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Sleep

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Original poster

Sleeping through the Night

24 replies

Mizzey · 22/04/2004 08:26

Hi Can anyone help. I have a 3 month old who is sleeping 8-9 hours each night. He goes down around 7-8 but wakes for another feed at 4.00am then gets up around 7-7.30am. How can I stop the 4.00am feeds. I have thought about waking him at 10-30/11.00pm to top him up but not sure whether to wake a sleeping baby. Does this work??

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katierocket · 22/04/2004 08:29

sounds good to me! Sorry but my DS (2.6) didn't sleep through the night until he was 8 months so not much help. I honestly don't think waking up once is too bad at this age.

there was another thread on this recently - cna't find it recently but if you have a look through Sleep under Topics.

katierocket · 22/04/2004 08:33

here you go - found it
3 month old sleeping through the night

Ghosty · 22/04/2004 08:34

Hi Mizzey ...
My baby is 11 weeks ... so nearly as old as yours
Some people are really against waking a baby but I am afraid that I do wake DD at 10.30pm every night and have done since she was 3 weeks old.
(I don't wake her at any other time of day unless I absolutely have to - like go to take DS to kindergarten).
It is not a miracle cure, babies will not automatically sleep through the night you wake them up at 10.30 but it worked eventually with DS and seems to be working now with DD.
I wake her gently ... feed her ... change her nappy ... play with her for a bit ... then put down the lights and feed her quietly until she is ready to go down again. I try to keep her awake for a full hour.
4 out of the last 6 nights she has slept through until 7/7.30am. Up until last week she still woke at 4am ... and I was very tired but it does seem to be paying off now.
Hope that helps ....

toddlerbob · 22/04/2004 09:12

You could try it, but frankly that sleep sounds totally amazing and I wouldn't dick around with it. However you say sleeps 8-9 hours and so I am confused , how long is he awake at the 4am feed?

Original poster

Mizzey · 22/04/2004 09:48

Hi thank you all for you advice. He takes a full feed at around 4.00am (approx 20 mins) and I can hear him sucking his hand off. He then only takes a small feed at 7.30ish.

OP posts:

moosh · 22/04/2004 12:23

Have you tried making the 4a.m feed smaller. For e.g if you wake him at 10.30 ish for a feed give him a good amount then and either a smaller feed at 4.a.m or boiled water (yukky I know but it might work). Ds1 didn't sleep through till he was 6 months and ds2 only 8 weeks but will be doing this on the advice of others and apparently it works.

elliott · 22/04/2004 12:37

I keep chopping and changing on this one - ds2 is 20 weeks and has a very similar sleep pattern to yours - will go down at 7 to wake somewhere between 3 and 4am, then sleep to 7ish. this pattern has been stable for a while - probably since 12 weeks at least. Waking between 10 and 11 will buy me a slightly later wake up time (maybe between 5 and 6 if lucky) but not quite enough to go right throught the night - so I end up with effectively two night feeds, and then he's not hungry at 7 (and sometimes won't go back to sleep after a 6am waking). So mainly I've stuck with not waking him. It is frustrating when you know they can go 8/9 hours at a stretch, just not YOUR stretch!!
I haven't tried to reduce the feed or tried cooled boiled water as I think he still needs the feed - I'll leave it until I am confident that he doesn't need it (well established on solids) for more active intervention.

tatcity · 22/04/2004 13:03

Mizzey - that sounds like a brilliant routine to me. Mine both slept through at 8 or 9 weeks and before that would have a 4 am feed which they both dropped.

I must say I would be inclined to carry on with what you are doing - I'm sure he will drop the 4 am one when he stops needing it. I definitely would not wake him at 10.30 ish - I tried that, it didn't work, they just woke at 4 anyway!

Sounds like you're doing really well. Good luck.

