We were doing so well but a 'baby bedtime' has sent everything haywire

[WoodyAllenJesus]

My 3mo was going to bed with us at 10 and sleeping til 6 from being about a week old - brilliant!

We decided to introduce a 'baby bedtime' at 8pm to give us a couple of hours to ourselves in the evening (this was recommended by the HV), which should still in theory have had her sleeping til 4am right?

Not so - she's now awake for feeds at about 1am, 2.30am, then any time between 4.30-5.30am at which point we just give up and get up. We are crossing swords all the time because I feel hard done by because I'm the one sat up BFing and getting less sleep than DH but he resents even changing her nappy or taking her down at 5.30 so I can at least have an extra hour.

My friend's little girl (same age but FF) sleeps from 8pm to 7am

If we switched to FF would she sleep better (not sure I would do it but it would be an option if we couldn't cope with the lack of sleep much longer)?

That's not really my question - really I want to know if this is it and how it will always be. I thought it was some sort of spurt but she's been like this for the last 10 days since we introduced the baby bedtime.

I so feel like I have no idea what I am doing.

Maybe it was too much of a sudden change. Perhaps go back to your 10pm bedtime, see if that improves the sleep again, and then gradually bring bedtime earlier.

Changing to formula probably wouldn't help - I bf but occasionally we give a bottle of formula for the dreamfeed & it doesn't affect how long our 4 month old DD sleeps for.

I know its hard, but try not to compare sleep patterns with your friend's babies - pretty much all of them will go through good and bad phases, and I find people tend to exaggerate the good bits and keep quiet about the bad bits!

Watching this thread - DD2 is 12wks and was sleeping through from 11-7/8 but this last week she has woken on three different nights and last night was awake from 1am to 6am. Ugh! Fed her a bit but she just didn't seem to want it and wouldn't even sleep in with me or comfort feed

I figure she's still tiny, things are up and down and it'll sort itself out. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

Worth saying that DD1 was ff and didn't sleep through until 6mo. Instead she woke every 1.5/2 hrs and it was awful. DS was bf and slept through from 8wks. So formula might not even make a difference if you did try.

My DD is 14 w, breastfed & has just gone from sleeping 10-5 then til 9am to doing wake ups at 2 & 5. I figure it's just her changing & maybe the 4 month regression come early. It'a gutting tho! Will be watching this thread...

12 weeks is a typical growth spurt age. Formula may make no difference at all (dd slept through at 5 1/2 months and ds took till 8 months and that was with us gradually dropping the amount of night-time milk to encourage him not to wake for a feed)

growth spurt

Well the last three nights have seen order restored - she's not gone back to sleeping through but is now sleeping from 11-4/5 then feeding for half an hour before going back down until 7/8.30. Which I can live with - she's still so small I can't begrudge her a feed!

How are you getting on OP?

Very much like yourself Fleecy, the last couple of nights have been better. Last night she went from 8pm til 4.30am, then back down after a feed til 7.30am which was lovely for us :o Though tbh she didn't sleep much during the day due to visitors etc so I think that's why.

I'm going to work on a better daytime nap routine once normality returns but don't really know where to start

Oh that's good then!

Daytime naps all over the place here too because we've been sleeping in over the school holidays - but once the schools are back I think things will settle down a bit more here too. And hopefully more settled daytimes will lead to consistently good nights.

Do you have other children and have to work around a school run or can you nap whenever? I'd start by watching her to see how long she can comfortably stay awake then start trying to settle her at those times, putting her down when she's very nearly asleep. Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs

No she's my first so we can nap whenever. I don't know if I should be in a routine or let it be 'baby-led' or whatever the expression is. I'm a bit confused generally by what I should be doing as the feeding doesn't seem to be in much of a daytime routine either. I think I just generally need to get us organised!

There's no egg sucking teaching going on, I really appreciate any words of wisdom from those who know what they're doing! Thank you :)

Well it makes things easier if you can nap when they do! I don't think there's any 'should' about that sort of thing - only you know whether you and your baby get on better with a routine or going with the flow - or something in between.

