Do I leave baby to sleep at night?

[ecossegirl91]

So I have an almost 7 week old baby - born at a healthy weight (8lb 10oz) with no concerns regarding weight gain. Baby takes 5oz each feed at roughly 3.5hr intervals throughout the day.
last feed is between half ten and 11 - baby can take a while to settle in the next to me cot and usually gets to sleep between midnight and half past. He stirs (eyes closed, waving arms around, grunting - looks like active sleep?) between 3 and 4 which I had been taking as he’s hungry and getting up to make a bottle (formula fed baby) but sometimes by the time I went to get him he was asleep again and I was needing to wake to feed then it was the same long time to resettle him back in the cot so he wouldn’t get back to sleep till about half five. So I’ve been running on about 3.5hrs sleep for 7weeks.

last night when he stirred a few times between 3 and 4am I just let him settle himself back to sleep or I popped his dummy in and then he finally proper woke at 6am.

is this the right thing to do? Scared I’m leaving him hungry in the night but also I may have been feeding him unnecessarily?

is 7 weeks too young to leave him half ten to 6 without a feed?

If he is hungry, he will cry and not sleep. What you are doing is fine. Also you need to get at least another 3 hours sleep or you will go mad.

Do not wake to feed if he is putting on weight and has plenty of wet nappies! Just count yourself lucky that he is sleeping well for now!

In my experience you’re fine to leave him. From 0-6 weeks I fed him every few hours, at one point I was actually setting alarms and waking him up to feed him 🤔😂 Then from 6-10 weeks I would aim for the last feed to be at 11/12 and then leave him til the morning. From 10 weeks he went to bed at 8pm and slept for 12 hours and has literally done that every night since, now a year and a half. It’s unbelievable 🙈🎉

If he’s back to his birth weight, you don’t need to wake him to feed (unless someone medical has advised you to, but obviously that doesn’t apply here!).

If he wakes up and seems upset at night, I’d feed him. If he’s sleeping through, I’d let him do that and feed him in the morning 🙂

@BCxx Wow that's brilliant!

We had the same with our DS from 8 weeks he was doing 10-12 hours and none believed us! I think formula milk absolutely helps because not only does it fill them up more quickly but it also makes their stomach bigger and makes them chunkier so they can go without feeds for longer.
Don't wake your child up if they're not waking up, particularly as PP says beyond 6 weeks they should be telling you when they're hungry anyway. Enjoy the extra sleep OP 😊

Some of us just get lucky 🤣. My pair both big boys 10lb 40z and 9oz 12lbs savaged their bottles and slept like troopers.

Scared me senseless and on more than one occasion ended up with me googling what does it mean if your baby sleeps too much!

Once they are having plenty of wet nappies let them be.

@lollyloo88 amazing! Yes totally! Did it last longer term? People are desperate to hear a bad story and love to say ‘oh just wait for the teething, sleep regression, growth spurt’ etc.. nope, none of those things have stopped him 😂

Mine are 15 and 9 now I would say I have had probably about ten nights in total with them being unwell. I can mention it here but never admitted to friends 🤣

Yes don't wake them. They tell u to wake them to feed but they don't tell u when u can stop. When my youngest was about 6wks old I slept right through until morning and woke up in a panic at 8am. She was still asleep and last feed was 10pm. Quickly got up made her a bottle and then fed her. That's when I though fuck that I'm not waking her any more. She was a chunky baby and loved her milk and she wld sleep 12-14hrs overnight from then and it was amazing!

Sadly my second child didn't get the memo and I'd get about 2 mgrs broken sleep 🙈

Yep leave him to sleep!

All of mine did a long stint overnight from a few weeks old. All sizeable birth weights that gained well.

@BCxx no he was great! We did have a wobble at 9months, not because he was hungry but because he wanted to be with us, so at 11 months we did controlled crying which worked after 1 night, then from 11 months old to his 2nd birthday (so 13 months in total) he didn't wake us up once! It's amazing when I think about it now as he sometimes wakes up now he's nearly 3 but yeah I think we've been blessed and I'm sure you will be in the same boat 😊

This, as a first time mom myself I was expressing. So when he would wake I'd feed Change nappy and put back to sleep then express wash up and by the time I'd finish and go back to sleep I'd have slept for 90 minutes before I'd have to be up again to express. It was affecting my mental health.

Self care is also important so look after yourself too

I had to wake my DS2 during the night for feeds but that was because he wasn't putting weight on.
Your little one is gaining weight so I would leave them to sleep and enjoy the additional sleep!

@lollyloo88 great news! 😅 pretty much all of my friends with kids the same age are still saying ‘oh I was up 3 times last night’ etc and every time I just stay silent 😂🙈