How many hours did your 2/3 month old sleep at night?

[Hope54321]

Hey guys,

How many hours did your baby sleep at night at 2/3 months ?

For those whose babies didn’t sleep much during the night, how did you cope with less sleep?

Any tips on trying to get baby to sleep before midnight? My baby can be awake until 2am! And then sleeps and wakes every 1 or 2 hours for a feed.

Breast feed at 6.30, sleep at 7.
DH woke baby at 10.30 and gave full bottle (the well known ‘Newsnight’ feed). Down again at about 11.15pm.
Baby woke around 3 for a full breast feed.
I woke baby at 7 for a full breast feed.

The 11.15pm onwards sleep got longer and longer until there wasn’t a wake between then and 7am.

We then phased out the 10.30pm feed.

@FATEdestiny ....not healthy for a baby 2-3 month baby to be awake more than two hours what waffle.

OP I see you are breastfeeding. Every two hours for a feed at this age is completely normal. Breast milk digests more quickly than formula so BF babies need feeding more frequently. (Eventually they will go longer) It also reduces the risk of SIDS as babies will wake themselves to ask for food. Sometimes formula babies sleep longer as formula takes longer to digest. But you will find that when you talk to other mums both ff and bf have good and bad sleepers - that's just babies for you!

I came on here for support and advice with my first for coping strategies that helped keep me going:
Drink lots of water
Now is not the time to diet - eat lots of high energy foods to keep you going
Try and get out for fresh air every day - I used to walk to the local coffee shop and back once a day and the coffee was my 'Reward'.
Make time for a bath or shower every day
Co-sleep if possible/ you feel comfortable so you can feed and just go straight back to sleep.
Ask DP to leave you a flask of coffee and lunch ready each day.
Go up to bed early with baby.

I bf and had a frequent waker. Months 3-6 were particularly bad BUT things did improve and my dc slept through from 7 months. I currently have 2nd dc (2mo) and am waking every two hours to feed. I mostly feel immune to the lack of sleep now.

lemorella don't be rude and dismissive just because you disagree with me. I'm sure you're a decent enough person that you wouldn't be so rude to a stranger trying to help others, if we were talking face to face.

You could just say you disagree without dismissing my (extensive experience with many hundreds of families) advice as "waffle"

We were quite lucky and from 3 months she would usually sleep like 11-6 or so without a feed. I think that's quite rare though and we just got lucky. She didn't sleep much in daytime at all though just screamed all day every day so we always thought she exhausted herself so much she slept at night!

@FATEdestiny telling a sleep deprived mother that her baby's perfectly normal sleep pattern isn't 'normal' or healthy is reckless no matter what sort of self proclaimed expert you believe yourself to be.

I'd tell you the same face to face but it's a anonymous forum isn't it.

It isn't normal or healthy and I am trying yo help the sleep deprived mum.

It's ok you disagree with me. I would not dismiss your answer as waffle, just a different opinion to mine.

Baby slept at 11 during breastfeeding yesterday and wouldn’t allow me to put him down in his cot until 12.15. He thrashed and moaned and chewed his hands at 1.45am, 4am, 6am, 7.15am, indicating he wanted a feed. Also, I need to burp him and hold him up for 20 minutes after every feed otherwise the milk comes back up and he chokes.

I’m finding that he wants to sleep on me, but this is impossible for me to do.

Also he is 11 weeks old

Do breast feeding mum’s feel like their baby is using them as a pacifier?

Hope54321 You could try a dummy. By 11 weeks breastfeeding should be established.

Babies naturally find sucking to be soothing and calming. While breastfeeding is one way to give baby that calm feeling, if it's comfort baby needs rather than calories, a dummy may help.

(Also worth noting that consistent dumny use reduces the risk of SIDS death).

Also, have you tried a swaddle?

You don’t get all this cluster feeding stuff with formula fed babies and a lot of woman use breastfeeding like a comfort, basically like a dummy so the baby needs it to go to sleep which adds to the issue.

It’s really down to if you think the benefits of breast feeding is worth going through all that. For me it was a no, as I wasn’t going to be any use knackered and frustrated.

If research the benefits of breastfeeding and make a decision on the impact v reward, and ignore anyone giving it “the who recommend” and remember the who recommend globally so cover women in developing countries with no access to sanitation.

I think there are plenty of formula fed babies who aren’t the best sleepers.

Thank you for the advice @FATEdestiny, it has definitely been cluster feeding in previous weeks but she’s refusing any extra feeds I offer outside her usual ones in the evenings (typically every two hours or so depending on her cues)... she seems overtired or perhaps in discomfort. So hard to tell when you’re a FTM! Really appreciate you taking the time to reply to my message x

jamie980 over tired and in discomfort present as the same thing. So I tend to first eliminate the non-medical (over tired) before medicising the issue.

Have you tried seeing if baby will drop to sleep upright on your shoulder with a dummy (as you sway)? This would help if baby has wind.

In terms of over tiredness, it's not unusual that baby gets increasingly over tired through the day, so is worse by the evening. It suggests that you've been building over tiredness throughout the day.

It might be that the signs you use for knowing it's nap time are actually later stage over-tired cues, when you could do with acting on just-got-tired cues.

My breastfed babies were 2 hourly feeders through the daytime. I would ensure a nap happens in each of those 2h cycles too. So the day would be repeating patterns of:

• Wake
• Feed
• Floor time until grumpy/clingy - usually 30 45 minutes
• Nappy check, wind cuddle, put down to sleep
• I used a bouncer for daytime sleep. So in to bouncer with dummy. Me on sofa, non stop rhythmic bouncing with my foot.

Then sleep and the cycle starts again. That start to finish cycle would be around 2h at this age. So awake time might be 1h15 with 45m nap (or there abouts).

I sincerely hope nobody believes the rubbish you have just spouted. If you are going to make claims which are not scientifically based or helpful then don’t bother.

Aslong as your baby is gaining weight then medical advice is clear that you can continue to allow their night sleep to be led by them so it is entirely healthy.