Advice? Trouble with early nights...

[Flingmoo]

Bit of a long one. DS is 10 weeks old and up until this week, he's been staying in the living room with us in the evening and catnapping in our arms on the sofa while we watch TV and chat, will be awake and very grizzly half of that time. We'd take him up around 11pm. I'd feed him in my bed, he'd conk out, and I'd put him in his crib where he'd sleep around 4-6 hours.

I decided it was time to start trying to get him to have an early bedtime upstairs in his own crib between around 7-8pm, as all the "experts" seem to suggest... It's been taking an hour to settle him down, but it's sort of worked, and he's been sleeping right up til around 11 when I do the dream feed, which sometimes works, and other times disturbs him and can't get him back to sleep again for an hour or so. I tried skipping he dream feed but then he wakes up about an hour after I've gone to bed myself...

Trouble is, as he's doing his big chunk of sleep before we go to bed, now he has been waking up around 3am and after that he's hard to settle, and he won't go back to sleep for more than about a 1 hour stretch, unless I give up and take him into our bed for cuddles, which I normally end up doing around 5am.

I am not sure what to do - the early bedtime seems to be benefitting him, and it is lovely having our evenings back for grown-up time. But it's meant that I get less sleep myself... :( Before we started the early bedtimes, there was one blissful night that he slept from 12am - 6am! I can't see that happening now.

Any suggestions? Do I just need to ride it out as he's so young, and hope that he'll start doing a longer second stretch as he gets older? Or that he'll eventually drop the dream feed and do one long stretch from 7pm-7am (give or take) as he gets older?

On top of that, there's the issue of wet and dirty nappy changes ruining the nighttime peace, as I assume there's not much we can do about that. I wouldn't normally bother with the wee nappies but they get so full recently it must cause him discomfort.

Sorry for the long post. Advice much appreciated.

10 weeks is still very little so the chances are he will still wake in the night whatever you do and I found that the poo / wee in the night sorted itself out by about 3 - 4 months . It's so so hard when you're tired but I found that my baby just naturally started sleeping longer and going to bed earlier now at 6 months she will sleep 8 - 8 although now teething has started I'm having a few bad nights again! I know it's hard but I would say go with the flow as much as possible and do whatever helps you get more sleep for now and if that means putting your baby to bed later so you benefit from the big chunk of sleep then so be it you will get your evenings back honestly! Tonight I watched a film with dh with a glass of wine so it does happen in the end but I know it seems to go on and on when you're in the middle of it !