Ignore everyone else!

Here's to peaceful days and nights

I'll add that FF DD didn't sleep through until 14mo

Sleep seems to be the luck of the draw - some sleep through early on and something like 3/10 2 year olds still wake in the night. What you feed them makes no difference.

Just as you think you've got it nailed, something else will crop up

Wishing you all a peaceful night!

Was just going to ask, when you brought BT earlier, did you carry on feeding her at 10pm, or did you do a BT feed earlier & just leave her to wake when she got hungry?

I know of lots of mums who do an earlier BT, say 7-8pm, feed before bed, then do a dreamfeed at 10-11pm, & have found that their LO's sttn earlier.

We never had any success with DF so we would feed before BT at 7pm & wait for LO to wake. To start we had 3 NF's, by 3 months he was going from 7pm feed right til 4-5am & we would feed & resettle him as if it was night, then get him up at 7ish. He didn't drop the 5am feed until 5.5months old.

If you like the later BT that's fine, but if you want an earlier BT (you will find that LO needs it as he gets older or he will get OT as his daytime sleep reduces) & some 'you' time, then I would either try dreamfeed, or don't get him up at the 4-5am WU. Feed & resettle as if it was any other night feed & he should go back to sleep.

WRT FFing, breastmilk is digested more quickly than formula so yes babies who are FF can often go for longer stretches than babies who are BF. But BF is the best thing you can give your LO (this from a mum who ended up switching to formula after 3wks of unsuccessful BFing). If I had my time again I would definitely persevere with it for longer bc personally I noticed a difference in my LO's digestion from switching, & I would rather put up with NF's for a while longer than see my baby in discomfort. I don't mean to preach, & of course if you are feeling BF isn't for you its totally fine & not all babies struggle with the switch (BTW we did have other issues at play - milk intolerance). But if you are BF successfully & enjoying it then IIWM I'd try & wait it out, as soon enough she will stop with the NF's - those early months go so fast!

Just to balance out your friends' wonderbabies stories - my DS is 18 months, and since he was born, has only on 5 occasions slept for more than 6 hours at a time. He had undiagnosed reflux for at least 3 months of his early life, which didn't help.

I'd ask yourself what it is you want/expect your baby to do. How many hours sleep do you realistically expect to
get? What is that expectation based on? and do they need to do it now or later? and what are you prepared to go through to try and achieve it?

FWIW, I felt better after I worked out that people who told me their babies 'slept through the night' when they were a few months old were actually just leaving them to scream without comforting them (which I wasn't prepared to do - and thank god, a reflux baby could die if left to scream on their back) - I felt so much better when I started co-sleeping rather than trying to get my DS to settle in his cot over and over again - and I felt better we i realised that so much 'hardcore' sleep 'training' is bollocks and has no grounding in psychology whatsover. I currently love co-sleeping - we all get enough, I love sleeping with my baby, and wish I'd ignored HVs and all the advice givers who said 'ooh, we don't really DO Gina Ford, we just read the books and do what's best for us....' (they were lying and couldn't wait to tell me how I was 'making a rod for
my own back' and how I needed to 'sleep train'). I should have followed my instincts!

Ps my ds was 100 percent bf, never had any formula. Another 'rod for my own back' apparently.

Oh yes ignore 'helpful' comments from friends and family on storing up trouble. Do what works for you. I don't know of any adults who still need to be rocked to sleep in their mother's arms so at some point these things will resolve themselves. I was reluctant to co-sleep this time but actually loved it. She's in a crib by the side of the bed now but if she does wake for a feed she comes in with me and we usually nod off together until morning. It's lovely.

Also if someone asked me I would say DD usually sleeps through (11.15-8.00 last night) but she's still downstairs with us during the evenings and, as you know, she still goes through stages of waking for one night feed. On balance though, she sleeps through more nights than she doesn't. So people who say their babies are sleeping through don't necessarily mean every single night. And if they do, they're probably lying!