8 week old sleep

[Cric]

Out of interest what time does your 8 week old go to bed at night?? I read some bits that talk about sleep routines from 6 weeks and other bits that say 3 months. Just interested to hear others experiences. Thanks :)

[Volleyfeet]

My 8 week old has no routine!! She is colicky and tends to cry from 7.30 to 10 every night regardless of what we do. Have tried bringing bedtime earlier to miss the crucial time but didn't work so we are just going with it and hoping she improves with age. We do a bath with music playing and a feed with the lights dimmed prior to the crying and then cuddle her/ put her in a sling until she falls asleep at 10. Hoping to try and get a routine sorted when the colic starts to improve.

Out of interest how much does your baby sleep in the daytime? Mine seems to sleep at the drop of a hat but then wakes repeatedly overnight! Any ideas how I can change this around!!

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

Mine would have a bath amd a bottle at half six, swaddled and down into the moses basket at seven in the lounge til 10.30/11pm. We woke her, changed bum and gave a bottle then she was reswaddled and into thebaslet in the bedroom. She would wake us at 3 or 4 for another feed.

DH would then get her up at seven, change bum and feed, and have half hour play before he left for work and then reswaddle her and bring her back into the bedroom and she would go back down til nine, when we would both wake together.

[TheScience]

I have an 8 week old and a 3yo. After DS1 goes to bed at about 7.30pm, DS2 has a bath, a play on the floor, feed about 8pm and into bed for about 8.30pm.

He has another feed when I go to bed at 11pm and then again at 2am and every 2 hours after that!

During the day we're up at 8am, he has his first nap at 9am for 30-45mins, a long nap between 11am-1.30ish, and another couple of short naps at about 3pm and 5pm. And feeds about every 2 hours.

[Cric]

Thanks for your replies! all of my friends little ones are older and they can never remember :) volleyfeet my DD doesn't really have a day routine but tends to have a big sleep in the afternoon or cat naps throughout the day. She tends to be very awake in the evening and wants lots of bouncing!! We have been using infacol which had stopped the hours of screaming and she is just fussy in the evenings ATM. She goes to sleep between 10 and 11 and then sleeps really well waking between 4 and 7 for a feed and the waking for the day at about 8ish. My worry is that she isn't going down early enough but I don't know when the 'average' baby starts sleeping from 7ish!! Thanks for all the replies!! P.s I ask these questions knowing it will all change!!

[Volleyfeet]

Just been working it out that my DD has slept for about 8 hours today! Not in stretches longer than 2 hours (as I try to make sure she feeds 3hourly at least to try and reduce her night wakings!)

If her usual pattern is anything to go by she will now be awake and cry on/off until 10 interspersed with fitful sleeping but will wake and cry if we try to put her in Moses. Then has been fed between 11 and 12 by DH, wakes about 1.30, 3ish and then hourly until morning!

Really need her to sleep her stretches at night not day. Doing the keeping room dark, not interacting, making a big deal of waking up (at 6am!!) with lights on and talking/ changing clothes but doesn't seem to be helping. Do they just 'get it' at some point or do I need to do something to help her?

Sorry for high jacking your thread!! Been meaning to post this for a couple of days when awake at 3am!

[Cric]

Oh don't be sorry! This is exactly why I posted it because I wanted to reassure myself that all babies are different and we are normal because of that (if that makes sense!!). In the first few weeks she was awake for hours at a time (2 until 5 most nights) and that just suddenly stopped. Have you tried infacol??

[Daveface]

My was about 11 weeks when we put her upstairs for bed after a bath around 7pm if that helps!

[Cric]

Daveface was your DC sleeping from 7 downstairs before that?

[TheScience]

I don't think the early 7pm bedtime comes til later, when they go from 4 to 3 naps a day. Actually my DS1 went to bed at 8-9pm until he dropped his afternoon nap completely, so didn't start doing 7-7 until he was 3.

DS2 can generally only stay awake for about 90 minutes at the moment, maybe 2 hours in the evening, so I try to wake him from his last nap by about 6-6.30pm for bedtime around 8-8.30pm.

[beccajoh]

DD (21 months) didn't go to bed until about 9/10pm at that age. DS (14 weeks) has wanted to go bed around 6.30-7pm since the day he was born. At 8 weeks he was having about eight hours of naps per day, although was a particularly sleepy newborn. He was awake just about long enough for a feed and nappy change.

[Cric]

It sounds silly but I worry that I am getting her into bad habits but I know that is very silly!!

[Cric]

It sounds silly but I worry that I am getting her into bad habits but I know that is very silly!!

[TheScience]

Forget about habits - just do what works now, and if it stops working then do something different.

[beccajoh]

Google fourth trimester. When you look at newborns from this POV what they do or don't do suddenly makes much more sense.

