. I used to always change him in the night, but now if he seems ok, I just feed him and put him straight back to bed. The nappies are pretty absorbant and he hasn't had any nappy rash or anything as a result...

Also, I have started using infacol which really helps get his wind up and settle him more easily at night. It was taking ages to wind him before and he would cry and wriggle every time I tried to put him down if I hadn't got it all.

He has been known to sleep for 5-6 hours but I am happy to feed him more often as he's still quite small. Can't say I'm not looking forward to having longer sleeps though!

 

[Seraphim]

Let's see if we can find one BF mother of 5 weeks who's LO does

As much as I'd love the sleep, I'm not focused on 'sleeping through the night' - and it'll be some time before I'd try and manipulate things that way.

Like one of the others said... she could make sleeping less convenient and achieve 'through the night' but likes things the way they are.

I'm firmly of the opinion now that all these people just have nothing interesting to say so ask stupid questions

 

[florabean1981]

My LO has always settled back to sleep no problem after feeds, which I really think has made things easier for us. At 6 weeks she slept for a 6 hour stretch during the night (not every night, but some). At 7 weeks she did 7 hours, at 8 she did 8. She now does a 10 hour stretch most nights (I can't remember last time she didn't). It's great.

The trade-off is that she feeds very frequently during the day lol... and she won't take a bottle

My harry is the same; sleeps great at night but is literally attached to me during the day. I guess it's a fair trade off in the grand scheme of things.

 

[lfernie]

Ryan is 7 weeks old and from about 4/5 weeks he started sleeping from about 12 until 6.30 now he probably sleeps till 7.30-8 oclock but then again he has maybe 2/3 nights out the week where he just won't settle. But the nights he does he is on my boob cluster feeding from about 6pm till bedtime so i don't get much done in the evening. I know what you mean aswell about people asking if they sleep through the night tho cos sometimes if I've had a bad night and people are like 'Is he STILL not sleeping through?' as if you're the one who's done something wrong! I'm like 'Yeah, I made sure he didn't sleep all night, I was holding his eyes open'

I think people esp the older generation that are all about routine just enjoy telling you how easy it was cos it was so long ago they can't really remember!

Anyways sorry for the rant!

x

 

[Kaites]

Emma is 9 weeks and has had the occasional sleep through since about 6 weeks about 2-3 times a week. She definitely cluster feeds in the evening and first thing in the morning, probably trying to make up for all those calories she missed by sleeping overnight! Every baby is different so don't worry about what others say. Although I cherish sleep, I'm sure I'll look back on my quiet nighttime feeds/snuggles with Emma when she's a bratty teenager breaking her curfew and long for this type of sleepless night

 

[GersPrincess]

It does get better, honestly! Emily is 10 weeks tomorrow, and for the last 3 weeks she has slept from 11.30 to either 5.30 or 6 am. There is the odd night like last night where she woke at 3 for a quick feed, but I dont mind that at all. To be honest, I usually wake at 3ish anyway to check on her (she always woke for a feed at that time when she was a bit smaller) and I really miss her!! so I dont mind the extra cuddles.

My MIL has been on and on and on about her not sleeping through since birth & her first question when we see her is always "how is she sleeping?" I always say she sleeps like a baby.. ie wakes when she's hungry!
She goes on and on and on about my step-son always sleeping through the night at this age, BUT he was 8 weeks preemie so they never got him home until he was older than Emily is now. He was FF (and I am right in thinking babies digest this slower?), oh and I just DONT care!!
She'll sleep through when she is ready, and until then, I'm happy to enjoy my snuggles and listen to the super cute BF noises she makes!!

 

[jms895]

Caine still does not sleep through the night ha ha

 

[becstar]

Let's see if we can find one BF mother of 5 weeks who's LO does

Ilana did, from 3 weeks! She stopped at 3 months though so take heart, everything is a phase with babies, good and bad!

 

[avabear73]

Finlay now goes about 5-6 hours, then another 3 hours, but his bedtime is a bit of a struggle at the moment as he seems to have turned into a nightowl. Changing that back is next week's project ...

People ask me all the time about his sleeping, it's like a weird obsession with folk.

to you

 

[vineyard]

I'm implementing a fairly strict feeding schedule--every 2.5-3 hours. By about 2 weeks the girls both fell nicely into this schedule. I refuse to cluster feed simply because I need to take care of me which means I need sleep. Plus, if I cluster fed twins, I'd be feeding around the clock. The girls sleep at night from feed to feed really well. The last couple nights they've gone 4 hours from 9 to 1 am which made me sing and dance! They are 5.5 weeks old. I'm hopeful that by 8 weeks I can get them to go 5 hours from feed to feed but we'll see. : )