10 week old still not doing long stretches

[Olegia]

I'm reading everything and its opposite online, on forums, from friends etc.
I KNOW every baby is different, but it seems like my little one (who must be well over 6,5kg/14 pounds), still cannot seem to go through the night without at least 2 feeds.

We put her down around 20.45/21.00, and she has at times done 6 and a half hours! But more often than not we get an initial block of 4 hours (5 hours MAX), and then it's awake every 2 hours. My other friends who have babies of the same age and weight have had once or twice 8 hours straight! (but they told me it wasn't regular).

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't struggle getting back to sleep myself. I am just not one of those mums who can breastfeed, go straight back to sleep. If I did, I could sleep a LOT, since my DD usually gets back down pretty quickly. Does anyone have tips for insomnia./inability to fall back asleep after getting up at night?
She sleeps in her own bassinet.

Since a few days ago my husband has been giving her a 'dream feed' with bottle (BM), and it doesn't seem to have helped (the 6,5 hour stretches all happenned without the dream feed)

How can I extend at least that first stretch of sleep to 6, or even 7 hours? She's a happy, healthy and chunky baby!

I’m happy to share my own experience with you, which is that the point in time you are describing was some of the best sleep we had, but usually 4 hour stretch (sometimes randomly 6 hrs) followed by 2 hourly wakes. I think this is common breast fed baby pattern.

The 4 month sleep regression is right around the corner and you may prefer to see how that impacts things before making any big changes to your routine. I know for some people it hardly affects them, but for us it was a big change but sleep improved after we got through it.

I think you need to reset your expectations of how long you expect your baby to sleep and start focussing on how to get back to sleep quicker after they have woken. I used to listen to podcasts. Maybe some quite dry ones about economics or history might help you drift off nicely.

@vincettenoir I am working hard on this, believe me, including CBT. I would pay a million pounds to be able to fall asleep quickly.

I'm just wondering what the average is, if you surveyed all parents and took the mean results

You are expecting too much of such a tiny baby. They need frequent feeding, enjoy any long stretches you get, treat them as a bonus not as something to expect.

My 4 have all woken all night until they were about 5 (years that is, not weeks or even months). And I mean all night. I’d be capped to bits if I had a 4-5 hour stretch and then every couple of hours after that. In my experience and that of others nearby I would say you are getting an above average length of sleep out of a very very young baby.

That sounds fairly normal to me. My son wasn't doing long stretches until he was about 5 months old.

I agree about resetting your expectations. I know what you mean about going back to sleep, I was the same but you have to find a way to cope. I'm not minimising the struggle but I think lots of people find this very hard.

I didn't get anything like a 4 hour stretch with either of mine until they were closer to 18m and 2y. Mine are particularly poor sleepers but I think what you're describing is pretty good for the age you're at. Be prepared for it to worsen at 4 months.

You just described last night for me which was one of the best nights I've had in weeks! Mine is 10 weeks old too right now. He will sleep for ages (like, 4 hours!) lying on us, but only around an hour in his moses basket and slightly longer if cosleeping. I bought a snoo smart sleeper in desperation which rocks him all night, we now get a longest sleep of 2-4 hours early on and then a series of 1-2 hour sleeps and that counts as good round here.

I am thinking of speaking to a sleep consultant if it doesn't improve, but all I need is for that 3-4 hour sleep to be reliable because without it I just want to die I'm so tired.

So that puts it in context as totally normal or even pretty good, but I appreciate your problem, outside of baby forums people would definitely say that's an awful night's sleep! I usually fall back asleep ok but sometimes I fail to sleep for ages and ages in the first long sleep, or if he's with my husband and a bottle while I go to bed at 8 to catch up on sleep if it's bad. It's so infuriating and upsetting to not sleep when you have the opportunity! I find I have two problems, one is feeling tense about the baby or physically tense from holding him, the other is my mind racing. Taking time to relax all my muscles helps, and to get my brain to sleep I focus on keeping my eyes still. It's a thing I heard ages ago but I find it works, as your brain is active your eyes are moving about even if they are shut. If you keep them still it kind of lulls your brain into thinking you're sleepy or something. Concentrating on it also helps me stop thinking about anything else.