My lovely 10 week old is generally contented and happy and is in a fairly good nighttime routine. (Daytime we just let her nap when she wants for no more than two hours at a time, and feed her every 3ish hours. Nap times and lengths vary; no pattern yet.) She goes to bed between 8-9am after a bath and bottle, and is good at settling herself to sleep in her cot. During the day she settles well for naps either in the cot, in the carrier out on a walk, or in her bouncer. She doesn’t like falling asleep on me, which I know is great! She’s fab.
However, she is also going through a bit of early teething and chews/sucks on her hands. I’ve tried the gummee mitts and she’s not massively keen; she seems to find them frustrating. During the day I can distract her with toys or hold teethers for her while her grasp and coordination still develop.
My question is about nighttime sleep. She’s starting to be able to sleep long stretches; usually 9 or 10 hours. However she wakes me up maybe every two hours sucking on her hands. Initially I got up and changed and fed her, but she’d actually still be asleep and only wake on the changing table (I always change her as she’s a very heavy wetter). Tonight, though, I waited when the sucking and chewing started, and after 15 mins of it with no real crying, just a couple of mild whinges, she put herself back to sleep. Well, she went quiet again - I don’t think she actually woke up throughout the entire thing. It’s happening every two hours so I’m not well rested, but I’m wondering if this is normal, if I’m doing the right thing by letting her do it and settle herself (she’s currently sleeping contentedly after her 4.30 chew session, and I did check on her to ensure she was asleep throughout). It’s loud enough that it even wakes my heavy sleeping husband, but I think it distresses us far more than her. Is there something I could/should be doing better? Sometimes she does sleep soundly without doing this but recently it’s very common.