Sleeping through tips

[Lette0986]

Hiya
My little one is 5 weeks old and I absolutely love him to bits! I just feel as though I am suffering a little as he's waking up twice a night (I know I am lucky in some respects) but the times vary quite a lot even though we have a set bedtime that I have been doing since he was born. Does anyone have any tips that can help me either try to make his wake-up times more regular or get him sleeping through? As a single mum, I'm finding it hard to get a nap during the day.

Hi Lette0986

You are VERY lucky that your boy only wakes up twice a night - at 5 weeks my boy woke up at least 3-4!
Im going to be honest, I beat myself up about a "routine" at the begining. And I know it was unrealistic. They'll be growth spurts, teething and colds that throw your routine out the window! You must try and nap during the day, it saved me from going crazy. My boy is now 6 months old and he got himself into a routine. Bed at 7pm-
wake at 10-11 for a feed
fed again at 4-5 then wake up at 7
usually 2-3 naps during the day too. How long does he wake up for during the night? :)

You're not going to change a 5 week old's sleeping habits. I've also been a single mum from birth and all you can reasonably do is get as much rest and sleep yourself as possible in the early days. Go to bed when they go to bed, nap if you can during the day, don't flog yourself to death cleaning etc.

I found the only important 'routine' element in the end was bedtime. That mattered to me as a single mum because I neeed an hour or two to myself at the end of the day to unwind. As long as bedtime was the same, the naps and feeds weren't so important. However, after a few weeks and months they also seemed to get into a regular pattern all by themselves.

So don't force the issue. You've got happy baby there and if you look after yourself you'll find that, relatively quickly, he'll wake up less often. Try to manipulate things too much and you can end up worse than when you started. Good luck