Is my newborn a 'good' baby?

[poppymatilda]

Just curiosity more than anything.... and a factor in whether I have a DC2 or not!

My DH and I were never baby people. We've been together 13 years and DC1 is just shy of 1 month old. We obviously love her very much - took awhile to conceive and we had an early MC so it's great to have her here and healthy. But we're not the kind of people longing for a large family or anything and both have quite busy jobs so multiple children would be tricky.

Anyway, when we first brought DD home she didn't want to go down in her moses basket and some nights in the first week or so one of us would be awake almost the whole time with her. We persevered and followed the standard advice. Made night feeds dark, quiet and boring, established a bit of a routine pre bedtime (change babygrow, top and tail, read story etc), and above all just kept putting her back down again rather than holding her the whole time. Someone bought us a Ewan sheep thing too which we switch on (no idea if it's any good, ran out of batteries the other night and she still settled ok). Some nights it was hard work and felt a bit relentless in the early days.

She'll be 1 month old on Saturday. Subject to the odd grizzly moment she now goes back down in her basket within an hour of each feed and she feeds at 12am, 3am and 6am through the night so the only proper 'night' one is the 3am. I mainly do the 3am as I can go straight back to sleep and my husband struggles to.

I'm not rushing to increase intervals between feeds because she had a bit of reflux (which kept her up a lot) and 90ml 3 hourly seems to suit her better than, say, 120ml 4 hourly, for now at least. Also, I'm not finding it too tiring. I don't have family nearby but DH is great and does a good share of everything baby related. I know that all sorts of sleep regression and disruption is waiting around the corner but for now I'm just happy to take each day as it comes and enjoy any sleep that's available!

I was chatting to a colleague yesterday who has teenage kids and she asked how the nights were. I told her and she said I'd won the lottery with DD and she's still traumatised from how horrendous her 2 were at night! This got me thinking - am I really lucky? Are all newborns like mine or are some much more difficult? Or are DH and I just well adjusted to disturbed sleep because of the jobs we've always done? Because she's our first I have absolutely nothing to compare it to!

Both of mine were more or less similar. The only difference is they are breastfed. DD1 was up longer because she had trouble feeding and needed supplemented. DD2 is 7 weeks and starting to have one longer sleep of 4 hours sometimes.
I think your daughter sounds pretty normal!

Ds1 would only sleep on me for the first few weeks which felt relentless at the time. He was going 5 hours at a stretch through the night by 5 weeks though (bf) and before then the schedule felt similar to yours with a roughly 3 hour gap.

He was a rubbish napper always and difficult to get to sleep at night, but was otherwise completely flexible and easy to fit in to our lives. He's still a night owl aged 12 - I think it's just the way he is and tbh, I'm the same.

Ds2 was a creature of routine from birth and fit easily into 3 hourly feeds and regular naps. Easy to settle and happy to sleep on his own. Apart from a few blips (earache, teething, a horrible period where he had night terrors), he's still a good, predictable sleeper aged 5. However, he was a much harder child due to his need for predictability and routine, and also wanting a lot of attention during the day - much less willing to play on his own.

Both were "good" babies because all babies are "good", but both were also pretty easy babies - not all are and it's completely unpredictible imo - a lot is down to personality/physical things and not necessarily ameliorated by strict routines.

Mine was waking to feed every 90 mins at that age. However he is the most wonderful little boy so it depends what is "good" for you. If sleep matters to you, I wouldn't go for another child- I don't really think routine helps that much, you either get a sleeper or you don't

Well DD2 woke up every 40 mins until she was 6 months old, so by my experience she’s ‘good’

Babies change. What is good now, may not be good in a few weeks. Just enjoy it while it lasts!

I have an 8 month old baby girl (dd2) who has slept 10 hours on average, without waking, every night since she was just shy of 8 weeks old. She naps 3 times a day and barely ever cries with the exception of the 2 times shes had the cold, after vaccinations or the odd random night where she has been more unsettled due to teething. I have the wonder weeks app and havent noticed any change regardless of whether she is going through a leap or not. She is a happy contented wee girl.

Dd1 now 12 years old woke every 3 hours until she was 3 and never napped for more than 30 mins lol but i put this down to her being 8.5 weeks early and having to be fed on schedule to increase her weight. Every baby is different and sometimes all the routines in the world wont make a difference and as parents we adapt quite well to frequent waking and lack of sleep as we have no choice lol and its not as bad as it seems when you are used to it like i was with dd1

That's a tact book baby imo. I had one like that, one who slept all the time until he was 4 weeks LD and appeared to have banked it because aftsr that he barely slept a full hour at a stretch until her was nearly 3 years old, and one who was unputdownable until about 8 or 9 months old got rapidly batter after that and slept through reliably by her first birthday.

All breastfed to around a year, all treated the same in terms of routine.

You've got a text book baby - some are allegedly even better sleepers than that, but 3 hourly wakings at 1 month is pretty angelic in my experience.

As others say she may change (as one of mine did) for no reason whatsoever or may stay as she is which is fantastic for one month old but a bit shit for 2 years old... Don't count your chickens, it's fairly random.

