8 week old- think undone good sleep pattern- need advice

[noideawhatIamdoing]

Hi- any advice gratefully received...! My DD is 8 weeks old and EBF. She has been a great night sleeper since early on, only waking once mostly between 11 and 7, so feel very lucky. At 6 weeks she was going 6-7 hours nearly every night. BUT...I think I have mucked it all up. She has always been really, really unsettled in the evening, inconsolable crying from about 5 to 9/10 (or the last night time feed). The only way we could find to stop her screaming was to go out for a long walk in the pram which would work for a couple of hours and we did that for a week. But, we decided to try and give her a proper bedtime routine instead to see if that helped. It involved some crying the first few nights, but now she goes to bed 7ish, some crying, but settles and falls asleep usually by 830. I then wake her for a feed around 1030. However, she now no longer sleeps one long stretch and wakes every night at some point between 3 and 5. It doesn't seem to matter whether I wake her up fully (nappy change, lights on etc) or dream feed her- either way she seems to treat the late feed as an "extra" feed and as just part of her one long block of sleep. It feels like I have gone backwards as I am now waking up again at a time I thought I had seen the back of, plus she is no longer getting one long chunk of unbroken sleep. I have been worrying so much that I have now reversed her good sleep pattern and created a habit of her waking at 4ish that it is all I think about, and I can't get to sleep again after she wakes at that time so I am now back to 4 hours sleep a night and exhausted again. I don't know what to do- friends have suggested I persevere with the 7pm bedtime and 1030 feed as she will adjust to it soon (we have been doing it just over a week) but there's a big part of me that thinks this just isn't working and we should go back to having screaming evenings and see whether we can establish the 11-6 sleep again. Any advice? Any one else had babies that seem to carry on with their long stretch of sleep, even if woken up? I still want to keep up the bedtime routine (bath, lullaby etc) so I guess my only option would be just to make that later, around 9, and then gradually bring it forward as she gets older and can sleep longer. Or should I keep going with 7pm and hope she will suddenly sleep through as suggested? I feel like I am being selfish wanting to revert to what worked better for me, but I am so tired and grumpy in the day now that I am not sure it is good for anyone!
P.S. I know that my sleep issue is nothing compared to other people's who have many more night time wake-ups, so am sorry if I sound moany, but I feel so rubbish at having gone backwards and I am useless on little sleep

You're doing absolutely fine. She's still very little and still figuring out day / night routines.

I'd just go with the flow a little, continue with a bath and story at 7. Take her down stairs with you if she won't sleep. Another thing to keep in mind is sometimes the early evening crying means, FFS put me down I'm tired and I don't want a cuddle etc. It took me a while to figure that one out. Go to sleep when she sleeps. You'll need it if her sleep is all over the place.

Unfortunately you've got the dreaded 4 month sleep regression just round the corner. All in all babies rarely follow the manual. I've gone from 2 hourly feeds through the night, to sleeping from 7-2am then two feeds thereafter and sleeping straight through after a feed at 10. Dd2 is 4 months.

Another thing. Never wake a sleeping baby. More trouble than what it's worth IMO. The only times I woke mine up was when she was born early and had jaundice.

I have no experience as ds only 4 weeks old but why not try waking later -11 or 11.30 for feed and see if will sleep longer? I realise this may not be as convenient for you but might avoid very early start!

Hi there , try not to have high expectations and go with the flow. She's still too young to have any proper sleep pattern. Dont best yourself up ... That's what babies do. Try to sleep when your baby is sleeping , chores can wait.

*dont bear yourself up ( not best ) sorry for the typo

Doh beat ...
Sorry I'm half asleep feeding my baby and she is 7 months old hehe and I still wake up at once or even twice night

You're doing fine! You haven't created anything, her sleep habits will naturally change. Hang in there.

As a maternity nurse and sleep consultant my advice would be to skip the dream feed that you're doing, waking her is most likely disturbing her sleep cycles.

Babies that I've had that have done similar often sleep this pattern
Awake 1amish and 5amish
1am feed moves naturally later throughout the night which means the 5am one disappears.
By three months all babies have being sleeping 11-12 hours by three months. Of course if they were waking they would get milk but naturally they have just slept.

I don't think it's anything you have done, they just change so often at this age. My dd was doing a lovely 7 hour stretch at 8 weeks, but now at 14 weeks is waking 3-4 hourly at night, if I am lucky. We haven't changed anything!

Hi OP - I understand your frustration.

My DS's bedtimes used to start at 8pm (bath, feed etc) but he just wouldn't sleep. He would be inconsolable, grizzling, crying, screaming until about 11pm and it was just exhausting. However, the only saving grace was that 90% of the time he would then sleep for 8 hours and not wake until about 7am.

However, the screaming became too much for us to bear every night, me and DH were going crazy listening to it and upon advice we were decided to stop trying to encourage sleep at 8pm when DS obviously wasn't tired and allow his bedtime to be dictated by him. As a result we found ourselves not starting the bedtime routine until 21.30pm-22.00pm and although we didn't have any screaming and he fell asleep quickly, it unfortunately put an end to DS sleeping for a long period. Instead if going 7 hours he started only going 5 and waking up at 3am very frequently and it was a nightmare. I'd feed him, he'd be awake for ages, I wouldn't be able to drop off again and I was just exhausted.

The horrible realisation was that as hard as his screaming had been to listen to it had meant that he and I got more sleep each night.

His bedtime routine starts at about 20.30-21.00 now and although he is usually asleep by before 10pm he is still waking between 3-4am every night. The other night he woke up at 3am and was awake for almost 2 hours

He is 20 weeks old now and it's still just hit and miss.

I've forgotten what it's like now to go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up at a reasonable hour too. I thought his 'middle of the night wakings' were behind me at one point but now I've accepted they are probably here to stay. It's more difficult for DH as he is obviously working and having his sleep disrupted in such a way every night is taking it's toll.

There was a time that DS would go 9 hours between feeds overnight - I'm lucky now if he goes any longer than 5

Hey OP, I have also noticed this with my son. I used to try and dreamfeed him but he basically completely ignored it and then woke up at the same time he would have anyway... I persevered with it on and off (always sticking with it for a few weeks at a time) until he was about 6 months old I think. Not sure why I did that... sleep deprivation I think!!

This time (I have a 6 week old) I have decided I am definitely not going to bother with it and instead go to bed early myself (=8pm at the moment!!) so I get my chunk of sleep then. Atleast for now. I will see where we are at 3 months. I can give up my evenings for 3 months.

Also, I totally understand things like this becoming an obsession. My son regressed with sleep massively at about 12 weeks and I just COULDN'T get my head around it. It never occurred to me that his sleep wouldn't improve in a linear fashion. I was almost beside myself (I did have PND which didn't help). I also had insomnia at that point which is the worst :(

So please don't worry, you didn't cause anything, it's just the infuriating way of baby sleep. And FWIW I always found same as you with the dreamfeed.