9-week-old sleeping through the night

[TheBerry]

My 9-week-old has started sleeping long stretches at night. Instead of sleeping too I'm lying here worrying! I've been advised generally just to leave him, but is it really ok to let him go maybe 10 hours without feeding??

I wouldn't be so worried if he was a heavy baby, but he's only on about the 30th centile (71st at birth). All the medical professionals I've seen have said his weight gain is fine, he's thriving, he's following his own curve, but I just don't really believe it - he doesn't feed particularly well in my opinion and I don't believe he's getting enough. However, I have been known to prognosticate on the bleak side and be generally anxious.

He just had a frenulotomy today.

I hesitated over whether to post as the last thing I want to do is worry you any more, but if weight gain is slow maybe get baby checked over at hospital for peace of mind?
My baby girl wasn't interested in feeding and it took her a month to get back to birth weight. Our HV suggested having her checked over at hospital and they found a hole in her heart which was making her too tired to feed.
It's very very unlikely to be something serious like this, but I'm so grateful to that HV who suggested I get my girl checked at hospital

@theberry my DD was initially jaundiced and lost more than 10% of her birth weight in the first week, and they almost took us back in then. We had her tongue tie snipped and the health visitor said everything was improving for several weeks - it was only week 7 or 8 I think that she suddenly said she wasn't happy with DDs weight. I think I was lulled into a false sense of security for those few weeks because this came as a shock; I remember being devastated that what I took for "a good sleeper" was a baby weak from not getting enough food.

@TheBerry I can also be anxious, and I think generally I fear the worst. However I told myself that if I had to choose between being pushy and being considered paranoid because it turns out nothing is wrong, or ignoring my instincts and then something IS wrong, I'd pick the former every time.

If you push for your baby to be checked out, it's win-win - you'll either have true peace of mind that everything is fine, or you'll have a diagnosis and treatment

I'm going to follow up with the health visitor at his weigh on Tuesday. I wouldn't be surprised if he's under the 25th centile by then anyway, so she might start thinking something's wrong herself.

@RedPandaFluff my boy actually exceeded his birth weight 6 days postpartum 🤷🏻‍♀️ but then his weight gain slowed and he's listed from the 71st centile to a bit above the 25th. I hate to think that he's weak from lack of food - he still cries and screams some during the day, and does have his smiley moments too, and seems alert (??), so I hope he's fine. Hope all's well with your girl now?

My second and third babies slept through the night very quickly. They were large babies though who would drink a lot of oz formula almost right away. While in the maternity ward they would have a bottle at 11pm and sleep through till 7 am , some midwives used to insist that I wake them during the night to feed but even when I tried to dream feed they wouldn't drink or wake . My phn said it was ok as they were larger babies. However my sister had my niece she was very low birthweight and had difficulty feeding due to tongue tie and the same phn recommended that she didn't leave her sleep for very long stretches of time without being fed

My first slept through at six weeks. Forty years later he still sleeps like a log his wife tells me. But he never lost weight. I'd get him checked out personally

@justasking111 well he hasn't lost weight at all, just slow to gain i.e. he's not really following the standard centiles.

Not sure what's right or wrong but we have an 8wo born at 3.7kg. Dropped 6% at first weigh in which was all good, but then static at 5 days and followed by slow weight gain and a 1.5 percentile drop by 5-6wks. He's fed consistently every 2-3 hours excluding cluster feeding.

We've had the opposite experience, HV, midwife and Dr have been really pushy and we're now supplementing up to 6 BF per day with 2oz formula. Reflux was also suspected as he was bringing up after feeds, so he's also on Gaviscon. Have another mum in our NCT group with a similar situation whos also being encouraged to supplement formula

My DD didn't feed well in the day and was trying to sleep long stretches at night. People advised me to just let sleeping babies sleep. I didn't listen as I knew feeding/weight gain was an issue so I woke every 3 hours for a breastfeed. She tended to feed while sleepy so it was no issue for her , no disrupted sleep (except for me) and then she started gaining lots of weight. Some babies genuinely do need a bit of help to thrive

Let us know what happens on Tuesday, @TheBerry - maybe it's as @NewJobGoingCrazy says and your baby just needs a little bit of help to thrive.

My DD is absolutely fine now, thank goodness. I think I'm still a bit traumatised though

Mine would sleep 7-6 from eight weeks. Unreal. I used to do a dream feed at 10pm and he’d go through. No concerns about his weight. It was so lucky.

Both my kids did/do this as newborns. I worried about it with my first but really I should have just enjoyed it while it lasted. I never woke either of them to feed and they are/were fine. As others have said as long as he isn't losing weight and is well then there's no reason to wake a sleeping baby.