Argh text book not tact

DD is 8 weeks and was very similar. Would go down in her Next2me when we went to bed at 10, sleep till 2 or 3am then feed, then till around 5.30 and feed more, then often till around 8 or 9 with a bit of settling.

Past two nights she has still slept well, but only in DH’s arms or chest (he tends to do night feeds and I get up once to express). The moment we put her down she wakes up. I’ve spent the whole day researching safe co sleeping, I’ve found it quite shocking all advice is aimed at women. Not dad’s and not even couples. It must be very discouraging for single dads.

My daughter was similar and she seemed to be on the easy end of the spectrum compared to friends who had wakings every 90 mins etc.
She paid us back with her 4 month sleep regression though, oh boy

DD1 didn’t sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time till she was over a year so I say your doing very well!

Thanks all, really interesting for a novice like me to read your replies! Sounds like they're all basically different and you can get a good sleeper or a less good sleeper! Does make me wonder whether my attempts to follow a 'routine, train her to like her basket etc have all been a waste of time!

Much easier than my DD.

@nothisispatrick we've had a bit of that too. Yesterday she was grizzly in the daytime everytime I put her down. I checked all the usual sources of grumpiness, nappy, hungry, wind, reflux, tired etc but couldn't figure out what was wrong. Tried her in the baby Bjorn and she screamed the house down (She seems to hate the carrier, that was 100 quid well spent!) In the end I stuck her in the pram and walked the streets for a bit. She settled down but don't know if it was the pram or just that she finally got it out of her system... why o why don't they come with a manual?!

My DS quickly settled into a routine once we were home from hospital - we had to supplement feeds with formula as he wasn't gaining weight but once he started to put on weight he was a regular 4 hour cycle type baby. He still thrives on routine now at 2. He started sleeping through around 8/9 months though, which was later than some routine led babies although he dropped his night feed around the 2/3 month mark. There was a hellish period where he woke every 90 mins or so for a month or two that felt never ending, but it does end eventually.

Sounds pretty average to me for 1 month old.

My DC1 was like this. But his sleep didn’t really improve until he finally slept through at 2.5 years old.

DC2 slept 12 hours uninterrupted from about this age. I used to be terrified she wasn’t breatying or would starve to death etc! But she slept like this from that day forty, grew and developed healthily and is now a strapping 10 yr old.

Every child is different...and at one month old your baby could go through many different sleep stages ...or not!

Nothisispatrick single dads of newborns are thankfully rare, given it only happens when the mother dies during childbirth or abandons her newborn.

Yes I’m aware of where babies come from! That doesn’t mean there should be no advice for them. DP is not a single dad but if he wants advice on looking after dd he should be able to find it without it all referring to bfeeding or her coming from your womb.

I think single dads generally get crappy support. My DH is very hands on and wants to do everything that I do with DD but gets frustrated by how much is aimed at mums. He's as much her parent as I am but sometimes society doesn't make it feel that way! I can only imagine being a single dad would be 10 times worse...

I think it also encourages the idea that only women should be caring for babies. For many of us that is just not the case, particularly if your not EBF

Nothisispatrick bedsharing generally isn't recommend for either parent when not breastfeeding. Which is why bedsharing advice is directed at breastfeeding mothers. Formula fed babies should sleep in a cosleep get cot alongside the adult bed. Dad's just follow the formula fed babies advice. There are lots of adults who shouldn't cosleep with a baby under 4 months old - smokers, very obese people, and people who are already extremely exhausted and therefore likely not to rouse as quickly as usual, and lots of babies who are too high risk to cosleep in a bed with an adult - premature babies, babies with health problems and formula fed babies. It's not about what's fair, it's about what's safest for the baby.

DD1 at the same age only slept on us but by 6 weeks could be put down. By 9 weeks she slept through the night. She refused day time naps unless in the car seat, which obviously involved us having to relocate her frequently. By 4 months however she'd self settle. By definition she largely felt like an easy baby.

I can't even remember much about DD2 it was that bad. I think I've blocker much of it out. I know she only napped in the sling until 7 months. I seem to recall she started sleeping longer stretches at night by 4 months but regressed at 5 months and didn't sleep at night unless on us for an entire month.

DD3 is currently 6 weeks old so I think it would be highly dangerous to pass any comment at all. 😉

Suffice to say they're all different and there is no way of knowing whether you'll end up with an easy baby or not. What does change are your skills and you invariably pick up different skills and tricks as you go along which gives you the very best chance possible with the next one.

Sounds like a totally average/normal newborn to me. Some are more difficult, others easier. I don't like the labels of good/bad especially in relation to sleep (I appreciate you put it in quotes :)) I think it is more helpful to talk about issues which are easy/difficult to deal with for you personally, as everyone finds different things easy/hard. I never mind having a baby who wants to sleep cuddled up because that's exactly how I want to sleep when they are tiny anyway!

She might start to like the carrier in a few weeks. DS2 wasn't keen at first but loves it now he can hold his head up more.

TBH advice is aimed at mums because mums tend to be in the position of doing everything with little/no support. I haven't really looked for any advice this time as I've been well supported by DH so I think if men (en masse) start to care for newborns and feel overwhelmed, then the sources of support for dads will come out.

baby's behavior is not constant it will change tho.