How many times does your 8 week old wake at night?

[SarahDay1990]

How many times does your 8 week old wake at night and do you feed on every wake? If you don’t feed and don’t use a dummy what do you do when they wake? If you do feed do they take full feeds? Thanks!

Mine is 4 months now but if I remember correctly he used to wake around 3 or 4 times a night. Basically he would sleep 2 too 3 hours, wake and feed for around 20 min and fall back to sleep. He is exclusively breastfed.

DC1 was sleeping through from 10pm to 6am ish without a wake or feed. DC2 typically woke once at around 4am for a feed then would back to sleep until about 7am although sometimes he would be a bit unsettled and we’d have to pop the dummy back in a couple of times between 4 and 7. Both formula fed.

Thanks for this! For those BF did you find that your LO gradually did longer stretches if so when? Or did you find they kept waking 2-3 hours more out of habit? My LO takes such small feeds when she wakes that I think she’s looking for comfort rather than being hungry

Ooo that's going back but maybe twice? I'd wake him up for a sleepy feed at about 11pm and he'd wake up once more about 2 or 3. I think by four/five months just down to one overnight feed, but he was always an early riser. My daughter was much tougher to settle but slept well once down so I'd say the same. Only recall a few times they kept me up - routine routine routine from first night home and they settled in to it after a few weeks. I may have been lucky but who can say? My friends with little or no routine had many disturbed nights, those with one had much better time of it.

I breast fed both mine but started them on food just before five months (both over 10lbs at birth and were ready).

My little is 8 weeks today. Last night she woke twice. Sometimes it’s 3 times. She wakes anything between 3 and 5 hours. So not sure that helps! She’s EBF so takes full feeds. But sometimes fusses and wants back on the ready after that. For this reason have started using a dummy just to help her back to sleep in those circumstances. She doesn’t always take it though so then have to get up and rock her.

Back on the breast not the ready!

I tried the dummy as find my LO isn’t taking full feeds at night - she’s not an overly hungry baby at best of times - but found she couldn’t keep the dummy in her mouth and every time it fell out she would wake 🙄she’ll feed for only a few minutes and despite a lot of toe flicking, nappy changes etc she will not take any more so think it’s more for comfort….

Mine went down at 7pm then woke at 1am and 4am typically and I fed every time. This was until 4 month regression when he went up to every 1-2 hours and then I didn’t feed if it was less than 4 hours between feedings. I used a dummy which was a useful tool although in hindsight we should have got rid of it as soon as he developed the ability to pull it out of his mouth as that caused more pain than just getting rid of it as we kept having to put it back in…

My 9 week old is waking at 2 or 3 and then lasts until the morning. I do skin on skin whilst breastfeeding, wind him then offer a top-up so his feeds are plentiful.

It sounds a bit like a comfort thing or that she's just constantly snacking instead of having fewer but more satisfying feeds.

@SarahDay1990 congratulations on your new baby, I hope you are both keeping well. I have 3 children and I’m pregnant with my 4th and can I just reassure you, that you are doing a great job and nothing you are doing is ‘wrong’. (And furthermore, no one else is doing it ‘right’ although it can often feel like that!).

I know it is overwhelming, extremely tiring and often frustrating having to wake up frequently during the night, but it is completely normal what your baby is doing.

Everyone’s baby is different and your beautiful baby is doing what she needs. Things will change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the not so good, but mostly everything is short term!

Keep up the excellent work! And well done for the time already put in!