DD is 5 and a half weeks old. She's started sleeping for at least one longish stretch, going for 5, 6 or even 7 hours between feeds (not all of that sleeping, unfortunately), in a day. I consider this to be a real improvement and we're very pleased about it, as it shows her circadian patterns are starting to kick in!

Now, her longish sleep starts sometime in the afternoon or evening, between 6 and 10pm. So she generally next needs a feed at sometime between about midnight and 4am. Currently DH is giving her that later feed sometime, with a bottle of EBM, so I can sleep. But, even though he is usually up late working, it's getting to be a bit much to ask him to stay up until 4.30am waiting to see when the baby will wake.

What we are wondering, is whether we can encourage DD to move towards the later end of that timeslot rather than the earlier end of it. Because right now, if she goes to sleep at 6pm, we don't know whether she's going to need feeding again at 9, or not until 2 (like last night). And it's too early for me to get to bed anyway.

But if she went to bed at 10pm and I went to bed with her, I'd get 5 or 6 hours straight sleep, and DH could go to bed at midnight and get a good sleep himself. Or better still, if we knew she was going to feed at 10pm, then I could go to bed at 8, DH could feed the baby at 10, I could get up again at 3 or 4 when she was needing feeding again, after a really really good sleep, and that would be marvellous.

Is there any way to help a young baby learn when to go to sleep for that longer sleep, or is it just a question of waiting to see what she does. We certainly don't want to do anything to mess up her sleeping or feeding, but of course it's occurred to us to wonder whether we might teach her to sleep longer through the night if we woke her in the late evening for another feed.

What do you think?