Confused new mum - advice please!!

[JimJammum]

DS is now 9 weeks. Exclusively BF except on formula at 10.30pm. Born 7lb 13, now 13lb 13 (so not at ll tiny!!!!) On EASY routine and was feeding every 3 hours, but only now feeds for 10-15 mins (apparently this is fine says HV). Sleeps for 30-45 mins in the day and 3 hours at a time at night. According to my books he should be going longer than that at night, so upped the feeds to every 2 1/2 hours to ensure getting enough in the day. HV now says that is too often.

Help! How can I get DS to go longer at night?

he;s only 9 weeks. three hours actually isn't that bad. babies don't always go 'by the book'!

Put the book down and step away slowly.
Your DS is telling you by himself that he is not a by the book baby, 3 hours through the night at 9 weeks is pretty good and very normal. Don't feed to a routine feed him when he wants to feed that is the way to have a happy baby not a one routine fits all book.
I have never ever tried to force mine into a routine and they have always ended up after a few months being great sleepers and eaters.

These books are just setting new mums up for failure because they stress about the routine not working rather than going with their baby who knows what they need themselves and enjoying them.

I agree, by all means read the books but don't live by them...9wks is still very little to expect much more than 3hrs in the night.

i got into bath, cuddle & feed before putting down my ds around 7ish - until recently that really worked for me ( teething now however -another story)

put the book away...i got it out last night and started reading it again...and laughed!

i just can't imagine saying half the things that she says to my ds!...

give it time, some babies sleep better at night than others, but then again, so do some adults, IYSWIM

I agree with everyone else. Take the good bits from the books that help you, and leave the rest. It sounds like he is doing just fine as it is.

I thought my ds should be sleeping better at about 11 weeks and started this whole big effort of setting an alarm to wake him up for a feed to try to get him to go longer in the night, just because I had a book that told me to. wtf was I thinking??? Just relax and enjoy it.

I do love Tracey Hogg, God rest her soul. But second time around I have put the book down. I read it in the first couple of weeks this time, whereas it was my bible last time.

I used the book as it was my support late at night/early in the morning, now I have MN to refer to and get good advice.

What do you think is the best course of action? Take it and stick to it as you will always know best.

To tell you the truth, I can't tell you how often I feed my DD2 (12 weeks), or for how long. I am doing on demand at the moment.

I did cluster feed in the evening but she has (just this last week) been going without cluster feeding in the evenings.

Good luck - I am only just seeing light at the end of the tunnel now - I promise it will pass!

I'm glad you mentioned you have no idea how long or how frequently you feed on demand Margo. I was the same. When asked I was errmmm dunno? You just get on with it.

Sounds like you are doing fine Jimjammum. Like an earlier post says, take the bits you like and work, and leave the rest.

Sounds like you're doing well. 3 hours is great at this age. Ignore the people who tell you that their babies are sleeping through the night at 2 days old. They're either very unusual or they're lying! Go with the flow - feed when he's hungry, sleep when he's tired. I think we all get too hung up on books these days, like there's a recipe for the perfect baby, and all we have to do is follow it. Their feeding and sleeping habits are all different. Get to know your baby as he is, not how the books say he probably should be!

You're doing great.

forgot to add...listen to people here, they tell it like it is, whereas in RL, i find mothers don't want to admit its not all peaches and cream...either that, or you zone out the bad bits they tell you and only remember them saying 'my baby slept thru the night at...' and you seem to think its from the day dot! if that makes sense

Best quote I read on this, which I offer to you and all new mums..... The baby hasn't read the book.

And another one, slightly adapted. If he/she is still alive at the end of the day, you've done your job just fine.
Best of luck. It all gets more interesting with every single day.

I too lived by TBW when I first brought DS home from hospital. We even set up a log that told us how much he'd eaten, how long it had taken, what time he went to sleep, how long for, what in his nappy and when, how long he played for (he was 2 weeks ffs). Also did the waking him up for a dream feed (HV laughed when I told her). Anyway after three or four weeks of stressing out on it, we decided to take a step back and let DS set his own routine for while. Which he did and it was a three hour routine, moving up to four hours as he got older. We also spent ages trying to id his different cries. Upshot is next time I probably won't even look at the book. Although it helped me organise myself in those first scary days my instincts seemed to serve me much better.

Be really happy with the 3 hours! It's honstly good for that age..once it stretches to the odd bit of 4 hours it makes all the difference. I used to function on 6 hours broken sleep..it's the broken that makes it so hard. Go back to your old routine..good luck! It gets easier, honest, just takes time.

i consider 3 hrs a good nights sleep! my 5 month old also never read the book, and he used to go 4 or 5 hrs, and now goes about 2 before waking.
i regret waking him for night feeds when i went to bed, cos now he automatically wakes up when i creep into the room. indeed, hes such a light sleeper im going nuts. am moving him to his own room come april, so will be worse or better....at least different!

