General advice/standard FTM panic?

[HEFebery]

Hi!

Sorry for a post that I'm sure has been up 2000 times, as a FTM just want to check that I'm along the right track of doing somewhat the right thing?

I'm aware every baby is different, and have been led by my little one since he arrived 7 weeks ago.

We are now roughly doing bath/bottle at 7.30/8 and up until a couple of nights ago were waking him for a feed at 10.30ish. Now we are letting him go as long as he wants (last night was 1am) he then woke again at 4 for a feed and then slept until this morning.

Is this ok? Should I try the 11pm instead? What general advice does everyone had around sleep?

Selfishly - it's been quite lovely having some of the evening back!

Congratulations on your lovely new baby!

Sounds like you’re doing brilliantly I personally wouldn’t wake a baby for a feed unless there was a very good reason - so if they were born premature, they weren’t putting on weight or they were ill/dehydrated. I definitely wouldn’t be waking them after 2 hours!

Some babies settle into a routine quickly, some are like my DS who can only be described as a sleep thieving demon baby

I would say if you’re doing a feed at 8pm ish and he is waking naturally for a feed at 1am that’s spot on. Every 4 hours or so is right for the size of their tummies at this age as they can’t hold very much.

We found a dream feed was great when DS hit the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. He used to have a feed in his sleep (ie we just gave the bottle with him lying in his cot and didn’t wake him) and this gave us another couple of hours.

You’re doing a fab job!

@BadgertheBodger

Thank you so much for your reply, honestly!

Still in that blur of "should I be doing something different?"

Stupidly read Gina Ford and feel like we should have a "routine" down but then look at my tiny little man and think he's seven weeks! If he's tired and needs to sleep, he needs to sleep etc.

One of the best things I read on here when DS was tiny was that you can read all the baby books you want but your baby will do exactly as they please! Don’t worry about a routine. It’s just something else to make you feel crap if your baby doesn’t co-operate. DS is almost 3 now and I think we only got anywhere near a routine at about 18mo. He just wasn’t that sort of baby