How long should a 10 week old baby be awake for in the day? What are your babies doing?

[threetwoonezero]

I'm so confused with how long babies this age should be awake and asleep for, I am trying to follow her cues but could someone give me some advice? What are your babies doing routine wise, have they fallen into one yet or are you doing a routine?

At 10 weeks we did
Wake around 5 and come into my bed for a snuggle and fall back asleep til 7.30
Feed
9-10 nap in a swaddle
10.30 feed
11.30-2 nap in a swaddle
2.30 feed
4-5 nap in buggy
6pm feed
7pm bed, feed on demand during the night (usually 3am)

That's really helpful thanks I think that be what she is trying to do, but I have been stressing and forcing her to sleep longer in the mornings then waking her from her lunchtime sleep! Perhaps my bedtime is too late and I'm pushing too many naps in? Do you do a dream feed? Are you formula feeding?

My 9.5 weeks baby wakes up at 6.30 and goes to bed at 10pm

Never wake a sleeping baby

I am formula feeding. I didn’t do a deeamfeed as we tried it and it made no difference to the wake up time.

Thanks LapinRose...

JustEllie what does your baby sleep in the day? thanks

When DD was 10 weeks, I followed a similar routine:

• 6.30-7am - wake up
• 7.15am - feed (DD was always happy to wait for milk in the morning)
• 9-9.45am - nap 1
• 10.45am - feed
• 11.45/12.00-2.45pm - nap 2 (I would wake her up if she'd gone beyond 2.45pm)
• 2.45pm - feed
• 4.00-5pm - 40-45 minutes nap, awake not later than 5pm
• 5.30/5.45pm - bath (depending on how tired DD was)
• 5.45/6pm - bottle
• 6.30pm - bed
• 11pm - dream feed

At 10 weeks, DD started "sleeping through" (6.30/7pm to 6.30/7am with one dream feed) on one night out of 2 or 3. When she did wake up between 11pm and 6.30am, DH or I used to resettle her by shushing and patting. We never offered milk after the dream feed past 8-9 weeks and DD was never hungry for it.

We dropped the dream feed at 8 months.

Every day is different here...I just let her sleep when she wants, today she’s probably only been awake for a couple of hours, but to be honest she’s been like it in the heat. Cooler days it’s more 50/50

I am not a morning person. Baby and I never get out of bed before 9am (ideally 10am if I can persuade him to sleep that long). Before I gave birth I was horrified to read all these schedules where mums are getting up at 5-6am! But your baby will adapt and get used to whatever schedule you set.

-9-10am get up and have breakfast, bath and feed, and play on the mat.
-12pm baby feeds to sleep.
-1pm get up and go for a walk before lunch/feed and play.
-3pm we go out for a coffee or to the shops or visit a relative or something, anywhere for a change of scenery. Baby has a feed while we’re out.
-5pm we come home for a feed and a nap.
-7pm cook dinner and baby has another feed.
-10pm go to bed, another feed.
-Nighttime feeds in bed at about 2am and 6am.

My baby is 13wks and I haven't a clue when she eats or sleeps. I just let her do her thing with naps, and feed her when she seems to want it. She does sleep for long stretches at night and is content during the day so I'm assuming she's ok.

She is DC2 though, I think with DC1 I could have reeled off his routine by this stage! We also found a dream feed made no difference to him sleeping.

At 10 weeks I don't think either baby was awake for more than 2 hours at a time. I loved that stage 😁

DD is 10 weeks and we have absolutely zero routine - apart from her brother's! I'm aiming for feeds no more than 3 hours apart as she's still on a v low centre, and sleep sometime after a feed. She's just come up to bed with me now. DH gets home just in time for DS's bedtime so it's all a little too rushed and noisy for her to go to sleep at that point.

I'm in a similar situation my almost 10 week old will sometimes nap most of the day but other times stay awake from 8am until 10pm with no nap and no matter how hard I try just won't. I do think the heat doesn't help as I'm cooler days sleep is better. Not sure if a routine will help or just keep going with the flow for now.

My LO does not cooperate with routines! He doesn’t want to feed when I say it’s time, or sleep when I want him to sleep. He does get tired and hungry at roughly the same times each day, but he sets the routine and it varies a bit from day to day.

This is all so helpful, thanks! I am now entering a hellish stage with potential dummy dependency at night...last night waking all through the night....so that's the next battle. Congratulations @WinterTravel1980 that sounds like a good 'routine' and getting her to sleep through the night. Presumably she was quite an easy baby? Did you let her decide the routine or did you follow a book? And was she on bottles not breast and still doing the 3 to 4 hour feed? We are on bottles.

@MuggledOff that's also pretty impressive...sadly our one is a little fractious and I think she will do better on some form of routine, although I'm not really v popular with my husband for that...

PS @Wintertravel1980 2 hours awake sounds a bit long for mine, she can do about 1.5 hours. How did you manage that?

