My 5-week old son is getting worse with his sleeping at night and it is makig me very anxious and defeated as a new mother. He goes down between 9 and 10 at night and goes until about 2am..(not bad) then after that feeding, he will not settle down for the rest of the night. I think part of it is because he is hungry, but I don't want to overfeed him. He is a big baby - he was 13 8oz at his 1 month check up. He will always fall sound asleep in my arms but when I try and put him down he wakes within minutes. Help!
PS I do swaddle him every night, he is a formula fed baby, and I play the same music when I put him down each time.
You can't feed a baby too much - they know when they are full. Don't try to keep him on a diet - he knows. And I have seen the most buttleball baby become a slim 3 year old - they get rid of all their fat once they are walking.
You are doing everything perfectly. Unfortunately, this is very typical for
a five week old. Just do what you are doing and he will eventually get it.
Does he take a pacifier. That might help until he is a bit older. Congratulations. Hang in there. If the weather ever gets nice, getting him
out in the fresh, even cold air helps tremendously (for you both). Hope this
helps a bit.
Try putting him on a feeding schedule during the day (usually every 3 hours works-- give or take 1/2 an hour). That should help regulate his nights and help him start sleeping longer. Don't lose heart. It is so tough in the beginning. I highly recommend the book Babywise to help you with the scheduling.
A few ideas come to mind...
With my son, I had to leave a warm water bottle in the bottom of the crib and move it before I put him back. The other alternative was to make sure I had him wrapped in a blanket that I could just settle him into the craddle with. It turns out he hated the cold sheets!
We also have "tick-tock" clocks in all the bedrooms. The white noise the sweeping makes is so comforting. It is like your heart beat/blood rush. When you put him down that noise disappears so he could be waking from that.
Also, get him up and moving during the day. I know this is esaier said than done as it is so tempting to sleep when baby sleeps and to let them sleep as much as you need it, but they need to be stimulated in order to be tired in order to sleep. It does not need to be long and with my son, we did it right before his first stint of the night. Then when he woke up, he wasn't looking to play, he just wanted to nurse and sleep.
Lastly, he may truly be hungry. When they are that little, I was told they have a growth spurt about every two weeks. You could be there now and he may really need to be fed. His tummy will let him and you know when he is full, especially if you are nursing. I hear that using formula is a bit trickier since the commercially created sweetness can sometimes fool a baby's body.
Good luck. I am sure you'll get a ton more ideas from this wonderful site.
~C.
First--don't worry about over-feeding. Big-baby/Little-baby doesn't matter: babies should get what they need to feel satisfied. Second-you're just starting the years of really crappy sleep. Expect it for the next three years minimum. Lastly, you have the choice of either babying the baby or starting the tough love. I personally held my baby until they were REALLY sound asleep. But you could let him fuss a little to sleep to get a start on the self-soothing.
Either way. Good luck. And take naps during the day. You sound like you need one! ;)
Oh my gosh, I could have written this post last year about my daughter. She would go down around 10 at night, wake at 2 a.m. and would not fall back to sleep after feeding. She would literally be awake/restless until about 6 a.m., just in time for my 2 year old to wake up for the day! It was brutal!! I feel your pain. I used to just feed her at 2, swaddle her really tight, walk around the house with her, and sleep with her in my arms on the couch. It's the only way I got any sleep. If I tried to put her down, she'd wake up.
Anyway, so clearly I don't have much advice, but just wanted to let you know that sleeping with/next to him isn't a bad thing. You need rest, so don't worry about forming any kind of sleeping habits yet. It sounds like he wants to sleep with/next to you, which is perfectly fine. Also, how much are you feeding him at the 2 a.m. feeding? Just curious....
