Sleep no better than at birth

[CautiouslyPessimistic]

So DS is 14 weeks old. I just looked at my sleep tracker app and his longest period of sleep is the same length now as it was when he was ten days old: 3 hours and 10 minutes.

It's not like it improved loads and has now regressed; with the exception of one glorious week of 4-6 hours this is how it's always been.

What on earth is happening? Isn't it meant to be lengthening? My DD's certainly did - she was still unpredictable but it could be as long as 8 hours at this age.

He's combi fed, 90% bf but with one bottle in the early morning from my partner. He sleeps in a Moses basket in our room. He can self settle - I can put him down 'drowsy but awake' and he'll go to sleep (this is not something I've achieved - he's just able to do it by himself). He feeds roughly every 3 hours around the clock. I can cluster feed him in the evenings and that stops his longest sleep being 2 hours but it doesn't push it beyond 4. He naps well in a bouncer chair or a sleepyhead, usually doing one or two 2 hour naps and some 30 minute ones here and there. He was 7lbs 3oz at birth and 38 weeks with no medical issues. He's small (9th percentile) but all of us are, and his weight is tracking.

I have tried: white noise (I sleep better - makes no difference to him), trying an alternate settling method before feeding (he gets v angry), leaving him if just grizzly (he always progresses to crying, doesn't resettle) and dreamfeeding (no lengthening effect, usually wakes up 2 hours after, sometimes wakes up when he would've done without the feed).

Thoughts? Is this normal? I'm not expecting 12 hours here but surely there should be some lengthening happening by now?

3 hours?! That's long! My ds did no more than 40 minutes for over 3 years.

He's 14 weeks ffs.

My 3 year old's just woke me up. Ge rarely sleeps through. I would've done anything for 3 hours at 14 weeks!

It's not really the length I'm bothered by - it's more the lack of change. Everything I've read suggests lengthening and regressions, and that's what DD did. For it to be entirely unchanged is uncharted waters for me. I just don't know if it's 'normal' (as far as any baby sleep ever is).

Sounds pretty normal to me. My eldest was a great sleeper and I thought it was down to my great routines and fantastic parenting. Then DD2 came along and taught me the error of my ways. She was 1 before sleeping more than 4hrs at night and rarely napped more than 30 mins in the day

(I appreciate 3 hours was insanely good at birth - even if it was rare and usually followed by 30 minute cat naps all night - and perfectly reasonable now).

That sounds normal to me as well. At that age mine used to wake every 2-3 hours and my 2 year old still does

So basically the whole 'babies naturally lengthen the time between feeds as they get bigger' thing is nonsense and my DD just coincidentally did that? Or he's just still to little to be lengthening, and it'll probably happen but not yet?

Thank you for all the replies by the way :)

Get off the app and chill. Babies are people too and they don't follow rules.
HV are constantly telling parent not to worry about development because to many are going online and using apps.
I listen to the labour app with my contractions and next thing I know he was on his way out

Mine is sixteen weeks and his longest sleep can be anything from 4.5 up to (very rarely!) 8 hours. It’s very variable but it has gradually got longer over the last couple of months.

Sorry you’re having such a crap time, OP. I don’t have any suggestions as nothing I have tried seems to have any effect: more naps, less naps, times of naps, how busy we are in the day. His sleep pattern just seems to be totally random.

Mine are grown now op, but I see where you are coming from, I'd expect it to lengthen over time too.

DD’s 1 and 2 didn’t sleep longer than 3 hours at a time until 6 months, then it gradually lengthened.
DC3 is 10 weeks and we’ve had a few golden 5 hour stretches and 1 6 hour stretch but there’s no pattern to it (and last night was 2 hourly).
No 2 babies follow the same pattern unfortunately.

I could have written this exact post myself, except my baby is a little younger than yours. All other mum friends are finally getting some half-decent stretches of sleep, and I'm over here looking increasingly like a vampire.

So no advice or words of wisdom I'm afraid, but just wanted to offer some solidarity (and virtual coffee!)

DS was like this, it did get better for me but only because it went from 2 hourly wake ups to 3 hourly and his feeds got faster so I got more sleep in between them. I think some babies just like eating little and often - he's still like that at age 4! Afraid he then got worse at 4 to 5 months when the 4 month sleep regression kicked in - but he's been a brilliant sleeper since 14 months when he finally started sleeping through.

Three kids, and none of them lengthened their sleeping as babies. I think in your case I wouldn’t look at it that the sleeping hasn’t lengthened since birth, I’d look at it that at birth they had the sleep pattern of a 3 month old.