Dunno if this is going to help anyone at all, and I didn't get it from a book (though it may well be in one) but...when DS was a newborn I never tried to put him to bed before about 11pm and sometimes, if I'd been out to see friends with him it would be even later. He started sleeping from around midnight till around 6.30 at three months - and then a couple of months later started waking in the night again as a hint to me that it was time to wean him...

When I look back at that book now, I realise that its totally designed for formula fed babies. And thats fine. But you are breastfeeding, so your baby will wake more frequently through the night because breast milk digests more quickly. But because the formula doesnt contain vital immunites, FF babies may wake up frequently in the night if they are ill, but until around 6 months, BF babies cant really get ill.I think the Baby WHisperer has some interesting points in it, and some pearls of wisdom.
BUT many points in there are wrong. Her nursing advice is really bad. TBH, I think she the book is thinly disguised anti-breastfeeding.
Why are you feeding a bottle of formula at 10:30pm? DonT worry about the baby not taking the bottle in the future. He will drink from a bottle no problem first time, even if you haver never used a bottle. My DD first had a bottle when I went out for a few hours when she was 4 months, and DH said she used it like a professional. Also, if you are giving formula to your baby, he will miss out on vital immunities that will stop him from getting sick. sorry to sound judgemental, but I feel "the books" cause us more worry than if we read nothing. My DD is 5 months and if I get 4 hours in a row, I consider it a good nights sleep.

I am a new mum too and getting less confused now - but having read that book religously and swearing to stick by it when I was pg I found that when dd came along 6 weeks ago I was completely STRESSED out about her not sticking to the EASY routine no matter what I did - I really don't think you can expect mch of a routine at all with a newborn.

Thanks to MN advice on various threads I decided just to go with the flow and put the book on the shelf for the time being - some good tips in there but don't stress if your LO doesn't want to co-operate entirely - LO has not read the book! We still keep an EASY log just so wwe can see how much our dd has eaten each day, keep track of no of dirty nappies etc but we don't stress if things do not exactly go in the strict EASY order.

It sounds like you are doing a fab job and I personally do not believe Tracey Hogg's claim that she can make all 8lb and over babies sleep right through the night from birth! The books just make you feel inadequate when real life does not match what they say should be happening!

Her book actually says, that sleeping through is dependent on temperament. She's been correct with both of mine. Mixed fed DD - spirited - slept through at 3 mths. b/f DS - touchy/textbook - slept through at 8 weeks (give or take the odd growth spurt)

I have a lot of friends who didn't try the bottle until 6 months + and had loads of problems getting their baby to take the bottle. It made a couple of them really quite down so I would continue giving the feed at 10:30 via the bottle.

agree with everyone who says ignore the book, it does stress you out compltely if you have a baby who doesnt read the book, and if they do go by the book, they would probably be "easy bays" anyway iyswim.....
if its not too flippant, (and i dont mean it to be) get as much rest as you can during the day, this stage wont last long, it just feels like it at the time

oops should have said easy babys'

these books are there to make new mums feel like failures, its how the authors make their huge amounts of money. 3hrs is pretty good for such a young baba, and it WILL get easier. i promise. trust your own instincts and youll be fine

jimjam - why don't you post this on a feeding thread ?

What you describe is normal behaviour for a bf baby.

Bf babies do fall into a pattern of sorts as they get older.

Your HV should be strung up for saying 2.5 hours is "too often". Babies have growth spurts and when a bf baby has a growth spurt they may feed every hour night and day. Mine did.

My personal view is ditch the books and the schedules. Babies don't understand baby guru books and they don't have a watch to tell them when they should be feeding.

Or you could express milk and feed breast milk in a bottle at night and then you have the healthy benefits of the breast milk.

I also thought you had to be so careful not to nacker your milk supply when you mix feed and I though demand feeding was the best way to go ?

Sunshiney, apparently breastfed babies take to a sippy cup better than a bottle. My DD is nearly 6 months, and has got the hang of a sippy cup already, so I will never need to use a bottle. Babies did exist a long time before bottles were invented, so bottles arent necessary <span class="italic">especially</span> if you are waiting until baby is 6 months old. If you need to be away from your baby before 6 months, then you will need to use a bottle, but the chances of them not taking it are very slim if my daughter is anything to go by. 4 months exclusively breastfed, then one night I went out and just left DH with a bottle (never even had a practice run) and she was fine, because of course if shes hungry or thirsty she`ll drink. IMO its not worth the hassle of messing your supply around by not breastfeeding baby, and then your baby missing out on the immunities too.
But thats just what worked for me.