Mine daughter is 4 weeks tomorrow and since Monday she's been sleeping 8:30/9pm until 6am has a feed then goes back to sleep until 9am

Feeeing -
6am
10am
1pm-2pm
5pm
8:30-9:30pm

Usually she has an hour of playmat and tummy time in the morning and afternoon

It does vary from baby to baby OP. My DD is a very easy baby so far and a great sleeper. The lack of routine doesn't seem to bother her. DS was more fractious and thrived on a routine. He still does, aged 2.5 and likes to know what he's doing that day.

Mine slept 45 minutes every 90 minutes, fed every 2-3 hours.

Mine is 10 weeks and she seems to need to nap after about 90 minutes awake time. I don't have a set routine in terms of time of day, because there isn't much regularity in how long she naps for. I struggle to get her to sleep for naps and I feel a long way from having a handle on daytime sleep patterns, but sticking to around 90 minutes awake time is the one part I feel reasonably confident about.

I feed her when she wakes from the nap and then she likes a lot of playing and entertainment before she starts to get tired. Keeping her busy in that short window of time seems to help her get tired enough to sleep, although it's still a massive effort!

Presumably she was quite an easy baby?

DD was easy to sleep train because she was (i) a great eater who could have lots of milk during the day (so I knew she didn't need to feed much during the night) and (ii) she was big (consistently following the 95th percentile curve) and some people (including health care professionals) believe that larger babies go through the "four month sleep regression" and adopt adult-like sleeping patterns earlier. She was not easy in any other instance - e.g. she had a really bad acid reflux when she was 6 weeks and I had to argue with GPs to get the right prescription. Once DD was put on medication, she got much better and I could focus on her sleep.

Also, DD has always been very loud and noisy and, ironically, it helped with getting her onto a routine. She used to become cranky as soon as she was getting mildly overtired so I could not really miss her cues.

Did you let her decide the routine or did you follow a book?

I had a great maternity nurse helping me for the first couple of weeks (couldn't afford her for longer). I relied a lot on her advice and tips. I have also read lots of books - the most useful was probably "Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg. She gets bad press on Kellymom but her recommendations on baby sleep are highly effective. Of course, all books are only guidelines - I only used what I thought was useful and relied a lot on trial and error.

And was she on bottles not breast and still doing the 3 to 4 hour feed?

Yes, I formula fed. DD was on anti-reflux milk (which worked well for her condition).

2 hours awake sounds a bit long for mine, she can do about 1.5 hours. How did you manage that?

Here I was completely baby led:). I followed a version of EASY (wake-eat-activity-sleep) routine until DD naturally extended her awake time to 90 minutes - 2 hours. She could always stay awake for longer in the morning when she was rested. If your DD can only do 1.5 hours, I would just go with it. It is much harder to settle an overtired baby.

Good luck!

Thank goodness for mumsnet...thanks all! @WinterTravel1980 thank you for such a detailed reply. Perhaps you should become a parental adviser?! My hopefully last question is if you were doing EASY did that mean she was feeding quite regularly? Mine will only go to around 2.5 hours and is on formula which seems such a short time but she cries so much for the bottle after she wakes up and then drinks so much. Shes not fat...yet! @Dannuh at 4 weeks how on earth are you managing that, must be a very chilled baby. Im trying to go with the flow a bit more today and I like what you said @JayneEyreFunFayre, at this stage just sticking to the awake times and then letting them sleep.

Thanks, @threetwoonezero:).

My hopefully last question is if you were doing EASY did that mean she was feeding quite regularly?

At the beginning the feeds were all over the place (which is normal). I have just always tried to give a full feed when DD woke up and then added top ups when I could see she was getting hungry. I tried not to feed to sleep (again, I know it is natural and easy but that was the specific association I tried to avoid). Even when DD got sleepy after the feed (top up), I used to wind her and sometimes change her nappy before putting her down. DD fully settled on the 5 feed schedule (7am - 11am - 3pm - 6pm - 10.30/11pm) at about 3 months.

DD always drank a lot of milk and was a very chubby baby so I was constantly getting questions from my family when I was going to sign her up for weightwatchers. They thought it was funny - I was getting slightly annoyed but chose just to smile and nod. I took precautions (e.g. following so called "paced feeding" techniques) not to overfeed DD (given her reflux) but it made zero difference. DD was just a hungry baby. However, her good appetite during the day definitely helped with quickly dropping night feeds and teaching her that sleep can be as good (or at least nearly as good) as food.

@WinterTravel1980 I just looked up paced feeding and tried today and it makes so much sense, I was definitely doing it wrong. Such a shame that HVs dont help with bottle feeding advice. So you were feeding on the 4 hour schedule and then topping up in between?

@JayneEyreFunFayre what do you do about feeding are you following EASY or leaving a certain number of hours?