when did your dcs sleep more than 2 hrs? light at end of tunnel!

[glamourmama]

Ds is only 5 weeks old, he is a good baby rarely cries. I am bf but have just introduced a formula bottle before bed so dp can help while I put dd to bed and so he gets used to having a bottle .

I was expressing but stopped been able to get enough.
Ds seems a light sleeper, during the day he usually wakes after 10 or 20 mins of being put down in pram or moses basket, if he is being held he does not wake up! At night he usually sleeps for 2 and a half hours for first sleep then its never more than between 1 hour to 2 hrs for rest of the night.
I get him up and change him and feed until he goes back to sleep. I then lay him in basket. Most times he wakes bk up after ten mins, I try leave him to go bk to sleep on his own but always end up getting back out and either cuddle or feed back to sleep and put down again.

This can now be up to 2 hours later from him waking up. This continues until my alarm goes off to get dd up for school. So I'm getting about 5 hours sleep a night but usually very broken up with gaps in between. It is taking its toll! Just wondered If and when your dcs began sleeping more than this? When I had dd I don't remember it been so relentless but we co-slept, NOT an option this time though.

You have my sympathy!
As you can see from the time of this message my 6week old DD isn't a great sleeper either. we have different situations as DD bottle fed & can (when the mood / wind / reflux allows) sleep for 3-4 hours. I just wish it was regularly. Current perhaps once maybe twice a week. The rest of the time I get a broken 4/5 hours like you. It's torture!
I'm praying that this phase will be over soon as I'm sure DS (aged 9) slept better.

Iv considered stopping bf just to see if ff makes him sleep longer. But ff has changed since I had dd as you can't make bottles in advance? How do u manage to get up and make a bottle from scratch and keep a hungry baby waiting? Yeah my dd slept better but I jus cuddled her all the time and slept with her! I'd love to do that with ds because he so lovely to cuddle but its different this time. I'm glad I'm not the only one petesmum and thanks for replying! I am a total midnight mumsnetter, its only thing that stops me nodding off while feeding him!

Know what you mean re mumsnet helping to keep you entertained & awake, I'm exactly the same. This & solitaire thank you to whoever invented the smart phone, they've saved my sanity.
Re formula feeds. Well technically these days they say make up fresh bottles but I don't. I batch them and store them in the fridge. And if that wasn't rebellious enough I even microwave them during the day! At night I have a small bedside bottle steamer to try & feed DD before she screams the place down. Not sure it stops the screaming but it does save on chilly trips downstairs at night.

Hi glamour, congratulations on your baby! My dd is 10 weeks old and in the last 2 or so weeks has gone longer stretches, 3 or 4 hours. Up until 7 weeks we co slept (and still do a bit) and she woke every couple of hours or sooner. I think if you switch to formula you will not necessarily get longer stretches, but you will be be awake longer as all the faffing about with bottles. As to the 10 min wake up I found what I had to do was hold her for 20 minutes after she fell asleep (till she was in deep sleep) and then transfer to carrycot. After about a week of doing that I didn't have to wait the 20 mins and could put her back after the feed. On the other hand her older sister didnt sleep for a 3 hour stretch till she was 6 months old, but you don't want to hear that! . Hang in there, you're doing a great job, in all likelihood it won't be too long before you're getting a better night's rest!

I hate to sat it ladies but there's an active thread going re sleep for 3 month old babies. According to that sleep patterns go haywire again about then. Terrific.
Perhaps our LO's are very advanced? Or we're lucky because we don't have a sleep pattern to go wrong??
Roll on the teenage years when they're never out of bed

Or we are fighting with them to get out of bed! Yeah I am filled with dread when I spot those kind of threads, I keep turning a blind eye to one about a 4 month sleep regression! Do your partners (if u have them) help out at night? Mine threatens too but then blissfully snores away through it all. Grrrr!

Sympathies and best of luck that you'll turn the corner soon.
Can I please share my personal top tip, if you're not doing it already, which is to get your baby out in daylight as much as possible, or at least next to a bright window. Easier said than done at this time of year, but the theory is sound and I found it helped me and DD a lot.

Morning ladies, this is my first post on mumsnet so please excuse my spelling and lack of understanding with the abreviations used ?!!
I am a mum to two boys, one is 2 1/2 and the other one has just turned 12 weeks. Things are defo easier on the second child as you dont seem to panic so much about everything. Both children were/are bottle fed, tried BF and I didnt get on with it, didnt help I also had postnatal!! 12 week old is on extra hungry baby and only wakes up once during the night, sleep pattern during the day is now changing as he's more awake. It does get better, I promise, but the sleep deprivation can drive you completely nuts in the first few months x

You are not alone on that one glamourmama!! My other half kept threateneing to help out during the evening feeds with my first child, he attempted to help twice. He was half asleep and kept stumbling around, making up feeds wrong etc. Bless him for trying but he was useless!! I was under no illusions with my second child that he was going to help out at all with the night feeds. It was just easier to do by myself. He is brilliant with helping/ sharing all the other child/baby chores. But I do remeber with my first child being sat on the edge of my bed, feeding my baby, listening to husband snoring, going mad with the sleep deprivation, slowly contemplating different ways I could kill him (just joking) x x

I'm pretty sure I'm spoilt. My DH doesn't get up in the night but he does get up with DD at 5:30 / 6am. Though that's mainly because the cricket is on & he can watch tv with her & I don't grumble about it as I'm asleep for a couple of hours. Without this help I'd he getting about 3 hours per night.
DH does other things too but his bottles have a tendency to leak, I have to sneaking check them once he's out of the way

Ha ha that was me last night, he half woke up and mumbled something and I think I said he should go sleep elsewhere! I'm also half convinced his snoring is what rewakes the baby when iv put him back down! In the light of day I can see this is neurotic but at 3 am... I have become sleep obsessed I actually bore myself now thinking and stressing about it! And do u actually nap during day when the baby does?

On my first child everyone kept on telling me how important it was to sleep when the baby slept, probably true, but I found it impossible to do. Firstly I would use the time when baby was asleep to get household chores done, otherwise they would never have been done!! Secondly, I did try it once, had a really quick power nap, but found that when I woke up I was more tired than before because I hadnt had enough sleep. Just before my second child was born I found myself panicking about the oncoming sleep deprivation, but there really is nothing you can do about it other than go through it, unless of course you are loaded with money and can afford a night nurse. One can only dream x

This probably isn't helpful, but DS is almost six months old and still wakes up every few hours. Sorry! I do think he's unusual and spend time worrying that I 'spoilt' him at the beginning to get him into this habit, but I just think some babies wake more often / need feeding more often. The only thing that has helped me is co-sleeping. If he's tucked up next to me then we both get more sleep. He definitely sleeps longer if he has contact with me or DP. Also, acceptance! ("I'm not going to get 8 hours straight sleep in the foreseeable future, ho hum, I'll take these next 2 hours instead then") Sorry, I know that's not what you wanted to hear!

Havent read all the messages here, but have a tip about making up bottles in advance which we worked out after about 6 months with our little boy. Use a thermos (you can get tommee tippee ones specifically for warming baby bottles). When you go to bed, fill however many bottles you need with, say 2oz boiled water. Then fill the thermos full of boiling water and measure the formula into a formula divider thingy (again tommee tippee do them). When you wake up, you use the very hot water in the thermos to top up the water already in the bottle (which will have cooled)...the result it the water is the perfect temperature right away. You might need to experiment with how much water to put in the bottle to start with (I find 3oz perfect for a 6oz feed) but I found this the quickest way of dealing with night time bottle making. Hope that helps!

Thanks so much! That's a great tip anything to save time at 3am!