8 week old - routine?

[le42]

My DS is 8 weeks today, should he be in a sleep routine or is it too early?

For context, he is breastfed. Currently our problem is that between 9pm to roughly 11pm/midnight he just seems to be wide awake every night. The most alert he is all day!

I try to do a big feed 9ish with a view to get him to sleep for bedtime but this just doesn’t happen. Instead my partner tends to sit with him in the lounge and I try to sleep from 9.30ish/10 and he is brought into me for another feed around midnight. Then sometimes again he wants to feed at 1am

After that he wakes roughly 3am, then 6am then 8.30am.

If I try to bring him into the bedroom at 9ish we will just both be awake for ages and I’ll hardly sleep but I worry having him in the lounge with my partner (who is a late to bed guy) is not teaching him about night and day.

Any advice?

He doesn't know what 'bedtime' is! The concept isn't part of his survival plan.

At eight weeks I would expect him to be feeding two hourly, and would wish to give constant access to the breast. If you do that, you'll find he sucks for a few seconds every twenty minutes or so.

A big feed won't help - his little tummy can only take in so much. Breast milk will be digested in two hours so he'll be ready for another feed.

It helps if you don't think of breastfeeding as giving a meal, so much as it being what the baby does, like breathing.

Don't worry about routines and teaching him about night and day. Just love him a lot and enjoy the time you spend being close to him.

Personally I think it’s too early. Currently up with 20week old who is ebf and he goes to bed around ten then can be up every three hours or sometimes longer - I feel your pain!

Too early for routine though you kinda have one our little one at 4 months has just started to get one going and bedtimevis as early as 9:30 most nights ... but it kinda happens on its own , good luck and let husband have him so you can get those few hours of sleep and he gets some bonding time x x x

Okay thank you... just needed some reassurance that not coming into the bedroom till 12/1 wasn’t confusing him more.

He usually feeds every 2 hours during the day and roughly every 2/3 at night. He’s quite a big boy, 12lbs 7 at last weigh in so I’m sure he is getting enough milk.

When should I be aiming for a “bedtime” ?

@plasticpatty - I don’t think he really does that, just sucks for a few mins every 20 mins, he usually always just wants a proper feed. He has never really been a cluster feeder even in his first few weeks... from birth he has consistently fed every 2/3 hours. But his weight gain is good so I’m not worried.

All 3 of mine went by their body clocks by 8 weeks old, setting their own pattern, sounds like yours is the same. DC1 would do as yours is doing and have a slightly longer awake period falling asleep at 11pm. DC2 would reliably fall asleep by 8pm and DC3 by 6:30pm. All of them developed their own night time sleep pattern. Not all babies are the same and so of course not everyone can relate to this. Lots of people will say that babies don't follow a clock. All of mine did, weirdly often to the minute - it's not so much about the clock though and more about blocks of time. However from day 1 we always made sure everything was dark at night and light in the day. What would happen if you or your DH sat with him in a darkened room during this awake period?

Babies at that age have tiny tummies so you can't stock up on milk, you just feed as and when they want you to. I don't think it sounds like you have a problem though, it all sounds fairly normal.

I think the only thing I would do differently is tell him that bedtime is at x time and just be in a dark cosy room having cuddles/feeding. Even if he's wide awake at first eventually he'll understand it's night time.