Knackered...When is realistic he'll sleep through??

[babyincubator]

Anyone got any advice for a sleep depraved mother?! My DS is eight weeks old and I am itching to get a full night sleep.

He is pretty good so far but I don't know how to get him to sleep through the night.
Currently he goes to sleep by 7.30pm, then I wake him around 10/ 10.30 and feed him about 160ml.
Then he'll wake around 4am, I feed him, then again at 6am - i make him wait (usually happy with mobile) until 7am feed.

Do you think he might sleep through by three months? What can I do to make this happen?!
Please say so! xx

Hah. "sleep depraved" is excellent.

Errrr

It's very unlikely, tbh

If he's sleeping through from 10-4 at eight weeks, that's really excellent. He's so so so tiny still. You can't really do anything to make it happen. And - this will sound cruel, but I don't mean it to be - he might well stretch out the sleeps so it's better at 3-4 months, but then there's a sleep regression at 4 months and it goes backwards. It gets better, though, I promise!

Honestly, though, you do adjust. He's sleeping a 6 hour stretch! That's fantastic. If you go to bed straight after the dream feed, you can get a 6 hour stretch as well, and then one wake up at 4, back to bed, sleep till 6, that's almost 8 hours. At 8 weeks that's fucking incredible, frankly.

My 18 month old still wakes 1-2 times a night, for reference, and she's not an unusually bad sleeper.

he's actually only waking once a night - at 4am?
i'm sorry but that's brilliant and he might be like this for a year or more. do you go to bed after his 10pm feed? how difficult is he to settle at 4?

He's doing amazingly imho.

Focus on concentrating how YOU can cope with his sleep patterns, rather than trying to change HIS behaviour.

Can you go to bed straight after the late feed, so you get a decent 6 hour stretch?

Can someone else do the late feed so you can go to bed even earlier?

What he's doing is perfectly normal, better than normal probably but don't assume it'll change very quickly, and it could get worse before it gets better.

You will get through this, I promise. The 8 wk stage is the pits 'cos all the excitement of having a newborn is wearing off, the sleep deprivation is kicking in, and they're not doing anything interesting like sitting up or crawling yet.

Be kind to yourself, cut yourself some slack in other areas of your life and accept that you will be tired for the next few months.

It's a lot easier to change your behaviour and expectations than to change his

6 h at a time is considered sleeping through, I know it is not enough for some of us. You should go to bed with him, or may be before.
Can you do shift with your partner? you go to bed from 20h till 4h, and he does the 10 pm if bottle fed and you take care of the morning feeds?

My advice was going to be the same as Jojay's. I always maintain that it's easier to change what you're doing than what a baby is doing.

And tbh that's quite an excellent sleep pattern for such a little one.

At this age, don't try and stretch them out or deny milk if they're asking. They're still so tiny.

Great minds SOH - or did they just grind us down until we admitted defeat

Sounds like he's doing well tbh.
Having had 3 I think it depends on the child.
Ds1 slept through at 11 months despite me trying everything to persuade him to sleep through (still does anything he can to avoid having to sleep at 6.5 y). Ds2 slept through from 6 weeks (no persuasion required, just did it one night and then kept it up). Dd slept through from 13 months. Didn't try to persuade her otherwise after first two, just waited for her to do it herself.

Jojay, I suspect it was resignation to the inevitable. But we're still great. I need to believe this to get me through the nights.

My 3yr old doesn't sleep through...

Jojay
"It's a lot easier to change your behaviour and expectations than to change his"

I wish someone had said this to me in my early days as a scared first time mum....

Life got so much easier once I'd worked this out for myself!!

wise words....

I've taken to saying exactly this to all mothers who are struggling with a baby. Once you acknowledge it things are so much easier.

As others have said, 10pm-4am is a fantastic stretch for 8 weeks old. It is still tiring, especially as you're probably still recovering from the birth.

Hopefully you'll start to get more energy soon and getting up in the night won't bother you so much (are your iron levels ok btw? Once I started taking iron supplements my energy shot up massively and the night feeds stopped feeling so tiring). Yes you may have tricky patches eg the 4 month sleep regression mentioned above (and you may kick yourself ever so slightly for thinking 10pm-4am was bad!). But you'll know that it passes and it won't be so bad.

The other thing to mention is that as he gets older, even if he doesn't sleep through, he'll most probably get a lot quicker at feeding at night. It used to take at least an hour to do the whole feeding/winding/settling process when my daughter was newborn. Now at almost 20 weeks she still wakes in the night for a feed, but the whole thing takes 20 minutes tops, she doesn't need winding and I don't even put the light on.

My partner also takes her after the first morning feed before he goes to work, so I get an extra hour of sleep.

Keep going, it gets easier and easier as the weeks pass. Not just the sleep but everything.

sorry to be unsympathetic but you lucky cow!!!
my DS3 20 weeks still wakes twice a night on a good night. DS2 didn't sleep thru (so 6 hours as others have said) till he was 3yrs old.
have an afternoon nap.

As others have said, that sleep pattern sounds normal, in fact on the good side. Doesn't mean it is easy for you though. But I think, as others have said, think about how you can change your life to work round this (afternoon nap for you, get DH to do one night if you a formula feeding, or have extra naps at the weekends if you are breastfeeding) rather than trying to change him.

Also remember - he will change tons every month. Anything you could do to make it better this month would probably only a week before he hits the next developmental milestone and has a slightly different sleep issue.

It is hard but it gets better, and easier to cope with.

wow, thanks so much for ally your answers - i am really encouraged and realise thst i should be grateful that he is ding a six hour stint! xx