Tada! I’m awake! Is this normal?!

[AwakeinaMosesbasket]

Our beautiful little one is six weeks old. A typical 24 hour period is as follows:

Awake following night as described below between 4.30am and 5.30amish and almost impossible to settle thereafter as wide awake and looking st everything. Spends much of the day awake, feeding every one to two hours (but only for around 20 mins each time, sometimes longer) and if I put a lot of effort in, including about three or four naps but these will only be for around half an hour each time despite best efforts (sometimes only 15 minutes!)

I guess this means cumulatively a max 2 hours sleep in the day? Very rarely we have a 1-2 hour nap (it used to happen all the time in the first couple of weeks..what a beautiful time!)

Nighttime routine starts about 8.30pm, bath, dimmed lights, same lullaby each night (YouTube special!), feed. Usually settles quite quickly for first sleep.. but then tada! Awake 45 minutes to an hour and a half later, has a mini feed, put back down, same scenario again (wakes writhing and grunting and eventually screaming.. I’ve tried more winding time etc but might try Infacol too)

This continues until about 2.30-3 when a sleep strike ensues and it takes up to 2 hours to resettle for sleep, just in time for the mini sleep and extra early wake up time as described above!

It’s exhausting me but I’m even more worried about her... she definitely isn’t getting the 16 blissful hours I read about!

Even 2 hours sleep at night would be a godsend... what can I do?! If even this level of sleeplessness is quite normal then at least it’s a relief

I had this. DD fed every 2 hours for first 9 weeks. I was exhausted. Spoke to HV who advised all babies are different.

At 9 weeks she suddenly slept from 11pm to 7am, no waking or interruptions! I spent the whole night fretting that something was wrong

Stick in there. It will change soon xxx

Phew! As an eg, I wrote the OP just as she’d been put down in her basket and a sleep looked promising.

I put phone down and went to sleep straight after and now she’s awake and crying (feeding her at same time). So about 40 mins again and this might now be “morning”!

It is tough. I was in bits in the beginning. I also supplemented breast milk with heavier formula later on to try and satisfy the hunger on advice of the doctor (the blue stuff) but don't think that made any difference.

It will pass. My DD became a very good sleeper and I also became very adept and sleeping the minute she went down.

Now aged 12, I cannot get her out of bed! Seriously, it's all about phases in development and no stage lasts long.

6 weeks is prime cluster feeding age, they have a huge growth spurt at this age.

DS1 spent 24 hours clamped to my boob without a break at 6 weeks