Baby only sleeps 1.5 hours at a time

[blondie887]

Our baby is 8 weeks old and I've this week been trying to get him into a routine with feeding, sleeping etc as until now it's been totally on demand, eating little bits (50-60mls) very frequently.

Friends with similar aged babies are now getting 4 or 5 hour sleep stretches at night, but our baby basically cat naps at night, same as in the day. He'll sleep for 1.5 hours then wake up crying for a feed, eat a small amount (50ish) then fall asleep for another 1.5 hours.

I feel like maybe if I could get him to have a full feed (150mls) he might sleep longer, but he always passes out and can't be woken to eat any more.

What am i doing wrong?

Does he have reflux?

You’re not doing anything wrong. He’s very little and not all babies sleep. Four-five hour stretches didn’t arrive til DD was 13 months. Your friends have got lucky.

It’s all normal. Some sleep well, some don’t. Mine didn’t. I remember the night she was awake for 11hrs straight. That was possibly the worst night of my life.
Not all adults sleep well or for the same amount of time, babies are just the same.

It will change though, it won’t be 1.5hrs forever.

I had an easy teether though, she wasn’t bothered one bit. Some of the good sleepers had a terrible time with that. So it’s not something you can control.

Try not to over analyse it and just sleep whenever they do, day or night. Don’t worry about night and day for now.

If it hadn’t been long since the last feed and especially if only taking tiny amounts of milk then I would personally assume the waking wasn’t hunger related and try to resettle with a dummy first before feeding. Also what teat size are you using and could it be time to go up a size? But you aren’t doing anything wrong! If he resettling quickly after a feed I’d actually say you’re pretty fortunate.

Sounds absolutely normal. The idea that babies should sleep for 4 hours is based on the sleeping habits of baby birds!

Really normal. Just luck if you get a baby that sleeps especially at that age. Try to not stress yourself out about it and follow baby’s lead, mine only slept for 2 hours (maximum a lot of the time it was less) for the first 2-3 months. Even now at 20mo if I get 3-4 hr stretch it’s a win haha

I found the huckleberry app really useful for tracking eat and sleep to figure out what my baby needed at rough intervals

She's now at 17 weeks and the length between eating is increasing. I think it will naturally happen for your baby

50-60mls sounds fine for a baby that age. Your health visitor should be able to confirm. I remember it seems such a small amount but their stomachs won't contain much more and definitely not 150ml just yet.

If your baby settles quite quickly after a feed then that's a positive for both of you. It's hard if they don't settle and you get frequent wakings. Ask for help in any way possible - food, drink, shopping, holding baby while you sleep or shower. You're doing a great job

50-60mls sounds fine for a baby that age. Your health visitor should be able to confirm. I remember it seems such a small amount but their stomachs won't contain much more and definitely not 150ml just yet.

Absolutely not suggesting the OP is doing anything wrong as she’s following feed on demand advice and it’s the cumulative amount of formula in 24 hours that matters (2.5 ounces per pound of body weight is usually about right) but mine were drinking 50ml in the hospital under the supervision of the lovely midwives. 150ml or 5oz is what the formula box gives as a guide for a 2 months old so it’s not an unreasonable feed for an 8 week at all- definitely what mine were having at that age anyway!

I guess I'm just feeling like the baby has no pattern or routine at all really and I should have instilled one by now...a typical day might go....

Eat 60ml
Sleeps 40 mins
Eat 40ml
Awake for an hour
Sleep 20 mins
Eat 100 ml

And then the next day be completely different. I track feeds, sleep and nappies in the Baby Tracker app but there's no pattern at all to it when I just follow baby's lead. other people talk about their baby's nap time or being 'due for a feed' but ours doesn't really have any.

Start one morning. Space out the feeds. So only feed, say every 3hours. This will encourage him to take more at each feed. Do that for a few days and you may find some of the sleep problems resolve on their own.

Babies do not need routine at that age. Mine had no feed or nap routine until she went to nursery at 13.5 minths. In the first year it was entirely random.
They go through development leaps every few weeks and their needs change. You will know when your baby wants a feed or a nap. That’s all you need to do.

The last two messages basically encapsulate the mixed advice I've had.

Camp 1 - 'feed every three hours, power through even if establishing the routine is hard work, it'll make your life easier and baby happier once you've nailed it'

Camp 2 - 'babies are too small for routines, just follow their needs'

I just wish I knew which was the best thing to do!

