[BJMing]

My 2 month old is now 12lbs and has been sleeping a 7-8 hour stretch at night in the past week. But its at the wrong time of night!

This is his evening/bedtime routine:
18:00 Bath
18:30 Really good feed (both breasts at 25min each)
19:30 Sleep
01-00-02:00 wakes for feed (both breasts 20 min each)
04:00-05:00 wakes for feed (1 breast 20-25min)
07:30-08:00 wakes for feed (1 breast 20-25min)

So even though he can go 7-8 hours after the evening feed, I still have to wake up twice between midnight and 07:00 to feed him.

What can I do to shift 7-8 hour stretch so that its between midnight-07:00?

I'm afraid that if I wake him up at 23:30 he may not feed and may not sleep for 7 hours afterwards because I think its the bath that helps him to sleep for so long. But I can't postpone his bath to 23:00 - it'll be too late for such a little baby!

Any ideas?

[jane01]

It probably doesnt' help to say that this is a completely normal pattern for a young baby ! Gradually the 1am feed will become 2, then 3, 4 etc.

If you want to try to rejig the pattern slightly, you could try an 11pm rollover feed - ie whilst baby is practically asleep. It might take a week or more to have any effect and it may have no effect at all.

I recommend expressing and letting your husband do the rollover feed. You need to get yourself to bed early as you have a busy night ahead of you. I used to go to bed at 8pm in the early days. It doesn't last forever.

[LLL_Sarah]

What you can try is to slowly more the bath later. Start by moving it by 10 minutes the first night and if all goes will another 10 minutes the next night. Keep the slow relaxed settling down routine you already have after the bath. So that all that changes is the start of the whole routine is pushed later. If you find that ten minutes a night is too much just do five minutes a night.

[Lolipop]

I tend to think that moving the bath time to later will just make your lo have the same sleep pattern but become a late sleeper and late riser, which is common in HK but a habit you then need to get of later down the line when they go to kindergarten/school etc early in the morning.

We did a 'sleep feed' to get LO to sleep through night - it worked a treat! Around half an hour before the normal time she would wake up we picked her up gently and gave her her bottle (no lights or talking obviously), we just did it once in the night and she went through to the next morning (7-7(ish)). When you feed them as they sleep they are so relaxed that they do not need burping or anything, you just feed and then put down. Then we gradually cut down on the amount of milk in the bottle until all we did was give her her pacifier for 10 mins before putting her back down (she was getting enough milk during the day), then after a couple of days we didn't go in at all and she slept through completely from then on.


xxx

[BJMing]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I did delay his bath by 30 minutes for a couple of days but it had no effect. He would just wake at around 01:00-02:00. Bathtime used to be an hour later and that was a nightmare coz it meant his bedtime was too late and there was no peace in the house between 20:00 to midnight coz he was overtired.

I'm considering the 23:00 dream feed but I'm afraid that he will not feed well since he has a huge feed 18:30 - probably the biggest in the day. This could mean losing the 8hour stretch.

Is there a way to make sure babies feed really well at 23:00?

[LeahH]

I would definitely go with a feed at 11pm - to get our 9 week old LO awake enough to feed properly, we gently wash her face or feed her near the aircon (with a bottle of expressed breast milk so you know she's getting a good amount). She'll then go through to 5 or 6am. We're hoping she'll drop this feed and go straight through soonish. We'll keep the 11pm feed on though to make sure her long stretch stays at the right time. Habit will ensure this works after a few days (even if it goes a bit wrong in the beginning)

[BJMing]

Thanks for your encouraging replies. It seems like the dream feed at 11pm is the way to go. Our current feed at 2am is also a dream feed only LO wakes himself. I'm guessing I might have to feed again at 3am if I feed LO at 11pm, but hopefully this will push forward to 4am, 5am, etc. Fingers crossed.

[BJMing]

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who adviced me to go for the dream feed. After plucking up the courage to try out the dream feed, my LO has now been sleeping till 05:30 for the past week. It has taken us about a month to move the 7 hour stretch to the right place after introducing a dream feed at 23:00. As predicted, LO started off waking at 03:00, but slowly and surely he managed to shift the feed to 05:30. He's ravenous at 05:30 and feeds for nearly an hour then falls back asleep till 07:30. I feed him in my bed while lying down so I still get to rest till 07:30.

The shift took a little longer than the predicted 2 weeks partly because he came down with a fever and lost his appetite after taking the DPT jabs. He didn't put on much weight for a week so I fed in the night whenever he was fussy.

Anyway, its worked out great. And now at 14 weeks, I can say my little boy is practically sleeping through the night! Thx again!