Night time sleeping

[JennieRen22]

My baby is 14 weeks old. She had had a good bedtime routine for quite a while now (goes to bed at 7 and wakes around 7) she feeds once in the night between 2am-4am and has done this for a while. Now she’s a bit older ideally I would like her to sleep through. Is the feed a learnt habit and should I try to stop it? Because she’s done this for a while I can’t see when she will stop it.

She’s still very young and you’re getting an excellent amount of sleep so you may just have to count your blessings! That said, we did a dream feed when we went to bed at around 10-11pm and that eliminated the middle of the night wake up. You could try that and see how you get on? But I think you’re expecting too much of a 14 week old- a 12 hour block without a feed probably isn’t going to happen until they’re closer to 6 months.

Are you for real? 14weeks is tiny. Most babies are not sleeping so well at that age. It's totally normal for them to wake in the night for feeding. DD woke every 45minutes until he was 4 months then every 1.5-2 hours until around 8months. DD is much better, sleeping 11pm-8am from around 8 weeks until the 8month sleep regression. Unfortunately she never got her good sleep back and is waking frequently at 14months. But it's totally normal.

Hahahahaha! Ideally I would like my 15 month old to sleep through as well, he has a nice calm bedtime routine, goes straight to sleep and wakes up once or twice for comfort. 14 weeks is so young! It will happen and sounds like she already had a great routine so keep it up and I hope it happens quicker for you than it seems to be for me 🙈 (the hahaha didn't mean to sound awful I'm obviously 15 months into sleep deprivation so sorry if it did!)

She is biologically designed to wake. While some babies sleep through at this age most don't. Current safe sleep advice is to not do things to make them sleep deeper and longer as this actually increases the risk of SIDS. Your baby wakes because she is a healthy, normal baby whose parents responsive parenting at night is fostering healthy attachment and brain development x

No, it's not learned. She wakes because her body needs food and, as others have said. she is doing really well for such a young baby. Please don't try to drop the feed she will do it for herself when she is ready but before then you might notice she starts to wake more frequently as she hits a growth spurt.

. She’s a tiny baby and is only feeding once in twelve hours . Count yourself very very lucky. And please don’t try to stop that feed. She needs it. And will do for at least a few more months.

Both of mine didn’t sleep 12 hrs until they were 7-8mths, and they were on three solid meals a day.

At 14wks they had a feed at 7ish, went straight to sleep, we woke them at about 11pm for a dream feed and then they slept through until about 6.30-7am.

Don’t expect them to sleep 12hrs, they’re not built that way.

Thanks for all your advice. As you can probably tell I am a first time mum and all I hear at baby classes is how people’s babies are sleeping through 😩 she has slept 11 hours twice and just wondered if I was encouraging her feed during the night but doesn’t sound like I am.

You sound like you are being hard on yourself, she sounds like she's doing perfect! Although a full nights sleep would be amazing. Honestly don't listen to the mothers at baby group, they seem to like competition with each other! I'm surprised none of them are potty trained and walking by 14 weeks 😂

I wish my 14 week old would sleep that well, he usually wakes up 2 or 3 times a night. Some nights he’s woken every hour!

Can I just ask those who mentioned a dream feed did you find it worked straight away or did you have to persevere for a few nights?

For her age she is sleeping brilliantly and will most definitely be waking because she’s hungry and not out of habit. She needs a night feed and probably will for a while!