BF 10 week old sleeping/eating pattern

[becs1973]

Hi everyone
OK, just need some reassurance I guess that this is normal, even though it's doing my head in and knackering me out!

DS2 is 10 weeks old now, fully bf and a big lad - was 9lb 7oz at birth and at 8 weeks was 14lb 5oz so I know he's getting enough milk.

But his sleeping pattern is depressing (I know, he's a baby!) and I just need some reassurance that it's normal, it's happening to other people and it will eventually get better. DS1 was an utterly appalling sleeper as a baby (though is now pretty good at 2.4 yrs) and I can't really remember his 'pattern' as such.

DS2 goes down about 7 or 8pm in the evening. He'll then wake around 10 or 11pm or sometimes nearer midnight just depends really but that's his long sleep period. He'll have a nice feed then and go back to sleep fairly easily usually. Then from his next wake up, around 2.5 hours after the previous one if i'm lucky, he just will hardly ever go back to sleep properly....he's up and down every 45mins to an hour, fussing about, on and off the boob etc etc till we 'wake up' around 7am.

Is this normal at 10 weeks old? I mean I guess he's just going back to his daytime feed pattern (which can be anything from 45 mins to 3 hours between feeds) after 2am or so. Is there any way I can get him to only go into this pattern a bit later in the night as it's kind of killing me?? We do co-sleep from that point on, but I'm a light sleeper and can't sleep through all the fussing!

OK, so just let me know it'll end eventually and it's all just his current phase :o

Hi becs,

Yes ime this is, as you suspect, normal. [hgrin] Ds has never had much pattern in anything but tthe nighttime you describe rings a bell!

All I can say is he does sleep better now (8m) but not through and I can't recall when this improved...I suspect it was gradual.

THiongs will improve annd theree will be blips like growth spurts and sleep regressions. YOuu sound like a wonderfull calm mum who though tired, will cope with all of this. Good work anbd stick at it!

argh!

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Thanks, i think i thought it was normal but was hoping someone would say 'no, you just need to do this and he'll sleep for 10 hours' ha ha ha!

thanks for the advice, will just keep on slogging through it then. And yeah, i probably do sound calm on here, but I'm not always this calm at 4am after 2.5 hours of broken sleep when I know DS1 is up in 3 hours time...sadly though, 'oh for goodness sake, go to bloody sleep' does not seem to have the desired effect :o

Hi becs,

same thing here. DD2 is 10 weeks as well and has pretty much the same sleeping pattern - long sleep between 7ish and 11ish, then anything between 2 and 4 hours until 6 when she is awake and demands attention. She was actually a better sleeper until a few weeks ago, doing 10-3-7; now I am lucky if she does 10-12-2-5!
DD1 is 26 months nd has been a brilliant sleeper since she was 7 months old - my hope is that her sister follows her steps - just five months to go!

becs this post could have been written about my DD (16 weeks) who since 12 weeks has had exactly the same sleeping pattern. I've been having to get up at 4.30/5 every day because she will not settle from 2/3 onwards. It is exhausting isn't it.

In desperation I've been experimenting with a formula feed in the evening. I was giving her this feed at 7pm to no effect but last night I gave her a bottle of FF as dream feed at 11 and she slept through fom 7pm to 2am which is a start. I imagine you could achieve the same with EBM.

My son started doing this at 4 wks- waking up every hr from 2ish . My lactation consultant /HV told me to "knock it on the head" as a baby of his size (9lbs) who's doing 3hrly feeds 7am-10pm doesnt "need" to feed every hr in the night.

To solve it I woke and fed him at 10pm, then put him back down and after that he got fed a min of 2.5hrs since last time. Otherwise I just resettled if he cried, and if he was just grumbling I just left him to resettle. He's now back to 2 night feeds at 1.30 and 4.30 and still stacking on weight so obviously didnt do him any harm. Also, the quality of the feeds he has have got better, so he takes a full feed and then settles quickly because he's properly full.

I know "on demand" is the thing ATM but I'm glad I got this sorted as I was getting really down and considering quitting bf.

Hi - sounds normal to me - just like I went thro with DS . I began to despair and think he would never sleep through- however he is now 14 months and generally sleeps 12 -13 hours straight through. So all I can say is hang on in there - there is light at the end of the tunnel

LOL fruitymum- not sure that's what the Op wants to hear- another year of hourly night feeds is a bloody long tunnel

believe it or not, DS2 is already better sleeper than DS1!! DS1 slept through once (at 11 months old) and then nothing again until past 18 months. To be honest, it wasn't so much the non-sleeping bit that did my head in with DS1 as the howling most of the night......at least DS2 only fusses rarely cries (at night, different matter come 5pm through to bedtime :-) would be lovely if DS2 could sleep 5 or 6 hours by 6 months old, funny how your idea of a good nights sleep changes utterly once you've had kids.....a whole 5 or 6 hours in a row, WOW

my DC2 was the same! He woke every 2.5 - 3 hours for a feed, but he just would not go back to sleep.

In the end the only way he settled and I got to sleep was if he came in bed with me. I simply would not have coped if I hadn't co-slept.