6 week old - sleep routine?

[otterbaby]

My daughter is 6 weeks old and is an 'okay' sleeper. Sleeps fine during the day, several 1-2 hour long catnaps, but at night won't go down until about 12am and then sleeps in 2-3 hour chunks. She requires rocking and cuddling to go to sleep and sometimes it can take 3-4 tries to put her down if she wakes up in the process!

I didn't think much of this as she's still so young, but lately I've been reading that she should be self-soothing and that I'm "creating a rod for my own back" (that old chestnut) because she's going to require my help to go to sleep until she's about 17 apparently.

Am I doing something wrong? Obviously I'm tired and would love to be sleeping more but I assumed at this age it's pretty much just following their lead. We go upstairs at the same time every night, have dim lights and white noise but I don't know what other sort of routine would be expected right now.

Thank you!

You're doing it exactly right. Worry about routines and self soothing later, for now, do whatever gets you through.

You’re doing great. 2-3 hr chunks at night is normal for this age. And you can’t spoil them in first 12 weeks. Google 4th trimester, it really helped me!

A 6 week old's routine is whatever they make it to be, and they are far too little to be expected to self-soothe. She needs to be held, rocked and cuddled as much as she needs you to. You simply have to power your way through it, and it won't last forever.

6 week olds can't self sooth. Christ my dear 19 month old doesn't do it all the time. Give yourself a break and don't worry about sleeping yet. You will be exhausted yes but I promise you'll come through the other side :-)

Sounds pretty normal to me. Hang in there!

My first child never self settled and at night always had to be put in the cot asleep. He too was awake until past midnight, but then slept to around 6 am at 8 weeks old. The earliest he ever got to go to bed was around 10 pm. My second son was completely the opposite, he was always asleep by 8 pm and didn’t sleep through the night till 1 year old.

Hi otterbaby my son was exactly the same a couple of weeks ago- not settling until well after midnight. He's 9 weeks now and has been sleeping from around 10pm. It just gradually became earlier. He will sleep for 3 hours, wake for a feed then sleep another 3 hours. After that he usually will only sleep on me but it means I get 6 hours at night then we nap together in the afternoon. It will probably all change again next week but for now it's better!

6 weeks is way too young to self settle.

God six weeks is too young to self settle. This all sounds 100% normal - keep doing what you're doing!!! And don't worry about anything relating to routines or sleep until 12 weeks at which stage you can gently start to shape a routine - get them up at the same time each day to set their body clock to that wake up time, their first nap will then be at the same time every day and that's the first building blocks of a routine.

Hi - my little one of 6 weeks tomorrow. At the moment at night she does a 4.5 hour stretch at 9.30 - 2am then has a feed and then will do about another 3 hours but there is a fairly big gap in between the two stretches - anything between 45minutes - 2 hours. So usually 3.30- 6.30am
I posted the other day as I didn’t know if she was doing ok and I’m just so tired but I think it seems to be fairly ‘good’.
Each night from about 8pm I play with her for around 15/20 minutes and she likes to look at things on her mat, then I turn the lights down and get her ready for for her bath which she loves the water then dressed for bed, she has her feed which is a bottle before bed either breast milk or formula. She’ll be held up for around 15/20 minutes or so and then put white noise machine on and down to ‘bed’ for her long sleep, sometimes this can be up and down about 3 time’s for her to settle but once she is, she does do least 4 hours. Then when she wakes in the night, lights low and I don’t talk to her in the changing/feeding to try and let her know it’s night time. When I’m holding her after the feed I put the white noise machine on again.
I am absolutely struggling as well but though that might of of at least some use. I know that routines are not needed so young but it actually helps me a bit to do the same things in the same order each evening.