7 week old sleeping patterns

[Sunrise44]

Hi

I have a 7 wo boy who is bottle fed and doing well. We have a bedtime routine for him (bath and feed around 6.30, usually asleep by 7.30) which he's been doing for a few weeks now. He usually wakes between 12 & 1am for a feed then around 4am. Recently he's been waking around 4am, taking a small amount of his bottle (few ozs) then not settling well at all after that, maybe for half an hour before he is awake and wants attention. I try to leave him for as long as possible and a few times he has managed to get himself back to sleep until about 7ish, which is great, but at the minute he's quite keen to be up about 5.30am; I'm less keen! I'm not convinced he's hungry at that time... does anyone have any suggestions? Around the same time as this has been happening he seems to be sleeping much more during the day. I mentioned this to his doctor at his 6 week check but she was not overly concerned, said he may be more tired as he's more alert now and so has lots more to process, hence needs the extra sleep. I also read that they can sleep more if going through a growth spurt but I don't think that's happening as he actually seems less fussed about feeding and isn't always finishing his bottles during the day either.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Susan :)

To be honest I think it just changes so much at that age, in a few weeks it'll all be different and then you have a new challenge. He's sleeping loads more at night than probably most babies at his age, so I think you should just try and go with the flow - go to bed early yourself and try and grab some sleep in the day if you can.

I found snuggling ds up in bed with me always got me a few more hours sleep in the mornings at that age! Unfortunately it stopped working at about 7 months and now he's up for the day at 6am latest.

Hi. Thanks for your advice. Happygilmore: a few friends have said the same thing about the routine changing so much at this age, so I think you're right about going with the flow :)

It really does, me and DH look back now on the things we worried about when DD was a smaller baby and can barely remember them, but they seemed a big deal at the time. There was a period when DD would only sleep after being rocked in her pram for hours - drove us mad - but now she would never even go for a nap in it. "This too shall pass" and all that..

My DD is 8 weeks old and is in a good sleep routine (fingers crossed it lasts). I'm sure she's dictating her own routine rather than anything we've done but we do last feed about 9.30, she's asleep by 10 and then sleeps through til 4. When we do middle of the night feed we keep the room fairly dark and she goes straight back to sleep til 7ish.

Haha, yes that's the thing they seem like a big deal at the minute. But already those first few weeks seem a long time ago... I think it's difficult because you hear SO MUCH conflicting information and the books talk about babies like they're machines and WILL follow this or that routine. It's our first baby (obviously!) and we live far away from family so sometimes you do feel a bit lost. But we're just going with it now and trying to keep the 4/5am feed as quiet and dark as the 1am feed and putting him back down, basically behaving like it's still the middle of the night despite him being ready to party! We're hoping the 4/5am waking will slowly move towards 6.30/7, at which point we can all party...

Thanks for the advice!
ps.what do DD and DH stand for?? I never know what the abbreviations mean on here... :)