Establishing a routine for sleeping through the night

[Meandacat]

Apologies if this is the millionth time this has been asked, but I'd be hugely interested to read about how and when other mumsnetters started getting their kids to sleep through the night. DD is currently 6 1/2 weeks and from what I can tell, I should be able to start encouraging a longer sleep through the night from about now. I'm not expecting miracles, but if we could get a 5-6 hour stretch from about midnight onwards I'd be very pleased.

Our current routine: 4oz every 6 hours at 5, 9 and 1am/pm. (Yes, I bottlefeed. Did try to BF but it sadly didn't work out). Sleeping patterns between each feed are erratic. She either sleeps 2-3 hours easily or totally fights it and stays awake pretty much till the next feed...and is very bad-tempered throughout as a result. But she's not bad once she does go down in the evening (so long as she's not slept too much around teatime/early evening) and is showing signs that she might go longer than 4 hours between feeds if we can get it right. So I'm just looking to learn from others' experience.

Things I'm keen to know how folks tackled:

• transition from moses basket to crib/cot
• what your bedtime routine is and what age you started it at
• When the last feed is - esp. do you give on big feed last thing at night, or a bigger feed earlier in the evening and then a top up?
• how you avoid waking baby up fully at last nightime feed (which is what happened when we tried an 11.30pm feed instead of 1am last night )
• how much do you let your baby sleep in the run up to bedtime.

The only thing I'd like to add is that I'm a bit flummoxed at other mums' assertions that it all gets easier around 6-7 weeks. She is so bad-tempered when awake that we feel we must be doing something wrong. I rarely get her to sit happily for more than 15 minutes before she starts to fuss and cry. But I suppose that's another issue...

I think you are right to aim for a main block of sleep at the same time as yours. This way: 1. you get more uninterrupted sleep

1. you can gradually cut out the evening feeds when she no longer needs them and bring her bedtime forwards.

I did this, and in the evenings each of my 3DC would nap for a bit, cuddle, kick on the mat, go in the sling if grizzly (depends on how much sleep they need what they do with this time), but always downstairs with us until they and I were ready for the last feed and bed.

No advice on sleep routine - a 4 hour block sounds normal at that age.

But the 6-7 week thing - friends of mine said that too, and I found it total bollocks. It's when they start smiling, I think, which is why my friends said it got easier; there was some return, you know? But the unsettled/crying/colicky behaviour actually peaks around 7-8 weeks and doesn't disappear until 12 weeks (generally - some babies persist).

Anecdotally, 7 weeks was when I hit the pits of despair, and several friends have had the same experience. My daughter would scream for 2-3 hours every bedtime at that age, nothing we did made a difference. But it started easing off a little around 8 weeks, and by 12 weeks was completely gone.

Hope that helps. Hang in there - this is the hardest bit.

At six weeks my DS was a bit grumpy, and I eventually worked out it was because he wasn't napping frequently/long enough because as he got older he didn't just fall asleep on the breast. I started going for a walk when he looked sleepy and he would then have 2/3 mammoth 1-3 hour naps and is now a happy chirpy little baby

From my DS and other mums, I think a lot of babies will naturally have their best sleep when they first go to sleep, then much more broken through the night. Some babies take well to being woken at 11ish and then move their long sleep to start then, some like my DS just get grumpy because their sleep was disturbed and wake at 1am anyway!

Unfortunately I have no idea how to get DS to do this as a dreamfeed (asleep, slightly awake, fully awake, bf or ebm) doesn't seem to work, so will be watching this thread with interest

We swaddled and this seemed to help the transition between various types of moses baskets/cot/travel cot as the swaddling was the consistent thing.

In terms of sleeping, at back 3 weeks old we started a rough routine. We let her have a sleep around 4 30 ish for around 30/45 IIRC. Would then be playing/bath etc. Bottle of expressed bm around 7ish and to bed by 7 30. Took a a week or so of us taking turns in the dark in her bedroom walking up and down to settle her and make her realise that it was night/bedtime. Basically boring her to sleep - but we never let her cry on her own. After that she got a lot better. Good blinds helpful. Would then do another feed around 1030/11 - light v dim etc. This took a long time to begin with as she would take a while to go back to sleep, however she got better at this. We were lucky in that from birth she would do at least 4/5 hours at night and she just gradually slept longer and longer after the 1030pm feed (i.e woke at 3 30ish as a newborn and then 345 etc.Think it was around 10 weeks that she was going 11pm to 6am. Some of this was planning - some of it was luck I guess.

