Advice please on four week old night sleeps

[pumpkin2]

Hi all, new to this but have been reading some of the helpful advice posted to other Mums on similar and hoping some of you can help / reassure me ! My DS is four weeks old and has never gone more than a three hour stretch between feeds. This means that I feed him at 10.00 (following GF - or trying to !) and am then up again at approx 1.30,4.00and 7.00. GF seems to suggest that he would be sleeping to nearer 4.00 by this stage and may even need to be woken for a feed ! He has been following the routines like a dream but this week (week 3) has been v unsettled at the 7pm nap, and a couple of times I have fed him at about 8.30 - could this be having an impact on his 10.00 feed meaning he is not taking enough and is therefore waking earlier ?
All advice gratefully appreciated - even if its just that this is 'normal' at this age and go with the flow !

At four weeks this sounds completely and utterly normal so don't panic. Feeding at 8:30pm will definitely impact on the 10pm feed so I would try to reduce it gradually or avoid ideally ( not easy i know). You know he's going to feed at 10pm so you're not depriving him.
My ds was forever being "kept back" a week on the routines because he could never quite last as long as Gina would predict. If your ds is reasonably big then I wouldn't worry too much - Gina seems only to have dealt with teeny weeny babies IMO.
Ds took a few weeks to settle properly at 7pm but did eventually. Sounds like your ds really isn't that far off. It honestly won't be long before it clicks into place but I would give it another couple of weeks before expecting your ds to drop one of the night feeds (probably the 1:30ish one will disappear). He's still very young.
The 4am-ish one will probably go soon after. By 3 months, most babies (unless there are other difficulties) are able to last a whole night without a feed (ie 10pm-7am) and some can do the 12 hour stint soon after that.
ds slept 7-7 with the 10pm feed at 10 weeks and right through (13 hours - hurrah) from about 5 months if that helps.

Very normal, and with my limited knowledge, too young for GF. Go with the flow.

Agree with Bobsmum and Mears! I think your ds is probably very "normal". There may well be some babies that GF has cared for that go to nearer 4 am at this stage but by no means all, no matter how closely you follow the routines during the day. If you have decided to follow GF though, don't give up, stick with the routines as much as you feel happy and comfortable and just go with the flow at night.
My ds was nearer to 6 weeks before he started settling well at 7 pm and even now at 3 months he still has the occasional off day when he won't settle very well at 7.
Best of luck and hope things get better for you very soon

Message withdrawn

Thanks all for your advice and the moral support ! Main prob with the 10pm feed is getting DS to stay awake long enough to have enough to take him through any sort of longer stretch however on the nights we've given a bottle of EBM I have noticed a difference so maybe my milk is low then - hard to tell without a having some sort of measuring device ! Anyway the routines are going well in the day although as with bobsmum he isn't quite managing to do the longer awake stretches yet . We'll persevere, you have given me hope there is light at the end of the tunnel !