11 week old sleep, comparisons please

[Firstpregnancy2014]

I definitely don't think my baby Is a bad sleeper I just worry that he isn't particularly in a bed time routine
He is fed at 7pm, then he is fed again at 10.30 pm, put down for 11pm and wakes up every morning between 8.30am-9am.

I worry that other parents tell me how their little ones go to bed at 7?! Should I be trying to get him to sleep from his 7pm feed and then dream feed at 10.30?he is wide awake untill about 10pm usually so I don't think he would settle earlier

[Mamab33]

If it works for you both and allows you to sleep overnight then you are doing really well. If you try to impose a new 7pm bedtime now you risk upsetting the pattern. Do you want to get him to sleep at 7 and have him up at 4am for the day? It may be an idea to start gradually making bedtime a little earlier as he grows. HTH

[buddy79]

Hiya, just for comparison my 11 week old is not in any sort of bedtime routine yet atall!! He tends to cluster feed through the evening so I don't even try to put him to bed until this finishes usually around 11pm, then usually wakes for a feed around 3/4 am, sometimes a second feed around 5.30am, and then wakes for the day at around 7. Speaking to my nct group this seems fairly normal and ok, from other friends with older babies and reading on here I am hoping that he will just naturally start getting sleepy earlier. I don't know anyone whose baby this young really goes and stays in bed at 7pm!! Like you say there doesn't seem much point trying to get him to sleep earlier just yet as it is very unlikely he would settle and would probably be more stressful than just going with the flow! We do have a bedtime 'routine' of bath etc but this is just to start the habit - he doesn't actually go to bed until long after this! What you are doing sounds absolutely fine to me!!

[nutmegandginger]

Agree with previous posters. Your arrangement is excellent as it lets you get a full night sleep. My DD has been on a similar pattern to yours since about 10 weeks (except she wakes at 7.30 so I'm jealous ). We recently tried putting her down at 9 and the result was she slept till 4.30 so not so good! Now back on the 11pm regime for the moment.

[fatpony]

At that age mine was in bed 8/8.30, woke for a feed 3-4amish and then up for the day 6/7am. That's now a thing of the past (18 weeks) and in regression with 3-4 wake ups a night. He now goes down 7.30. But he needs it and has had an early bedtime since 6 weeks. He would get so grumpy in the evening. Your little one sounds great but if you do want an earlier bedtime you could move it back 15 mins every 5 nights or so.

[LondonJen]

I had very much the same situation with DD from 8 weeks though sometimes she woke a bit earlier. She's now 18 weeks and in the last 3-4 weeks she's gone to bed earlier more like 9.15pm. I started to notice she was sleeping longer in the hours before 11pm and I was having to wake her up for 11pm feed rather than her napping but then waking herself then iyswim. She dropped a feed shortly after. So now her last feed is approx 8pm and she goes to bed once tired. I am hopeful she will do similar again in future. Please sleep gods!

[Gennz]

Wow, 11 - 8.30 sounds amazing.

DS is 11.5 weeks and goes down reliably at 7 - 7.30. I breastfeed but he gets one bottle of formula with DH at 7.15 ish. Bedtime routine is breastfeed about 6, kick on playmat with nappy off, bath, massage, bottle, bed. He usually goes down pretty easily now we have this routine established.

How long he sleeps for after that depends on how well he has napped during the day (which has a knock on effect on how much of his bottle he has). If he's napped well during the day he'll finish a 200ml bottle and will sleep til 2.30 - 3, breastfeed & go back to sleep til 6 - 7am.

If he's overtired & hasn't napped well, he'll fall asleep after only about 100ml - 120ml, wake between 12.30 - 1.30 to be fed, then again at 4/4.30, then often won't resettle very well and we'll be up again feeding between 6.30 - 7.

Needless to say I am currently very focussed on sorting out the day time sleep. Regardless of how the naps during the day go I'm finding a catnap between 5 - 6pm tends to help him have enough energy to get through the bedtime routine.

[Gennz]

Before we introduce the formula bottle at 7pm (about 2 weeks ago) I was feeding hourly from about 3 - 4pm, big bottle of expressed breast milk at 7, (similar bedtime routine, but it would take about an hour to settle him, as opposed to him going to sleep almost immediately as he does now) then dreamfeed at 10.30/11, then feeding at 1/2am and 4amish. I was pretty shattered.

I am not pushing formula feeding, and am happy that we are mainly breastfeeding, but that FF bottle has made life a lot more manageable!