12 week old and horrible evenings trying to go to sleep

7 replies

pixiedust21 · 25/01/2022 14:04

Apologies in advance if this comes out a bit jumbled. I am so tired and feeling pretty down about things. Looking for advice from anyone who has been there done that!

My baby will be 13 weeks tomorrow. He's never been an amazing sleeper. We have yet to achieve the elusive long stretch of sleep at night that nearly all the other mums in my baby group seem to be getting (I know it doesn't help to compare.)

I have now read so many articles about routines - whether it's too young to start a routine, how to start one, consistent bedtimes, blah blah. I feel bamboozled by it all and just a bit... crap.

We don't really have a specific routine. Well we kind of do I suppose. We get up (at different times depending on what kind of night we've had - so maybe I need to be more consistent with getting up?) We generally try and follow the eat - activity - sleep thing but sometimes it doesn't always go to plan.

I try and make sure he naps after about 90 mins, sometimes he goes longer awake.

He naps maybe about 4-4.5 hours in the day.

When I try to "put him to bed" (the time on this has varied a bit too) the following generally happens:

Sleeps for 30-45 minutes
Stirs and cries in his crib
I try to re-settle him with a hand on him or a dummy
Doesn't work and ends up really awake / screaming
I keep him in the room and try to get him back to sleep but it literally can take another 2-3 hours of him being up in which time he wants another feed, starts getting overtired and really distressed.

I get no time to myself (I know I shouldn't expect to but I am TIRED). I keep wondering if I should even try to keep "putting him to bed" or just keep him up with me, following the eat-sleep-nap thing. He generally will then go to sleep maybe 11-11.30? And once asleep is ok during the night although still up maybe every 3 hours.

I just feel I am doing this all wrong for him.

Any advice gladly welcome.

OP posts:

LGBirmingham · 25/01/2022 20:16

I think if baby settles for longer stretches from 11 ish you should just do bed time for then and have more naps during the day.this could perhaps mean 5 or 6 naps day? At least then the best sleep is happening when you too want to sleep.

When my ds was a newborn he would sleep really well in the afternoon and evening and then awfully post midnight. I would have been thrilled with what you described. The only thing I've learnt from a year of parenting is it's best to do what seems to work for you and your baby and not what you think babies ought to be doing.

It's much less stressful that way. Hang on in there, sleep might not get better for some time but babies get an awful lot more fun when they start doing stuff like rolling and crawling etc... it makes you focus on the sleep less

genericusername789 · 25/01/2022 20:30

Do you use white noise? My answer to everything sleep related!

MGee123 · 25/01/2022 21:26

Lots of babies don't do long stretches, so don't worry he isn't 'normal'. He sounds like he's hungry and is wanting to feed more in the evening, again this is normal. Just feed him as much as he wants in the evening (cluster feeding) and at some point he will drop off to sleep. You will probably find as the weeks go on the time he drops off will naturally move earlier and as it does you can start doing a bit of a bedtime routine. Make sure he gets lots of daylight during the day to help him develop his circadian rhythm.

A caution re the eat, awake, sleep stuff - this can often result in hungry babies not sleeping/napping well. At his age I would just feed him when he wants to be fed and follow the wake windows guidance for how often he needs to nap. Don't worry too much about making a routine, this will come with time on its own accord. Our feeding and nap routine became more settled around 4-5 months.

EL1984 · 25/01/2022 21:38

My boy was also really tough to get into a routine and we were on 4 or 5 naps a day at weeks and got down to 3 slightly longer ones at around 5 or 6 months old. I never thought it would happen.
It all really clicked into place at about 8mo when he was on 2 naps, that's when the 1.5-2hr stretches seemed to kick in finally!
When he was very little he would also just want to cluster feed and fall asleep on me, then feed, sleep, feed, sleep till about 11pm. Then one night he just seemed really irritated and grumpy so I tried taking him up to bed at 7pm and from then on that was his bedtime and I got my evenings back.
We also had a horrendous 4 month sleep regression where I was up almost hourly for a while.
You will get through it! I found the first 8 months really up and down with sleep but it finally worked itself out.
I used to go to bed at 8.30/9pm as he would have his longest stretch at the start of the night. I had no life but its 'only' for a few months so just do what you gotta do.
Good luck x

EL1984 · 25/01/2022 21:40

Not sure if he is maybe too old now but try the parent and baby coach online sleep course. Apparently it goes through lots of things you can do right from when they are young. I only found out it recently so if I have another ill be purchasing!!

LGBirmingham · 26/01/2022 07:33

@MGee123

I couldn't agree more. Tracy Hogg caused untold misery here by her claim that if a baby was fed right after they woke then any crys after that were not hunger related fir at least another 3 hours. We'll guess what Tracy, it wasn't 'E.A.S.Y' and the bab probably needed feeds every 1.5 hours because he went from 2nd percentile to 75th over a course of 5 months.

MoreThanRubies · 26/01/2022 08:47

DD started with a natural “bedtime” of about 1am, when her longest stretch of sleep started. It gradually got earlier; midnight, 11pm etc. until 8pm. We introduced a bedtime routine at about 12w but more for our mental well-being (some difference between day and night) than her. We’d do bath and a book at about 8 but DD didn’t settle to sleep for another couple of hours - until then I would mostly cuddle, feed & change her, and try to get her to nap a bit while she screamed but she definitely wasn’t settled for the night. However, slowly her bedtime shifted earlier until it met her bedtime routine. So you can start a bedtime routine now if you like, and then one day bedtime will actually be bedtime.

Good luck! Do what you need to do for your family.

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