Agree with GetThePartyStarted about them sleeping best when they first go to bed - our dd's longest block was always between about 8pm and 1am, then she'd wake up a couple more times between then and getting up. It would be nice to succeed at getting them to do the long stretch after midnight but we tried all sorts of things - late dreamfeeds etc - and none of it worked, so we just went with her natural pattern in the end. Did controlled whingeing at 9 months and she's slept through since then. TBH we considered 6/7 weeks to be too young in terms of worrying about getting longer stretches of sleep, but all babies are different!

So glad to already have a couple of responses about the 6-7 week thing not suddenly turning into a walk in the park and that a dream feed is not always the answer! (Tracie Hogg book has already been relegated to back of shelf).

For me, the first 9 weeks were the worst (9 weeks was when I was in the pits of despair), and it really significantly improved after 13 weeks.

At that age, babies often have their longest block of sleep at the start of the night, then may sleep for shorter periods of time as the night goes on.

It sounds as if you're waking her for feeds. If you are, you may be messing with her ability to get to sleep / stay asleep as her natural sleep cycles are being interrupted. She will wake up when she needs to feed. Lots of people find they do a 'dream feed' last thing at night but abandoning it doesn't mean that their babies wake any sooner. Anecdotally, my DS has slept for longer at night than a whole group of my friends' babies - I've never woken him for feeds, but they all woke/semi woke their DCs for the last feed of the night. (And in general, he's not a great sleeper either, so it's not just that he's 'easier' IYSWIM.)

Our last feed of the night was 8pm from about 6 weeks (that was when DS decided it was nightime - not my choice!). Now we've gradually brought that forward to 6.30 / 7pm as he's easier to settle.

I've always let DS take just as much food as he wants, but he's breastfed.

Our bedtime 'routine' was originally just feeding him in a darkened room as he was always too exhausted from the day to cope with being awake for long enough to do anything else. I did that from around 5-6 weeks.

How much to let them sleep before bedtime depends on the baby / day. DS used to refuse to go to bed unless he had had a nap until about 20 mins before bedtime. Now I tend not to let him nap later than 5pm before a 7pm bedtime. Bear in mind that babies this age can only stay awake 1 - 2 hours at a time before becoming overtired (and when overtired they find it harder to go to sleep & harder to go to sleep).

You may find some useful threads on the Sleep board here.

Hi

My dd is 9 weeks and has just started sleeping a longer stretch at night from 11pm to 5.30am. The first 6 weeks were a nightmare for me too and I was so depressed and low about my dd's crying I even went to the docs!

I'm not sure it was anything we did she just gained weight. We did see a cranial osteopath for 3 sessions and this definitely chilled her out, but it could be her naturally finding her own rhythm and getting older. In the day I feed every 2.5 to 3 hrs approx 5oz. At night we have done the same routine since 2 weeks, bath at 7.30pm, feed at 8pm, in bed by 8.30pm. Sometimes we have to help her settle with shush and patt she has only in the last week started self soothing better.

I think she has started to sleep better because I also recognise her cues more I know when she is tired, hungry or just plain bored, her cries do sound different, so I respond better.

With regards letting her sleep in the day, sometimes she sleeps loads as we might go out for the day in the car or for a long walk other times she is at home awake and playing I find this has little influence on her night sleeping. The main thing is she knows bath time means bottle and bed!!

We do a 'dreamfeed' but often she only takes 3 oz, I do it from habit and will probably drop it when I start her more on solids at 4 months.
I am not an advocate of a strict routine, I did at the advise of someone on here keep a diary of my dd's eat, awake and sleep time to help form a routine, but it just help guide me. I am NOT however a fan of demand led feeding and think it is a nonsense and totally impractical for any working mother or for that matter anyone who wants there own life and some sanity.
Good luck.