Evita · 22/04/2004 13:29

I agree with tacticity and elliot. My dd was doing something very similar at that age and to be honest I thought it was pretty good! She gradually, on her own, started waking later and later for that feed until it became morning when she woke. Then you have the joys of early mornings to contend with of course but at least you've had an unbroken night. Different people have different views but I've never been a fan of waking babies u for feeds and with dd it just didn't work.

aloha · 22/04/2004 13:43

Mizzey, count your blessings. That's a fantastic sleep pattern for a 12week old IMO and you are very lucky!

suzywong · 22/04/2004 13:45

You are making me green with envy, to the extent that I cannot think of anything else to say, Mizzey, just enjoy those 8-9 hours!

pamina3 · 22/04/2004 14:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Rhubarb · 22/04/2004 14:10

Sounds pretty good to me Mizzey! You could try gradually reducing his 4am feed and bumping up his 7.30am feed. Or else you could do what Gina Ford advocates and wake him at 10/10.30pm for a full feed (lights dimmed, no talking, put him straight back down again afterwards). My ds is 4 months old and feeds at around 10.30pm, then sleeps until 6.30/7am. But it hasn't taken a long time to get to this stage, last week he was still waking at around 4am and then again at 6am! Perserverance is a good thing!

suzywong · 22/04/2004 14:18

pamina3
thanks for the invite but I can top-trump you with 4times
Will definitely have a lurk though

pamina3 · 22/04/2004 14:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

kiwicath · 22/04/2004 21:16

Mizzey, I've given my wee boy a dream fed at 10.30 since day one (now 4mths). He would wake at 4am for a feed which eventually moved to 5, skipped 6 and now 7am every morning. I didn't actually "do" anything, he seemed to figure it out on his own. He's fully asleep when I lift him so I can change nap, plug him in and he'll feed on autopilot until he's full then straight back to bed without even opening his eyes. It might be worth a try, good luck.

Tinks · 19/05/2004 20:09

Hi can you help. I have a 4 month old who up until 2 weeks ago used to go down at 7pm, wake up at 10/10.30pm for a feed and then back down until 7am. However, she has now decided not to go down until around 9.30 - 10pm. She is tired at 7pm, but just doesn't want to go down.

Can anyone help as me and my hubby would like our evenings back!!

Spod · 19/05/2004 23:37

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Spod · 19/05/2004 23:40

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MUSA · 20/05/2004 22:20

Mizzey- what i still do is dream feed my son, i take him out of his cot and feed him in his sleep. you can see if it works for you, my son is 8 months old now and i still dream feed him i think it brillant. And by the way yes you are very lucky you son does all that sleeping.

cuppy · 22/05/2004 00:18

My dd is 13 weeks. she goes down by 7 wakes at 4/5am for a feed then wakes again at 8-9ish.

I would love her not to wake at 4am but am so grateful that she does do a 9hour stretch that Im just following her lead. Dont want to try waking her in the evenings incase it goes horribly wrong and she start waking more frequent.

I'm just grateful for how she is as I know some mums have sleepless nights, every night!

inkstigmata · 22/05/2004 14:29

We woke dd2 at 10.30 for a feed from the start - the idea being to guide her long stretch to come after that. I doubt introducing it now for 3mo would work straight away but it would probably steer him towards doing the 8 hour stretch from 11pm after a week or two. You'll probably find that if you started waking your ds at 10.30 now he would still wake at 4am for a while so you'd be thinking you'd took a step backwards and you shouldn't have messed with it - but I suspect it'll work after a while

Alternatively your ds may push to 12 hours in a month anyway - my dd1 was doing that at 4 months before solids.

dd2 was sleeping until 2-4am (from 11pm) for about 6-7 weeks without any trend emerging of pushing it later, but then she started waking at 6-7 over just a few nights.

Spod · 23/05/2004 13:20

Message deleted

inkstigmata · 23/05/2004 15:23

Spod I'm not sure what dream-feeding is, but I wake dd up fully at 10.30pm to feed. It used to be difficult but now it's easy - just turning the lights full on will do it.

If you say your dd can sleep 10 hours, then the 4am thing may be habit anyway. I don't know if reintroducing a late feed would work to be honest - she may refuse it also out of habit? good luck anyway

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