Please help me apply some kind of sleep routine for 11 wk old

[Heatherbell1978]

I know 'routine' is a bit of a taboo word for young babies but DS1 has started not feeding in the morning and I'm wondering if readjusting his sleeping patterns might help....at the moment he's going down around 7.30pm although he can be a bit overtired by that point so I think we should bring that forward. He'll then sleep until roughly 1.30am, have a feed, back down again until 4.30-5am, feed, and then sleep quite lightly until 7.30am. He's now refusing to feed until around 11am and has a few naps before then. He'll then feed every 3 hours roughly through the day. He's gone from 8/9 feeds a day to 5/6 in the last 2 weeks but lots of wet and dirty nappies and on 50th centile. I wonder if I don't feed him at 4.30/5am then he might be hungry at 7.30....he's going 7 hours between his 4.30/5 feed and the next so maybe I should try and 'move' this gap if I can?

I'd be intrigued to know too, my dad is 9 weeks and we're struggling to get any kind of pattern to sleeping and feeding and I'm not sure if it's a problem.

Hi
I don't really have much experience as my DS is now 14 weeks and had little to no experience before him. We now have a routine going all thanks to my dear friend who has 8 dc. We have the book bath bottle from 630 so sleep by 7 730. We then introduced a dream feed at 1030 11. It took a few weeks but he now sleeps solidly till 630 7! +

Sorry pressed post early!! I hope this helps I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone but it has really help us.

You could try giving less at the 4:30 feed, either less time on the boob, less milk, or watered down milk and see if this is enough.

Try to feed him less at 4:30/5 (just one side?) and put him back to bed then wake at 7am (or whenever you'd like your normal day to start) and offer a feed. If you can resettle him at 4:30/5 great but he's still quite small and may well need some milk - just not so much.

Fwiw with my ds who is now 29 weeks I used to put down at 7pm with a feed then dream feed at 10:30pm. He would initially go to 3am, then stretched gradually to 5am at which point I had the same problem (I.e. If I fed fully at 5am he wasn't hungry at 7am) so I would just offer one side. After a while I tried using the dummy before offering a feed and he slowly started sleeping through to 7am.

Good luck! Dream feeds don't work for all babies but you could always give it a go...

I too would go with a small feed or water at 4.30 in the hope that the next feed will be a proper feed

I would not give water in place of a feed to a baby of that age as too much water is not good for them.