Help! Five week old just slept for seven hours

[ragtaggle]

I know - it sounds like a joke. And a very annoying one for mothers of non- sleeping babies. But I really want to know if this is okay.

Have been following Gina Ford since week 3 with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I want to chuck the book down the toilet - at other times the routines have been really helpful. My baby is just over five weeks old and usually wakes up every three hours (sometimes less) in the night. But last night she slept for seven hours. (I slept for five blissful hours of that but then lay awake worrying )

I know I should be pleased but I can't help thinking that it was the two (largish) glasses of wine I had at 8pm last night. She woke unexpectedly for a feed at 9pm and I obliged. Is it possible that my wine consumption knocked her out? Feel a bit guilty

Enjoy it.

I had such a shock first time it happened. And I lay awake worrying too!

We "knew what it said in Gina Ford" but generally ignored it when ds did nice things like sleeping through seven hours, cos we wanted to exploit that!

I'm jealous!!!! but you give me hope!!!! my dd is 4 weeks and we're just starting the EASY plan... not too much success either... and bugger all night sleep!! ony day 3 though. i hope dd sleeps for 7 hours sometime soon... as for wine... i have a glass and a half last night... didnt send her to sleep in the least.... she merely powernapped throughout the night... and fed and pooed!!! actually.... the poo was frequent last night...can wine do that??? oh the guilt... IKWYM!!! keep posting 7 hour sucess stories for me to read!!! gives me hope!

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Congrats Ragtaggle - sounds like GF is working for you Ds slept through from the 10pm-ish feed at 9 weeks and had to be woken up at 7am every time (hurrah!). Still tempted to chuck her in the toilet too sometimes, but it has worked for us too. 13 hours every night!

If your dd iwoke up at 9pm for a feed, does that mean you've dropped the late one already? Or was that an unexpected extra waking on top of her usual feed at 10pm ish?

As far as the wine's concerned tbh I think it's more likely to affect the taste of your milk (it can make it a little bitter apparently) than have any significant trace of alcohol in it. Someone posted on another thread recently that alcohol is flushed through your system at about 1 unit per hour and that as breast milk is also a bodily fluid, the same should follow.

Hope you get the same tonight!!

i didnt like the look of GF either... EASY is a tad more humane

I think some babies naturally fall into a GF routine - doesn't necessarily mean it's the routines that are working, just that that's what your baby does!

Don't worry about the wine!

Ragtaggle - I started a very similar thread last week, dd was 3 weeks and slept forever at night.
I have the GF book (one of my vast collection of baby books) but was not 'following' it.
Dd seems to have been born a GF baby when it comes to sleeping.. am nap, lunchtime nap, pm nap then sleeps 6 hours then 4 hours at night most of the time.. Think it's luck of the draw myself.. I treated ds the same way I treat dd and he fed every 2 hours day and night until he was weaned!

just wanted to say to all you sceptics my baby is 7 weeks pld and is a perfect gina ford baby sleeps thru the night from 11 till 7 dont give up it works!!!

Hi ragtaggle, my DD slept through from 5 weeks on too. I've never opened a GF book in my life, and never will! (Eating/sleeping/playing/etc's all entirely baby led in this (possibly mad!) house )
TBH, it never crossed my mind that it could be a problem! I just selfishly enjoyed it .
A couple of glasses of wine shouldn't affect your your DD's sleep to that extent. (A couple of pints might be a different matter!) She's (fingers crossed for you) possibly just going to be one of those greeeeaat babies for sleeping. Has she done it since?

My DD did it, too, Ragtaggle. Got to 9-10 hour stretches by 14 weeks... then she got chickenpox and has rarely done big stretches since. Enjoy it while it lasts!

oh, and ps:I can't stand GF!

my ds did this once during the day.....2pm until 10pm and I kept feeding him every 3 hours - paranoid mum!
Then he woke for an hour and went to sleep until 5 the next morning
never did it again though!

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DD also slept 9 hours stretch at night at 6 weeks and was always a great sleeper.... DS (a GF baby) slept that way at 9 weeks.... Not entirely sure GF is to get the credit for either on this front.

Well, I had never heard of Gina Ford until about a year ago - my lot are now 8, 6 and 4 and they slept very well from early on (6-8 weeks).

Have always been fabulous sleepers - even through various illnesses - and that's without Gina

Gina Ford may work with some.. But not either of mine, well I say that I read it and dismissed all of it - bar letting baby settle itself. She has no kids of her own, I'm gung ho on instinct and both of my kids slept well.. eventually, but broken nights are part of babyness