How to get the longest sleep later

[rollerbaby]

The last 2 days my baby has slept from 7 until midnight or 1am. (one of these might be due to calpol after jabs though!) My question is whether I should let him sleep til then or wake for an earlier dream feed as we have been doing before (and he was waking spontaneously). The reason being is that he is still waking at 3 or 4 and 5 or 6. Before he was waking at 2 or 3 and 4 or 5. So will it make a difference if we leave him or wake him I wonder?

He is breast fed and roughly going every 3 hours at the moment, sometimes more, sometimes less (although we are seemingly more successful at spacing these out in the last few days).

I'm 8 weeks in and so knackered, just want to try and cut down the 2nd feed at night!

Any ideas?

Mine was sleeping 7pm-3am, then waking at 5am and 7am - I wanted to move the longest sleep later so started doing a dreamfeed at 10.30/11ish.

He still woke at 3am though And then when I decided to drop the dreamfeed and go back to letting him sleep 7-3, he started waking for a feed at 11 anyway! So basically all I achieved was adding in an extra night feed.

I would go with it - go to bed with the baby and you will get a lot of sleep in. The baby will very quickly start extending his/her nights (within a couple of weeks or so) so you will only have a few weeks of early nights. You are almost there!

Thanks so much ladies. It's hard to keep perspective when you're so shattered! Dreamingoffour do you mean don't bother with 11pm feed and let him sleep until he wakes?

I wish I got the longest sleep last too, but after a little bit of experimenting, I don't personally think it's down to feeding, with mine at any rate. I've also had no success with dream feeding.

My DS (6 months) tends to get a longish (4-6 hours) deep sleep in to start with, then wakes at 2-3 hour intervals after that. So nights can go 8pm-1 am sleep, 3 am, 5/6 am waking... I would love him to get a second longer stint in, but I have the impression that 1st longest sleep is fuelled by a huge tiredness at the end of the day. He's just less sleepy later because he's not as knackered, and sleeps more lightly. Dammit.

That's my theory, anyway. As I've had no luck changing his sleep patterns, I've just had to change mine, and make sure I share a lot of his first long sleep with an early night.

My DS is exactly like gloyw's (though we've just come out of the 4-month sleep regression so I'm a bit wary of saying there's a definite pattern yet). He always has slept longest after being put down for the evening, ever since he was about 4 weeks old: he's currently going from 7 to 12 or 1, then waking again at 4-ish and up for the day at 6-ish. I try to be in bed by 9.30 to take advantage of the first long sleep, but it's hard - really wish he'd feed at 10 and have a long sleep after that!