Yep nonsense. My DS resolutely stuck to 3h cycles day and night. Some babies lengthen their sleep, some don't. They haven't read the book/app you see

I think you're getting a hard time here OP - it's not a weird or unusual expectation to think that a baby will sleep better as they get older! Unfortunately, it's also not unusual that they don't.

MN is always biased towards bad sleepers (especially the sleep board, for obvious reasons) and so expectations here are skewed very low. I was astonished to discover the other day that actual statistics are that 60% of 6 month olds sleep through, as MN had made me feel like I was totally mad and unreasonable for thinking that mine might... (he didn't)

My toddler (over 2) has slept 8 hours without waking maybe 3-4 times ever. And during the hardest times was waking every 40 mins - 1.5 hours or so through the night. All babies are different but 3 hours is fairly good I'd say.

He’s 14 weeks!
3.5 year old DS still wakes at least once in the night! 🤦‍♀️

He's done a beautiful job of sort of regularising his sleep - it used to be standard newborn unpredictability (three hours, up for one, 20 minute nap, up for two hours, etc round the clock) and he does now go back to sleep really quickly at night and definitely recognises it's night time: tends to go three hours, quick feed, 2 hours, feed, 2 hours and so on until he's properly up for the day. I suppose I'd just expect the next thing to be gradual lengthening of the first stretch and it's weirding me out a bit that it's not happening.

But thank you to those of you who understood what I was asking and especially to the person who said to think of him having slept like a three month old as a newborn - that's helpful.

I'm worrying that he's not feeding efficiently or getting properly full or something - that he should now be feeding enough to not need food so often. But I guess either we're just not there yet or he's not that baby 🤷‍♀️

On a side note I definitely think there's a tendency to jump down people's throats on this board, assuming that their expectations are unreasonable, rather than that they're just trying to gauge their own child against the average. I also think there's some competitive non-sleeping - my child was THIS awful at it so how dare you complain about your child who's only (this) awful.

It makes for a surprisingly scary place to post considering it's meant to be somewhere for supportive advice. I just want to say that I guess.

Thank you to those who reassured me that this is within the scope of normal and not necessarily indicative of something being wrong, it's very appreciated.

I’m not sure why you’ve been given such a hard time, OP. I thought your post was perfectly reasonable.

Completely agree with what you’ve said about ‘my baby slept worse that yours’ you come on here for advice but get a hard time because your baby sleeps an hour or two longer than someone else’s! Hoping it improves for you soon! Could be hunger? Or maybe silent reflux? Sorry I couldn’t be anymore help!

I had a lot of sleep issues with my eldest and used to post on here a fair bit, initially asking for advice and then advising others based on my experience. Despite being a paediatrician, I had no idea how difficult it could be to manage a health baby's sleep until I had my own. One of the reasons I barely post anymore is the tendency to put people down, the ridiculous race to the bottom for the worst sleeper and the despicable attitudes towards sleep training - which in the correct circumstances, can be completely appropriate and doesn't have to be distressing. Many seem to consider themselves superior and far better parents because they've tolerated frequent wake ups for months/years on end.

Anyway, your question is completely reasonable and I felt the same with my second child at 14 weeks. Although I had stretched out his feeds to 4-5 hourly (also ebf), the times he slept that long were few and far between. I stretched out the night feeds by cuddling him in the dark and putting him back to sleep when he woke and had fed less than 4 hours prior. I also was feeding frequently in the day (as you are already doing). I don't know what changed but things did start improving around 18/19 weeks and although they can still be up and down at times (now almost 6 months old), he mostly does 8pm-1am then 1.30am onwards until he stirs some point after 5am. He was previously going until 7.30am for about a month but is not yet on solids so needing the extra early morning feed which doesn't bother me - I'm expecting it to stay for a while as I plan to do BLW when I do wean him.

From another perspective my DC were sleeping through (7-6ish) by then. The first from 8 weeks and the second by 9.

I found that getting into a decent daytime routine at 6 weeks helped with daytime naps and this in turn helped with nighttime sleep.

I encouraged longer feeds from 6 weeks and stopped snack feeds if I though they were full already. Mine would cluster feed all evening (EBF).

So, if this was my 3rd I would be surprised that sleep wasn't moving forward, but your baby might just be different to mine and this doesn't make it wrong at all.

In your shoes I would aim to gently encourage bigger feeds/less snack feeds, and get into a daytime rhythm. This might increase the amount of sleep between feeds at night.

But as many PPs said, all babies are different and you have to work with what you've got. They don't read the books that we do!