Tips on sleeping through the night?

[metalmummy696]

Hello! My little girl is 9 weeks old and still waking up for 3 feeds in the night! I'm going back to work next week so I'm desperate for her to sleep through! Has anybody got any tips? We've got a bedtime routine established, bath,massage, pj's, bottle, a few cuddles and then bed, she's going down to sleep really we'll, she's just still waking up for a feed for comfort I think?:/

Crickey. Do you mean 9 months? If not I can imagine how stressful it must be going back to work but am afraid very few babies sleep through at that age. My friend used to joke about the "magic stone" - as she reckoned before they hit that weight they just didn't have the reserves to sleep for such long periods. DC1 slept through 730-7am from 12 weeks but he was a big baby. DC2 was about 4.5 months and was very hit or miss until after 6 months. Do you have anyone who could share the night feeds with you if you are FF? Or can you feed lying down if BF?

Nope! 9 weeks! I'm single mum so I need to go to work to support my little girl, I'm ff so there's no way of lying down and feeding:-(

Oh, poor you. I found the tiredness the worst and would never have coped going back to work while their sleep was so terrible. Nothing to say but good luck! And don't be tempted to drop daytime naps. Both mine slept way better at night if slept during the day.

I'm sorry you're having to do all this alone, and return to work so early, but in all honesty, it's completely normal for a baby to wake 3x per night at 9 weeks. DS was still waking every 45 mins then and dd maybe every 1.5-2 hours.

It's very likely she's waking simply because she's hungry. It would be very unusual for her to not need food overnight yet. She'll get there in time, but remember that 80% of babies don't sleep through at a year.

It's hard going to work on little sleep (I went back when dd was 9m and she was still waking twice on average), some nights I've only had 2-3 hours sleep. Caffeine is your friend.

All the very best. Your baby is lucky to have such a hard working mum.

What we did was Kept the room dark, no eye contact, noise or tv on after 7pm. But I think good sleepers are born good sleepers not made.

:( Feel for you, but agree with other posters. I doubt any 9 week old baby sleeps through! They're hungry. It's not for comfort particularly i don't think at 9 weeks. Mine slept through by about 12 weeks (11-7) but still needed the dream feed at 11ish. That didn't stop til she was about 16 weeks.

Do you definitely have to go back to work? Do you not get mat pay? What about child tax credits etc?

OP! 9 weeks is tiny tiny! Your DC most likely won't be sleeping through for months. Sorrryyyy!!!! Mine is 5 months and still up 3 times a night. I'm not really expecting anything else...can you get tax credits or something to delay your return to work? Who will have the baby when you're working??

Sorry you're having to return to work so early. It is unlikely that there is anything at all you can do now that will make your baby sleep through, she still needs to feed during the night and may well do for months to come. My DS is six months and wakes three times for food (thou breastfed), I am returning to work soon so having to think about this!

If you can resign yourself to the likelihood of being up 2-3 times then I would focus on having things in place to go to bed as early as possible yourself (eg do some batch cooking at the weekend so you only have to heat food up) and try not to use your phone during night wakings (I find it harder to drift off again if I play with my phone).

dd slept through at 5½ months and ds at 8 months so it is unrealistic to expect a 9 week old to sleep through any time soon

Bottle fed babies do tend to stop feeding at night earlier than BF babies though OP, so there's every chance your LO will stop feeding in the night around the 3-4 month mark.

A quick straw poll of my FFing mummy friends shows this is about average. Although there's always an exception: one friends little girl is still having 2 bottles in the night at 11mo.

I would say hang in there for a few more weeks and she will likely drop the night bottles (or most of them) in the next couple of months.

I think what helped my DS drop his night bottles was:

• offering him lots of milk during the day! Would offer a feed every 3 hours during the day at least. And feed on demand during the day, don't try to stick to a set schedule - every time she is hungry stick a bottle in!

• weight: agree with the poster above who said that they need to get to a certain weight/size before they can go long without a bottle. So you just have to ride it out.

• around 10 weeks my DS started doing a good block of sleep from around 8pm - 2am. After 2am he would wake up a few times and be quite unsettled and windy. So I would go to bed at 8pm as well and make sure I got a few good hours sleep before the fun and games began. Could you do this too?

• around 12 weeks we started offering a dream feed at 10.30pm....so baby would have bottle at 7.30 and in to bed for 8. If we left him alone he would wake up for a bottle around 1am or 2am. If we crept in and gave him a bottle in the dark at 10.30pm (lift out of crib, bottle in, gentle wind, put him back down without really waking) he would then sleep from 11pm until 4am which was better than nothing!

Someone once told me that if you can get a 4 hour stretch of sleep somewhere in 24 hours you will feel much less hideous!

Lastly please don't panic your baby won't be like this forever! There's a lot of talk on MN about how it's very common for babies to wake several times per night until a year or older (which is not what you wanna hear right now!)...I can honestly say this hasn't been my experience nor that of most of my friends. The first 3-4 months are chaos but then it rapidly improves.

Hang in there: the worst bit is almost over!

Ps th

Ps that's not to say lots of babies don't wake at night for much longer than my DS did....I just wanted to provide you with an alternative view/experience which you might find more heartening!

from my earlier post:

dd slept through at 5½ months and ds at 8 months so it is unrealistic to expect a 9 week old to sleep through any time soon

Both mine were formula fed btw

3 times a night is really good, I was up every hour at that point

I'm up hourly with my 7 week dd, only three wakes would be amazing! Can you do everything possible to keep the wakes as short as possible? No eye contact, nappy changes only if really necessary, etc?

OK being a bit controversial, but DD was FF and started sleeping through (ish) at 9 weeks. I totally accept that we were incredibly lucky, so it may not work for you.

What worked for us was, as has already been said, feed her up during the day! Offer lots of milk and maybe introduce a dream feed at, say, 11pm - perhaps when you go to bed yourself. Just lift her, give her the bottle, then settle her back down. DD didn't need winding afterwards because she was already so relaxed.

That said there were plenty of nights where she woke (and still does now, aged 1) but we definitely got about 7-8 hours out of her with this plan.

Good luck OP - you will need it!