[Cric]

An interesting google search! Thanks :)

[gutted2014]

DS3 was 10 weeks old yesterday. He usually goes to sleep downstairs (in his pram) sometime around 8/9, after his big brothers have gone to bed. We then wake him around 11/11.30 with a nappy change, then upstairs, feed in bed, moses basket. He'll then sleep for anywhere from 3.5 hours to 7 hours, when he wakes for another feed.

If he finishes that feed before 5am, he'll go back to sleep until we have to get up for school run, so 8am latest. However, if he doesn't finish the feed until 5am or later, he won't go back to sleep, as it is too light so he thinks it's playtime . He will lay happily in his basket for half an hour or so, then propped up on my knees (iyswim) for up to another hour. He usually only wakes that once in the night.

In the day, he usually has a 3-4 hour nap from around 9/10, then again from around 3.

He had his first jabs on Wednesday (late because our GP surgery is very disorganised ) and that has meant he's been a bit grizzly the past couple of evenings & not slept for as big a chunk at first, but then he's still been OK at night.

[Littlebean13]

Ds is 9 weeks today. He doesn't really have much of a routine through the day. He doesn't seem to nap for long stretches, he has little 20min cat naps through the day, but on the odd day, like when we are out and he's in the pram, he can have two hour naps. He normally goes down to sleep anything between 8.30 & 10.30 then he wakes for a feed at around 2. He always goes back down straight away and seems to sleep for exactly three hours then wakes again around 5 for another feed and he is an absolute nightmare to settle on his second feed. He never ever goes back down without a fight. He can stay awake then from anything up to two hours. It's really frustrating I dread his second feed! Roll on sleeping through the night!

[Cric]

We have jabs next week :/ eeeek!!

[Cric]

Bless you little bean! DD tends to go back down well but I always struggle!!!

[PterodactylTeaParty]

Mine is a night owl. We put her down when she goes to sleep for the night, but that's not usually until 11pm to midnight. On a good night she's awake around 3/4-ish for a feed, then awake again around 7-8 - sometimes she'll throw in a feed around 1/2 as well.

I sort of envy the people in my NCT group with babies who go down at 8 every night like clockwork, or will go down while awake and fall asleep in their cot by themselves, or don't have a regular hours-long evening screamy fit... but, mine is who she is. So for now I'm rolling with her own patterns and hoping she'll fall into an earlier bedtime in the next month or so. Few months, maybe. mumbles fervent prayers

[blueberrypudding]

My DD (8 weeks tomorrow) is the most random sleeper ever (I've posted about her here before).

She used to never nap except in arms. We've now got her napping in her moses basket but only if she's completely asleep before we put her down (i.e. limp arms). She can then nap for anything between ten minutes and two hours - we do keep trying to put her down again though.

Night time is better in some ways, worse in others. We try and put her down at 8 with a bedtime routine (wash, change, feed, dark room) but she never goes down properly till about 10, when she usually does a big feed and then nods off while being burped. So we find that between 7 and 10 we're constantly trying to put her to bed (getting up, putting down). It's exhausting, frankly. I'm starting to think we'd be better off just accepting that 7 onwards is her happy hour and start doing the bedtime routine closer to 10.

She then wakes every two/three hours for a feed. When is STTN going to happen?

Jabs on Friday - hope it doesn't disrupt her sleeping pattern too much! At least it'll be the weekend though, and DH will be around to help settle her.

[Charingcrossbun]

My DS is 8 weeks old and we (as in DP and I) are in a routine DS is yet to cotton on :) We bath him before 1900 put him in his sleeping bag then feed. We then attempt to get him to sleep in the lounge with us until we go to bed 2200ish. He is a very colicky baby but is getting better and now whilst he probably spends more time in the evening in our arms/the sling than his bed the uncontrollable crying has reduced. He then goes in the Moses basket when we go to bed (if he is awake I'll feed him then) and then he is up 0100. 0400, 0600 ish. After the 0600 feed he won't go back to the Moses basket so we have him in with us. No doubt the books would tell me this is awful (I can hear my mother out law in my head with phrases such as rod for your own back ruining him) but cuddles time with a newbie us precious plus if means DP gets some time in the day when he is not being screamed at - he comes home in the middle of witching hour(s).

[mrsmugoo]

DS is 10 weeks but we started a bedtime routine 2 weeks ago and it's great. We do bath at 7 then massage, pjs, grobag, long BF (it's the only time he takes both boobs) then cuddle to sleep. We co-sleep so I just place him down on my side of the bed. He's always down by 8-8:30. I join him at 9:30.

He'll wake for a feed after 3-4 hours sleep and I feed lying down. Another lying down feed 2 hours later. Then hourly til about 6:30 by which point I usually sit up, change him and give him the other boob.

He's not been sleeping great the last couple of nights as he's got trapped gut wind - I have to massage his tummy and bicycle bus legs to help him squeeze them out.

In the day he's murder to get down for a nap - it's either moving pram/car seat or occasionally I can feed him to sleep in my arms and he'll stay asleep about 45 mins.

He's a million miles away from self soothing!