6 week old at night...

[katherine2008]

This is my second DC so you'd think I'd know better, but can someone just reassure me that I shouldn't be expecting DS to settle at night times after a feed. He usually goes into bed at about 8.30 or 9pm after an 8pm feed, then we dream feed at around 10.30am. He is a seriously hungry baby so wakes between 3 hours and 4 hours after a feed so am having to get him back down at about 1 or 2am, which at the moment means bringing him into bed with me and falling asleep together (I have tried putting him in his cot but with little success - mega crying results which is hard when you have a toddler sleeping next door - he has gone down twice so far!!). I'm sure this is totally normal, but can't help worrying! He can't self settle at day time naps obviously and needs rocking and holding for at least 20-30 minutes before I'd even think of putting him down and even then the moro reflex usually wakes him after about 15 minutes.

Anyway any advice greatly appreciated.

For what it's worth - when bathing DC1 or at tea time or other moments when he is screaming the place down, letting him cry has never resulted in him falling asleep!

Thank you

I can't give any advice but I can sympathise. My DD is 6 weeks tomorrow and she has just changed her sleep routine from 4-5 hours at a time at night to waking hourly :-(. I read something somewhere that if you get feeding right then sleep will automatically follow and vice versa. I personally believe that DD's feeding is not right but I also read today that lots of people struggle to get babies down to sleep assuming baby is not ready for bed, which is what we have been doing, but actually bed time should have been earlier. Having just read this I am yet to try it out but I think we need to put a proper routine in place. Johnsons Baby say that from 6 weeks you can try a bedtime routine of bath, massage and bed and after 7 nights it will work. Hmmmm? Perhaps it's worth a try though. DD has started the last couple of days to have very long sleeps (7 hours!) during the day so I woke her up today after 4 hours and kept her up for 2 hours, she's currently sleeping so I'm hoping she'll go for 3-4 hours and then we'll keep her up for a bit and try to put her down after 2 hours. I want to get her a good bedtime of 7pm but at the moment she refuses to go down before middnight :-( and then she's up every hour!!! Exhausting.

Normal (well sounds better than DS at that age!)

I'm on dc2, 3 weeks old and have had to remind myself of what us normal.

I did find that by 6-8 weeks, DS settled into a day routine - naps were achieved via the sling. A bedtime routine didn't click until older as at 6 weeks he struggled to stay awake without getting hyper and hard to settle. So won't do that until DD is 3 months.

The stretches of sleep at night seem great. Also DS didn't go into his cot consistently until 4 months or so.