Am I doing it wrong

[PebbleTTC]

Hi all, Iv an 8 week old baby and I'm not sure if I'm getting the night time sleep right.

I put him down to sleep around 7 and he fights the sleep until about 9. This 2 hour period is filled with him crying, I pick him up, feed him, settle and put back down and repeat until he falls asleep.

He is tired and cranky so that's why I try put him down early.

Is the 2 hour fight normal or am I putting him to bed too early?

At 8 weeks old both my kids were downstairs with us in the evening until we went to bed. (In fact we were in Poland for a wedding when my 2nd was 8 weeks old!) They usually slept on one of us or in their pram. Didn't start a routine/bedtime until 12weeks.

Evening cluster feed (lots of little feeds with short gaps between them) is very normal at 8 weeks I find it easier to let DS (5wks) doze on my lap until I'm ready for bed myself. Dinner has to be pre-prepared and useful activity is pretty much zero but it does eventually calm down.

The only reason I started putting him upstairs was because he was so cranky and crying I thought it was due to over tiredness. Is it too early to be putting him to bed alone? Should I leave him down with us so for another few weeks or will I just be delaying this? Because come 9 pm he sleeps for 5-6 hours uninterrupted so don't want him downstairs and then me waking him up to bring him to bed when I'm going

If he does his longest stretch from 9pm I would be doing a bedtime routine with the aim of him being in bed for 9pm as it seems that is his natural bedtime. You can work on bringing it forwards gradually over a few weeks. No point forcing a 7pm bedtime if he isn't ready then, more stress for you and him.

They do spend the evenings fussing and crying at that age. Agree with pink powder above and just put him down at 9pm so he does his long stretch then. Am jealous! My 12 week olds long stretch is 3 hrs if I'm lucky!!

Ok great thanks I'll try that tonight! I'm very lucky with him he is a great baby for feeding and sleeping!

My Ds is 8 weeks and he goes to bed between 6.30 and 7 with my elder Dd. He doesn't get as much chance to sleep in the day as he should though as she's always waking him or we are taking him somewhere! Dd used to stay up until around 9ish at the same age thougguh, fussing, feeding etc - it's pretty normal at this age.

Hi, we sleep trained at 6 weeks with our DS because prior to that he would only sleep on us - he would cry for hours before finally crashing at about 8pm on my husband (from being overtired I think). I would go to bed, DH would bring him up when he would go to bed and he would sleep on me for the rest of the night (between feeds). So on the advice of a friend who had also done it, we tried "sleep training".

We did bathtime, milk then bed at 7pm. We left him in his cot upstairs in the dark. Left him for 6mins crying then one of us went it to comfort - not taking out of the cot, just soothing for a min with hand on chest (to start with he didn't stop crying so just left anyway), then increased to 7 mins, then 8 etc adding a min or two a time until 14mins I think, then left it at that as a max distance. Each time he was quicker to sooth and lasted longer with us out of the room until he started crying again until after 45-50mins if I remember rightly he went to sleep. The second night we did the same and it was 20mins, the third night it was 5mins. Since then he's always gone to sleep pretty well. A few exceptions occasionally of course but we have problems in the early mornings! We were worried about whether he was too young but no one was sleeping well with the previous method so for us it was the right decision. We had the monitor on always so could always hear him and checked him periodically of course.

it was 2 years ago so might have some minor details missing but that's the gist anyway! Good luck with whatever you choose.

grizzly evenings are normal though op: many babies do this for up to 4 months. Sleep training can be hard at this age as they simply don't have the mental development to learn anything from it. Doesn't stop you encouraging self - settling gently but I don't think that's what you're asking!

Sleep training at 6 weeks.... OK........

I am generally chilled about what other people do with their children, but leaving a 6 week old baby to cry in the dark for almost a quarter of an hour has left me genuinely shocked and sad. A 6 week old needs to be picked up and cuddled and fed!

It's up to people what they do; sleep training is pointless and unfair at that age but she can do that. The op meanwhile should just put her baby to bed for 9 and accept grizzly evenings as normal!

I dont want to get into a long debate on this but just wanted to explain the reasoning behind out choice

• DS cried inconsolably for three hours every night prior to this no matter how much we cuddled, fed, soothed, sang, rocked him etc. This didn't seem fair to him and he clearly wasn't having a great time either
• we thought long and hard about whether to do it knowing the advice was against us (and it was very hard for us to do to), but had a friend who had tried it with success so decided to try to see whether it would help him.
• the first night he cried for less time than he would have done on another night and by the third night went to sleep easily and happily in his cot straight away
• he slept on me during the day still for months after this and had plenty of cuddles and soothing the rest of the night and during the day. He still cried when he needed things and we responded straight away
• i know not everyone approves but it was the right choice for our son who ended up much happier and sleeping better as a result with far less distress to him.

Hi all, thanks for the replies. I did as you suggested and put him to bed at 9. He was still crying from 7-9 but he did it downstairs with us!

It's absolutely none of my business whatsoever but I'm also shocked and sad at the thought of a 6 wk old newborn being left to cry alone in the dark. At that age there is no such thing as routine and newborns are renowned for being fussy and hard to please at that time of day and just need extra cuddles, love and feeds.

At that age I think they just need lots of feeds and cuddles until they're ready for bed. I've noticed amongst a few babies that they seem to suffer with wind at about this age - to do with their stomachs developing perhaps? - so infacol and winding and that bicycle legs really helps if they are squirmy.

With my first she would go down properly at 10 and wake and 6 at that age it was total bliss. I thought the twins would follow this but hell no! . They're 9 weeks old and now have a feed around 10:30pm then wake anytime between 2:30-3am for another feed them up between 6:30-7am.

I couldn't imagine trying to put them down for the night when my 4yo goes to bed around 8ish. They're usually awake from 7-10pm. I personally think it's impossible to sleep train so young. Babies aren't really capable of self settling so young either