Help me get some sleep with my 8 week old!

[Bellabelloo]

We have a bedtime routine, bath, book (not that he's interested!), very calm, dim light, and he settles really quickly on his own with his dream sheep by about 8pm. He then sleeps until 1am for a feed but then just catnaps for the rest of the night wanting feeding. So the only sleep I really get depends on how early I go to bed before 1am.

During the day I try to be more interactive and entertaining but he sleeps loads. In the car, in his pram, after feeds etc. Should I be trying to keep him awake? And should I wake him after a set amount of nap time? I have read so much conflicting advice!

I am sooooooooooo tired!

Sleep breeds sleep. On top of that your baby is still firmly in his fourth trimester and too young for you to do anything but meet his needs.

The waking and feeding frequently at night is what we've evolved to do. Your son needs to do it. You'll just need to get whatever sleep you can during the day while he's asleep. By rights he should still be inside you, so perhaps adjust your expectations a lot!

It all sounds pretty normal to me I'm afraid. I'm in bed for 9 most nights with my 7 week old. Like as soon as my toddler is asleep and I've eaten I'm in bed! Needs must. It'll pass.

can your partner do night feeds, at least at the weekend. bottle expressed milk or formula? i couldnt express so my husband used to bring baby for me to feed and hed do the changing etc. you need your sleep too!

OK. Thanks! It seemed like I was the only one at the baby group today whose baby wasn't sleeping through!!

I know it's not what you want to hear but it's still early days, at the moment it's just about meeting baby's needs. If it makes you feel any better my girl is 12 weeks and has just done four nights in a row of sleeping 10pm-7am uninterrupted.

It's really tough but it will get better!

He is only 8 weeks old!

He is nocturnal. Many babies are born this way. It will right itself but may take a few months. Go with the flow. Don't worry about routine too much at this point. And reading stories won't really impact at this stage. Hope you can catch some precious power naps during the day to top up your rest.

8-1 is really good at that age. I know it's hard but can you try to go to bed at 8-then you would get 5 hours. The babies who are 'sleeping through' might be sleeping midnight until 5/6am so the same amount of hours as your baby but a different time.

There's not much you can do at that age to change how baby sleeps so you might just need to do whatever you can to make sure you get the most amount of sleep possible.

8-1's amazing! Get to bed early - sounds like you need it or you could try to start your bedtime routine later to see if he'll do 9-2

Very early days. I think just go with it for now. Sleep when baby sleeps is the advice I was given. So get your rest during the day.

Congrats!!

I think he needs feeding more between the 8pm and 1am feed if the broken sleep is after 1am.

Can you go in about 10.30/11pm and give them a big feed then? They may then do their big chunk of sleep after this?

At that age they should be sleeping near you so if he slept in the lounge with the lights dimmed abd tv on not too loud then he wont have as deep a sleep which would maybe mean after the 11pm feed he would then do his deep sleep

The best thing for good nighttime sleep is good daytime sleep. Let him sleep! Go to bed early, persist in keeping daytime light and nighttime dark and quiet, and just try and ride it out. It does keep on changing. If he's asleep a lot in the daytime make the most of it and nap as much as possible!

Agreed. At that age they can manage about 45mins awake so Id tuck him in for a snooze 45 mins after he wakes regardless. As the weeks go on, this can extend to an hour then 90 mins etc.

Belle I could have written your op apart from the settling at 8 on his own. Mine will only feed to sleep.
How on earth do you get them to settle alone? Pram and bouncy chair he will sleep in, just not cot.

8 until 1 is amazing. My DD only did that around 7 months and she is formula feed. Go to bed at 8 and nap/rest during the day.

Your baby should only be awake for 90 mins at a time sitting the day.

I think you have slightly unrealistic expectations, and at least some of the mothers at your baby group are either lying, drugging their babies to sleep, or else there is a very strange coincidence that they all seem to have the rare baby who sleeps for lengthy spells from birth (such babies do exist, but they are v v few and far between)! Also, think carefully about what 'sleeping through' means. For some people this means sleeping for 5 or 6 hours or so straight. It doesn't necessarily mean sleeping for a 12 hour length (and actually, that kind of sleeping isn't healthy for a young baby. They wake regularly as a natural form of self preservation and from a SIDs perspective you should celebrate your LO's frequent wakings.)

Your LO is already doing long stints of sleep which is absolutely amazing- most babies wake far more regularly at that age. Also, you will probably find when you hit the 4 month mark that the sleep patterns change quite a bit anyway, so just go with the flow as best you can.

I will be a voice of dissent

At 8 weeks I would be expecting lots of napping in the day yes but I would wake the baby every 3 hours on the dot in the day for a feed if breasfed or every 4 hours if bottlefed.
Then I would do a feed at 6.30pm and another one at 10pm. The 10pm one should be as big as possible.
You should in theory get your next wake up at 4am and then back to sleep until 7

Or just take the batteries out, eh?

Waking babies to feed them? What madness is that?!

The OP asked how she could get more sleep. I am offering a suggestion.