to all mums with a 3 week old...

[Rubyshoos]

I was just wondering what your dc's sleeping is like at night at 3 weeks old? My ds does really well during the day when I'm out and about in the buggy etc and he does have some awake time and I try and make sure he is fed every three hours, but he does struggle to sometimes go longer than 2 hours at a time at night and it's exhausting! He is formula fed and takes approx 4 ounces per feed which should carry him through for longer than a couple of hours surely? - plus at night he can be incredibly difficult to settle, sometimes it takes about two hours to get him back to sleep again at night.

I know he is only small and I'm expecting too much from him to sleep for hours and hours at night but would love to know what all the other 3 week olds are doing out there!

I think that is really normal. I have a 8 week old bottle fed baby and only in the last 2 weeks has he started doing longer stints ...4/5 hrs at most. It will get better, just hang on in there. Moat important thing I reckon is to get them used to being put into moses basket semi-awake, not waiting till they've completely fallen asleep to do it. Each time they cry when you've put them down just pick up agin until he's quiet and immediatley put down again....repeat until falls asleep when put dowm. That way it they wake at night they are not suprised at being in cot instead of on you. More likely to put themselves back to sleep that way.
They do start being more awake in day soon and that helps them to sleep more at night. Definately seems to take 4/5 weeks for them to sort out which is day and which is night.

I think that is really normal at 3 weeks. It is really tough but hopefully you will find it suddenly starts to improve in a couple of weeks. Hang in there. With my 3 (all bf, but I don't think that makes any difference) it was always around 5 weeks that I started to see improvement. The first thing for me was that instead of it taking ages for them to settle after a feed they started to go straight back to sleep - so even though i was still getting up constantly to feed that made life so much better. Then bit by bit the time between feeds at night started to extend. It really does improve and when you look back this stage seems to have flashed past in the blink of an eye, but while you are living through it it seems like time stands still.

Keep feeding regularly during the day and expose him to as much sunlight as possible (this helps to trigger the hormones that control your body clock and helps the day / night balance establish)

The first few weeks are awful and difficult as baby doesnt stay awake. Even so I still followed the Gina Ford routine and it took a while to get into the swing (comparing against DS1). It does work and within a few months he did settle.

my ds is 3 weeks tomorrow and bf except for 10pm formula

he sleeps 10pm - 2am (up hour feeding)-4 (up hour) - 6am and sometimes back to 8am

I think this is brilliant but at mo he spends all day awake (in main) and upset/feeding which makes life tricky with toddler too.

my ds is 3 weeks tomorrow and bf except for 10pm formula

he sleeps 10pm - 2am (up hour feeding)-4 (up hour) - 6am and sometimes back to 8am

I think this is brilliant but at mo he spends all day awake (in main) and upset/feeding which makes life tricky with toddler too.

IMO that's normal. It does slowly go longer and longer - I found notes I wrote in my demented state showing I had BFd my DC 18 times in a 24 hr period at 3 weeks old. No wonder I have aged 1,000 years.

My DD is 3 1/2 weeks and we had one night where she slept for 8 hours! I kept waking up to check her breathing... she had been awake grizzing most of the day though so think she wore hrself out.

However, generally she sleeps 8-10pm (feed) then she will go around 5 hours and wake at 3ish. After this she isn't great, she has a feed but often seems wide awake, sometimes I bring her downstairs for a bit (keeping it dark) so DH can sleep. She gets up between 5 and 7

She's also co-sleeping. She'll only sleep in her carseat (I'm persevering with the amby nest though as it looks so cosy).

So not great but she does sleep a lot during the day and we get that 5 hour stint usually early on which helps a lot.

My DD (pfb) is 3 weeks old tomorrow. She is usually very settled during the day, but today has been very windy and screamy. She's just settled about 20 mins ago after a mega-burp that nearly deafened me.
At night she is awake fussing and feeding constantly from about 10/11pm to 1-2am which is awful - the worst part of the day - and then sleeps for 2-2.5 hour stretches at night. Often in the morning between 7am and 9am she will take a massive feed and then sleep for a full 3 hours and I generally go back to sleep with her then - so I'm getting up at lunch time and then am awake all night, which is not ideal. Not sure how to turn this around.
She is generally good about settling herself in her moses basket or carrycot, it's just the few hours at 'going to bed' time that she is very fractious. I am ebf but am exhausted and contemplating expressing so that DH can give her a bottle one night a week and I can get some sleep, but worried in case she then forgets how to latch on etc.

At 3 weeks old, feeding 8-12 times a day is totally normal, which means that baby sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time is

emsyj, unsettled fussiness is very normal, often starting from around 3 weeks in both bf and ff babies. See here and here. Have you tried feeding lying down? I would take her into bed with you in the evenings so that you can at least rest while she feeds, and you may even be able to doze off. Just follow the safe co-sleeping guidelines here. I use a mattress on the floor now with a bed rail at the side, but at first we put kitchen chairs along the side of the bed to stop DS falling off.

I would try to sleep whenever the baby does and not worry about it for now. Day and night organisation is supposed to really kick in around 6-8 weeks (although many babies do get the hang of it sooner). As Nelly says, they do often get the hang of going back to sleep faster before they stop waking so often.

It will improve - hang in there and do whatever you can to get as much rest as you can. Until DS was about 8 weeks old I was rarely out of bed before midday and thought that getting more than 4 hours' sleep out of 24 was a success!

I am never out of bed before 11am as my baby's longest sleep seems to be in the morning after a mega-feed where she drains both breasts. I think last night was the worst night so far, she was wide awake til 3am. I did put her in bed with me in the end (DH is sleeping in the spare room as he has to get up for work at 6am so I am all alone) but I am not doing very well with the lying down to feed, I can't seem to get the hang of it.

Emsyj, I'd get in touch with your HV team and get someone to come and give you advice. I couldn't get the hang of lying down feeding either, but someone from the midwife team came and helped me - and was brilliant. If you can get to the stage where you can do it, you'll find it invaluable during the (many) growth spurts when your baby suddenly starts waking more frequently for a short while. It has really saved my sanity.

There are some links on feeding in different positions here: www.kellymom.com/bf/start/basics/latch-resources.html.