Struggling to get my 3 month old to sleep....

[SCP123]

I would really appreciate advice regarding my 3 month old. I’ve been struggling to form any form of a sleep routine with him at night and I can’t get him to sleep at night until somewhere between 11pm-1am. He does then falls into a deep sleep and stretches to 5 hours, has a feed and goes back down again for another 3 hours. If I try get him to sleep any earlier than that, he’s up every 2 hours for a feed. Is this normal? Any ideas on getting him down earlier or being able to sleep a longer stretch at the start ? I have tried bath time, reading, feeding etc but doesn’t seem to get him to sleep longer 😕
Thank you!!

Would say it's completely normal. Just try to keep routine as much as possible but at the same time go with the flow. So my LO gets up at 8am and I get up and go down with him. he has bottles every 4 hrs and will wake him if he is napping when he's due a feed. So he has bottles at 8am/12pm/4pm/8pm then usually has his last one anywhere between 22:30 and 23:30 and usually sleeps through the night sometimes will wake up for a nappy change.
Bedtime routine starts at 7pm, bath, massage and bottle, and I stay upstairs with him from then on and dim the lights.

Do you have a white noise maker like Ewan the sheep?

Some kids are just non sleepers. My child slept much better and longer when I was in bed with him. He didn’t start going to sleep before 10pm until he completely stopped having daytime naps.

Thank you for both for your reply... I am worried that my boy is constantly hungry and active too. We are exclusively breastfeeding and he feeds every 2-2.5 hours. Could it be that breast milk is not satisfying him enough?

@MrsMarrio - thanks... I will definitely persevere with the routine! That sounds like a great routine you have with your little one! I did look into buying Ewan the sheep but am just using a white noise app at the moment which seems to be helping him most of the time I think!

@BluSpider - thank you , in that case I’m hoping it will just be a matter of time. How old was your little one when they stopped daytime naps?

Sounds like you are doing great. He's definitely satisfied to be able to go those long stretches. My 5 month still eats very frequently (but then I do offer boob for everything lol). I would try bringing bedtime forward in 10 minute increments every few days. But even so, when mine wakes up every 2 hours it's a good night... So even with that your baby is doing good!

That feeding schedule is very very normal. My DC fed every hour until they were about 10 months when they were forced out of it with me going back to work. Then they woke every hour instead! I'd say a 5 hour stretch at this point is great. Keep a sequence of bedtime cues going and gradually bring it sooner but you may find you lose your 5 hours of sleep as that moves into your evening when you're awake.

@SCP123 if you are worried you could keep an eye on his weight ( weigh yourself on bathroom scales then weigh both of you and subtract) but if baby is not screaming the place down constantly it seems like he's getting enough.

I breastfed initially but my son had low blood sugar paired with the fact he was almost 10lbs that I had to top up with formula, then my milk supply never caught up, threw in the towel at 16 weeks, I was devastated.

Ewan has an auto sense setting (the more expensive one) so when baby starts waking in the night Ewan automatically comes on and settles them again, it could give you that extra half hour before he wakes. We used That setting until DS was sleeping 12-6. But now we use it in bedtime routine. He knows when he hears Ewan it's time to settle down

Could you express the 5am feed so DP can do it and you can rest? That will make you feel reenergised

How old was your little one when they stopped daytime naps?
Two and a half. He’s three now and if I let him nap during the day he’ll be awake until midnight. If I don’t let him nap I can get him to sleep about 8.30-9.30pm.