Night waking - please help!

Tate has never slept much during the day. He goes to sleep about 1.5hrs after his feed, but will only sleep for around 20mins. At night his last feed is at 6:30pmish, then will sleep until 2/3am. Feed, straight back to sleep, but then wakes about 5/6am to start the day. I am struggling with the lack of sleep. I tried rollover feeds for ages, stopped only the other night, and he still wakes at 2/3am. I thought maybe his lack of sleep during the day is making him sleep really well until his 2am feed, but unsettled after that? I would really appreciate any suggestions to getting him into a feed/play/sleep routine during the day, and maybe that will make his night/early morning sleep better? We have the heater on 17deg all night so I dont think he is cold?! Maybe it is just the way he is.... but DH and I aren't coping well with it, and that makes we want to do something about it. It is hard because DS#1 slept thru from 6weeks. Tate seems to not be able to settle himself back to sleep. Oh... I dont know! :wall:

OMG - I would have given my right leg to have that much sleep with a 3 month old! I'm sorry I don't have any advice.. Tallon still wakes through the night. We've just had to go with it. I've been grateful tho that he's always gone straight back to sleep at night when he wakes.

We also went through a stage of 20 min naps through the day. His sleeping pattern seemed to change all the time.

I hope you can find some time to rest. Some babies are more wakeful than others, and this is completely normal, and often times you just need to go with it, and try and rest when they sleep.

I dont mean to sound greedy for sleep. It's just that my instincts tell me Tate would prefer to be sleeping more, but something is keeping him up. I have been putting off getting advice thinking that it was just a phase, but I like routine and I think babies benefit greatly from a routine, so I would like to get him into a better day one for his sake, and for everyone sake in the future. His sleeping pattern has been like this almost since birth. If I could go back to sleep with him at 7am, or go to bed at 8pm, it wouldn't be so bad, but having a 2yr old makes rest a little harder to come by! I think I am more wanting to fix his day routine rather than his night one. I think it is great he goes from 7pm to 3am, although I am looking forward to when he drops the 3am feed, wouldn't be so bad then starting the day at 5am!

Yep.. I'll be feeling it I'm sure when this one comes along.. especially if Tallon is still waking at night.

Hope someone has some suggestions for you :)

wow!
i have baby the same age and we cannot get her down before 10.30pm.... i am so jealous and would love some spare time in the evenings to eat my dinner and maybe watch some tv... everytime i try to bath her and get her down earlier it fails miserably.

how do people manage to get their babies to sleep so early in the evening? I feel like I am stuck with her going to bed really late. I don't know how to change it. Sorry I realise this is your thread!!!!!

DS only sleeps 11 hours at night (8-7 usually), waking for 2-3 feeds with a long stretch in the middle (but the last 3 nights every 1-2 hours!) but then, praise God, back to sleep (we did have the odd playtime before).

We have a bedtime routine which takes about 45 minutes, to get the baby down earlier in the evening just move this routine by 20 minutes every 2-3 nights - so an hour a week, roughly.

I'd like to know more about day sleeps, DS is nackered now and still fighting sleep, I'm so tired of the fight with him four times a day and really interrupted sleep!

Nicholas has just started to sleep really well during the day (finally!) From having 20 min cat naps all day, to about 3 hours at a time. I try to keep him up longer after feeds (up to 2 hours) and he sleeps much better. At night, we have just dropped out his "dream feed" and he has slept from 12am to 7am two mornings in a row! Longest stretch ever! Sometimes during the day if he has just had a nap, I will get him up again for about half an hour, then try again when he is very tired. He is on 4 hourly feeds (formula). At night, we start his bed time routine at 6pm. He has a shower/bath, then a bottle at 6.30pm, a story, then is wrapped and put down. He usually settles straight away, or within about half an hour.

Emma - Tallon has never had bed time before about 9.00pm. I actually don't want him in bed earlier than that... it suits us to a tea having his bed time later. DH gets home about 7pm, so gets to have time with him in the evenings, we also go out 2 evenings a week, which mean not getting home until about 9.30. So no routine is mucked up by these evenings out :)

A bedtime routine has never worked for us.. especially one that includes a bath! This has ALWAYS woken him up. But I haven't ever spent more than about 1/2hr putting him to sleep - we've fed to sleep since day dot.. so he can easily be settled within about 10 minutes!

Every bub is different.. just gotta find what works I guess.

I guess like all babies are different, Mums are different too. Thanks for your replies, its nice to know I'm not alone (far from it!), but I just feel that his sleeping could be helped. I guess this one is just for Tate and me to work out because as Tate's Mummy I feel he could be in a better routine and/or wake less at night. He hasn't done a poo in ages, and did one today, and a very smart BB member mentioned her gorgeous girl was restless, possibly from not poo-ing, so maybe Tate had the same problem.

I dont expect Tate to be 'the perfect baby', but I think my expectations adn what I believe is 'right' for me and my baby, are just different from other Mum's, IYKWIM. If I think I can help Tate, I will. I dont want to settle for 'all babies cry' if I can, and I like to think long-term when I consider how to fix a problem, rather than create a new one, which is so easy to do!

Your right Jessica, that even all us mums are different :) I just know that if I'd worried too much about Tallon's waking, I would have had a miserable time of it (and for 15 months so far) I decided early on to follow his lead with things, and figured he wouldn't be waking unless he needed me for something (especially that little) and just went with it. Fortunately for me I didnt' suffer with the waking, so I guess it wasn't so bad for me.