Sleep patterns of a 6 week old - am I doing ok?

[NoviceKnitter]

My 6 week old DD will go one day without a nap at all, then sleep almost all day the next. She'll only nap when driven, pushed, fed or slinged-up and hates being put down e.g. in moses basket. At night, she naps between regular feeds all evening then comes to bed with us. Nighttimes have generally been not too bad - she wakes every three hours but then quite often has a lie in in the morning

I thought I was going to be someone who tried for a bit of routine from birth (not to a GF extreme) but have found we're go with the flow parents who believe we'll all find the right rhythm together - and so far though not perfect, things are going pretty well.

However should I be pushing DD harder towards a 7 o'clock bedtime? Is she heading for late nights as a toddler and has anyone any tips or thoughts about independent sleep and how much I should, for example, be waking her after a feed rather than letting her fall asleep on the breast (which feels so nice and natural but lots of books advise against...)

It would be lovely to have a couple of hours in a day when I could get stuff done while she slept in her basket - but I'm happy to wait for that time as long as I'm not encouraging bad habits that will prevent it happening...

Hi novice, I was sweating blood about this stuff too when ds was this age (he's now 17 weeks). Think I started 3 threads about it i was so worried.

Everyone and their cat piled on to tell me two things:

1. if lo doesn't want to be put down, don't. Sling up. As lulumama said, baby doesn't even know it's been born yet.

2. this is a phase and it won't last (This is so true!), so make the most of it - nap with and snuggle your lo as much as you can.

But the thing that really helped was a friend who said she'd done CC with her 10-week-old because "it's the most natural thing in the world" and she "didn't want him to be dependent on anyone for sleeping".

And I thought, but it's not natural for a tiny defenceless creature that size to sleep all by itself; think of puppies and kittens sleeping in a heap! Besides, if lo is dependent on you for everything else, ffs why not help them with this as well?

Now ds is quite often fretful if I do continue to hold him, and is learning to go to sleep in cot, all by himself. He falls asleep on his playmat too.

If you are feeling relaxed and happy with what you're doing, go with it. I pass on the mn "relaaaax" karma to you

Crikey, at 6 weeks postpartum I'd just about worked out one end of dd from the other, routines were like pixies- mythical.

DD is 14 weeks and I have never imposed any routine at all. She has always slept when she wants, where she wants and for as long as she wants (we co-sleep too). Magically she has found her own routine and will sleep anywhere- on us, on her playmat, in her chair, in the pram, carseat etc. If she's tired, she sleeps. From 9pm till 6am she sleeps, yes she half wakes for feeds a couple of times but sleeps soundly inbetween.

I agree with phdlife, tiny babies need all the love and cuddles you can throw at them, routines are great if you want to try them but don't get too worked up. Enjoy your lo.

oh yes, forgot to say that - he does the long sleep at night, only part-waking for feeds too. and his daytime nap routine is settling down too, entirely his choice when/how long!

novice have posted back on my sleep thread, but a bit more.
We are doing a slightly relaxed version of GF with DS.
However, we didn't start it til he was 9weeks, and even then we only did it because he was actually getting himself into something very close anyway, so there was virtually no hassle doing it.

We did start doing a bath, bed, feed routine much earlier though, about 4 weeks, as recommended by our midwife. Not time-restricted as such, just the routine of what happens at bedtime. Since we did that, DS has always slept in the evenings with no trouble. I do appreciate that's unusual though, lots of babies are a handful in the evenings I know.

When he got to 9 weeks ish on the recommendation of lots of people we read (with scepticism!) GF, thought some of it was tosh, but some made sense. We then observed DS for a few days, writing sleep times/feed times down, and noticed that he was actually in a loose routine very like the one GF recommended for his age anyway, so we went with it.

We wouldn't have otherwise though. At 6 weeks it is a good bet to go with your DD, but it might be worth starting a bedtime routine at approximately the same time each day, if she does have a normal ish evening feed. And/or either now or in a few weeks you could do what we did and just observe for a few days, you may find she starts working her way into a routine which you can then work with.

It does get better though!

Thanks to all - reassuring and helpful as usual. Things are improving - for e.g she just slept for half an hour in her basket while i had a lovely bath. my instinct is to keep cuddling, follow her lead and once a routine or need begins to emerge to gently help it along. just have occasional pangs about wondering what i'd do differently with benefit of hindsight. Most of the time I'm getting on with enjoying her though and will keep that up! Thanks again

ps Flowery - did you bath every night then? been thinking of this but DD got quite dry skin, so haven't gone there yet tho she really likes baths when she has them...

Hi NK,

I have a 7 week old DS, and we started a bedtime routine at about 5 weeks. It certainly helps him wind-down for the night, and although we don't bath every night, we do top/tail, change him for bed etc. It's a good way to get the evenings to yourself- well worth it. With my DD we gradually got her bedtime from 11-12pm back to 7pm, but it took many weeks/months.

I don't think you need to introduce a full 24-hour routine at this early stage, and getting LO to sleep in their basket takes time. I now put my LO down in his basket for daytime naps, but only because I can't get him to sleep in a sling/bouncy chair/playmat etc so its the only way I can get some chores done/eat/go to the loo etc. We still co-sleep at night when he won't settle in his basket.

You have plenty of time to work on sleep habits and all bad habits can be changed over time.

novice we do bath every night yes. DS had dry skin as well at that stage, so we didn't use any bath products, only some grapeseed oil (from health food shops) in his bath, dry skin cleared up a treat, then we started using bath stuff 3 or 4 weeks ago.
We found the wind down before bed benefits of having a bath everyday made it worthwhile, and as I say, we didn't use any drying bath stuff for a while anyway.