Be led by baby - not by strict routines and timing.

There’s no right or wrong for camp 1 versus camp 2 and it’s completely up to you to decided what works best for you and your baby. You’re getting mixed responses because at least to me it’s not really clear what you’re looking for with your post. Is it just reassurance that you’re doing great (you are!)? Or are you struggling on broken sleep and trying to see if you can get longer stretches? If yes then that’s totally understandable and bigger, less frequent feeds with some semblance of routine would be key to trying to change that.

Whatever you decide, good luck and don’t compare to your friends’ babies because they’re all different!

There's no right answer and usually the path lies somewhere between the two.

Yeah it's a good point- I'm not really sure what I'm looking for! I guess ideally he would sleep longer but my main concern is that I'm not missing a trick by not having a better routine. Sometimes, when talking to some people, I get the feeling that I'm still stuck in the newborn way of doing things and that by two months in, everything should be a bit more organised

If and when you want to move to a routine, what you could do is shift to a pattern of eat-awake-sleep.
Another tip is to start and finish the day at the same times every day. At this age I would designate 11pm-7am as "night time".
His awake time at this age is probably only 60-90 minutes, so I would try feeding at 7am, then having him awake until 8am, then start settling for a nap.
This is a great time to introduce sleep cues, so you could use relaxing music or white noise, a muslin and a dummy. You might want to rock him in a pram or swing (ideally vary the ways he goes to sleep so for example he's not always held in arms).
When he wakes from his nap, feed him, and then once he's been awake for about 90 minutes give him the dummy, put on the music/white noise and settle him for a nap. I would always go out for a walk for at least one nap a day as then it would often be a 2 hour nap rather than 40 minutes.
Continue the pattern of eat-awake-sleep throughout the day until evening, then have a slightly longer awake period and I would do something like feed-bath-another feed and into bed when you go to bed 10pm-11pm and hopefully get a longer stretch then!
As your baby gets nearer to 4-6 months you might find bedtime can get earlier and you'll do the feed-bath-feed-bed around 7pm and then a dreamfeed at 10/11pm when you go to bed.

Most babies under 6 months will feed every 2.5-4 hours, so if he's feeding more frequently than that you could try distracting him or having a long walk in the pram or sling to get him to go a bit longer.
4 hourly feeds in the night is kind of ideal, so 7pm/11pm/3am/7am with the aim to reduce the 3am feed first, some babies will sleep longer stretches at night before 6 months but many won't.

The 'trick' you're worried about missing is an off the shelf routine. That's what we did but it's controversial. It worked really well for us and saved our sanity with two under two.

What feels natural to you @blondie887?
I was very instinctive with mine, odd as I’d never held a newborn or changed a nappy etc when mine was born. But I didn’t really read anything on routines and just did what felt right each day. Mine was EBF so feeding was different but either way I didn’t feel like I needed any routine.
I wanted DD to be completely portable so deliberately didn’t do naps at a set time and in a set place, so we were able to be out and about all the time (until Covid!) so that was important to me. Some of my NCT group were welded to being home for naps which was really limiting I think but it worked for them which is all that matters.
I’m a lists and order person in the rest of my life but strangely I felt compelled to do the opposite with DD.

The gist is, follow your gut and pay bugger all attention to what anyone else is doing!

This is really interesting, thanks @Megan2018

Similar to you, I'm reluctant to create a structure that just ends up limiting what we can do as at the moment we just take the baby to do whatever we want and he just eats and sleeps on the move.

Lots of people do the EASY routine

Eat (feed when waking up)
Activity (tummy time, play gym, sensory)
Sleep (settle for nap, baby should be awake 60-90mins at this age before more sleep)
You (sleep, read a book, cup of tea)

If you try and split your day into those chunks you should find that naturally baby will space out feeds / start taking more at each feed. If you know they've just slept rather than letting them go straight back to sleep after feeding try and engage them in a bit of play (change nappy after feed to wake them up if it helps) then by staying awake for a bit they should naturally feel more tired and take a bit of a longer nap. Decide when is bedtime (10/11pm)and after that keep lights low, voices hushed, don't engage with the baby, feed when needed but encourage them to go straight back to sleep so they start working out their days and nights