What is reasonable for 10 week old?

[pollyanna]

Hi ladies,
Dearly hoping you can help me?
This is baby number 3 for me and my other 2 are 9 and 11 so i'm struggling a little with my memory. Just wondering should my ten week old be able to go for longer than two hours sleep at nightime? Also it seems his witching time is midnight to 4am. Is there a way to reprogram him? Part of me thinks it has to do with his leg brace as he has club feet. During the day there are more distractions so i think the brace worries him less,but at night i just want him/us to get some sleep and at the moment its not happening.It seems that at the moment we are sleeping from 4am to 12 noon or 2 in the afternoon with several dream feeds in between.
Thanks for any help you ladies can offer
Pauline

[Curly]

Oh ouch you poor thing. I hate to say it but yes, I would expect the majority of bubs of that age to go for longer than 2 hours at night.

Having said that, my DS was not a good sleeper but I would usually get a good 3 to 4 hours solid sleeping out of him in the early evening before he would wake up with increasing regularity as the morning approached. I would be getting up to him 2 or 3 times in the night, sometimes on a bad night up to 6 times, but fortunately when that happened I could almost guarantee the next night would be much better and probably only 2 night wakings, it was like a cycle.

I would go to bed at 8pm so I could get a decent chunk of sleep in, I find that if I've gotten less than 3 hours sleep between wakings I feel particularly shattered when I get woken up. He gradually improved as he got older but he didn't sleep through the night until he was 18 months old, when he dropped his day nap altogether and went into a big boy's bed. Sorry...probably not what you wanted to hear.

My DD is 12 weeks today and is a real sweetheart and has only been waking once in the night since she was about 5 weeks old...just a different kid. The only thing I have been doing is encouraging her to stay awake for about an hour and a half to 2 hours at a time during the day (including feeding time) and perhaps the early evening as well if she has had lots of sleep during the day...this seems to guarantee that she'll go for longer at night. My theory is that if she gets her awake time then she won't want awake time in the middle of the night.

You might be right about the leg brace, I can't think of anything much to help with that other than trying to keep him awake for longer during the day to make him more tired at night (paying attention to his cues of course, if he needs to go to sleep in less time then let him).

Good luck, I hope others have more suggestions for you. Having been there, I really feel for you.

[MantaRay]

Oh Pollyanna, you must be exhausted! Normally babies will have one longer sleep during a 24 hour period - but as you have found, it isn't always at night! There are lots of different bits of advice for this that I have read, and TBH I never had this problem myself. But I would suggest trying to bring his sleep forward a little at a time. Even if it's only 15 mins at a time, at least he is getting closer to going down during the night, rather than in the morning. You might need to back this up by waking him up each day at a set time too - ie to match the change in start time, so he is having the same amount of sleep.

GL with it hun. I hope it works.

[MummyDuck]

I would try introducing routine. I never had a problem with DD's sleep - until Child Care were only putting her down for 2 half hour naps a day and now DD wakes up at night.

My dd would have been around the same age when I put her into a routine, however in saying I put her into a routine, I followed her lead.

She became predictable, slept around the same times and fed 4 hourly. So I just decided that instead of waiting for her to get whingy I would put her to bed, however, if she had a day where she slept more I would let her sleep in but only for say an extra half hour to 45 minutes and never let her sleep past 5.30pm other with I would never get her to sleep at 7.30.

Its a catch 22 for us..... she sleeps 4 to 5 hours a day still. (two 1.5 hour sleeps and around an hour after her morning feed) If we can get that in while she is home she will have good night sleep. At child care she is only sleeping arounf 1.5 hours the whole day and sleeping terribly at night and it means I'm finding it harder to get her to have her naps during the day as well. Anyway the catch 22 is too much day sleep = bad night sleep, not enough day sleep = bad night sleep.

I agree with bringing her sleeps back slightly till you find what is just right.

If he wakes at 4am for a feed, do so, then put him back to bed until anywhere between 7.30 and 9.30 I would get him out of bed, play with him, feed him etc. He needs to learn day from night. When he gets grumpy put him back to bed for a nap but not more then 3 hours. It is said that a child who sleeps 4 to 5 hours is 'sleeping though'....... you dont want a baby to 'sleep through' during the day.

You may be surprised at how quickly his body clock can readjust...... it takes taylor around 2 days to get back to her routine after losing it. But also keep in mind you may have to deal with a tired, grumpy baby for a few days. Its the same when we go overseas and have jetlag.... he is learning a new timezone. GOOD LUCK and SWEET DREAMS

[pollyanna]

Ladies,
Thanks so much for your replies. I think i have decided(much to the peril of my heavy breasts)to put him on the bottle with s26. I had a girlfriend come over today and help me with Darcy. She gave him a bottle at 6pm and we had to wake him at 10pm for his next one. And omg he was so happy. so smiley and trying to laugh. That is the longest he has ever slept. I have charted his feeds and sleeps over the last few days and now realise he was never sleeping longer than 2 hours,because he was on the breast every two hours. As much as it seems that i have an abundent supply it dosent seem to fill him up. Yet if he has too much he throws back up the overflow and in 2 hours is hungry again. I'm just so scatterbrained and sleep deprived after 10 weeks of this, i think its time to bite the bullett. I have left groceries behind at the supermarket twice this week. Tried to open a parked car with my keys(i thought it was mine...eeeekk),then had a really bad fall while holding Darcy. he was fine but I'm all black and blue and grazed. TRying to not beat myself up with the whole brest is best sycobabble,but with this being baby number 3 i do feel satisfied to some degree that i did brestfeed all three kids.
Thanks for your listening ears.
Pauline