Good luck, I've been there and it's awful! :(
Lynsey
He is still so little that his days and nights could be messed up. Also, I did what Cathy T mentioned, we put a heating pad in the bassinett/crib to make it nice and warm to avoid that cold mattress and sheet. The last thing I can think of is swaddling. They love to be swaddled at that age. Good luck ;)
My babies were fed formula and I would fill the bottle with about an ounce more than I expected the baby to eat (I never had enough pumped breastmilk to do that). It wastes a little formula but the baby gets to eat as much as he wants. Babies that young don't usually overeat on their own so unless he has reflux issues it's unlikely you will overfeed him (unless you push to make him finish a bottle). My son was born 9 lbs and over 12 lbs at 6 weeks (about 13 lbs at 10 weeks). At that age I think my son took 5-6 ounces unless he was half asleep. Also by 10-12 weeks you can try a "dream feeding" which is waking the baby up right before you go to sleep and give them a feeding (usually smaller that a regular feeding) so they let you sleep 4-5 hours when you are sleeping too. If you go to sleep an hour or more after the baby it works out well. You can also space the last 2 afternoon/evening feeding a little closer so they are more full at night.
The hormones and exhaustion are hard at the beginning! And exhaustion makes everything seem worse (someone studied this and found the brain chemistry to back it up). It gets better and chances are your baby's schedule will settle into a more manageable form by around 3 months. (Of course I am typing this with my night owl 2 year old back up again at 11 pm.)
Hi J.,
If he's a big baby, then he needs more food than a smaller baby. I know as a new mom, it's normal to think that you must make all of these decisions for your baby, but one thing that your baby does know is when he is hungry, and when he is full. If he is hungry, feed him. Six weeks is a normal time for a growth spurt, so it would be normal for him to be extra hungry now. Also, it takes about 20 minutes for a newborn to drift from light into heavy sleep, so if you put him down right away, he is likely to startle himself awake. You might also try swaddling him in the shirt you've just worn, rather than a blanket - warm like mom, smells like mom.
Good luck
How much and how often do you feed him?
My son was up to 8 oz and back down to every 2 hours at just two weeks of age. We had to start him on rice cereal at his evening feeding (per doctor's orders).
Hi J.! Congatulations! I'm a day care provider, and have Lots of parents ask me for hints. One, you really can't over feed him, if he's hungry, he's hungry. Can you fall asleep when you're hungry? Try taking one of your shirts or jammies you sleep in and swaddle him tight in that. Instead of music, I find that babies sleep best in "white noise" a low fan or humidifier. Being such a good size baby, if formula doesn't work, you could try a couple tsp of oatmeal babycereal with formula(very watered down) My experience with a big baby is they need more to tie them ove at night. Also do you have some crib wedges? If you swaddle him tight, you can lay him on his side in between the wedges, and it's like being "held" Hope it helps! I'm right around the corner in Rochester ! MK
I recommend that you check out these sleeping tips:
http://www.theskinnyscoop.com/search/sleep?utm_campaign=t...
At 5 weeks my pediatrician said that my son should still be eating every 3 to 4 hours, even overnight.
It sounds like he still might be hungry. I was told you can't overfeed a baby at that age, so I always gave him all he wanted to eat even at night.
Once he is a little bit older your ped will let you know when you can start slowing down the night feedings.
When they are hungry they will not sleep... we were having breast feeding issues and the first night home he screamed and screamed all night long it turns out he was hungry. The next night once I started supplementing him on a bottle he would actually sleep.
Good luck!
If you think he is hungry at the 2 am feeding, let him have the full feeding he has at other feeding times. We always put DS down in his crib awake as soon as he was done feeding so he pretty much fell asleep on his own. Was a lot easier than trying to move him without waking him. We also made a point of not being really quiet so that he could sleep with ambient noise around. Good luck, it will get easier.
He should be eating every two hours all day and night. If he sleeps through a feeding fine. But at 2 when he wakes- feed him! Don;t wait until morning. AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GIVE HIM OATMEAL IN THE BOTTLE. Formula is all he needs at this point.
Why do you think he is still hungry after the 2 am. feeding? Do you end the feeding session when he is still nursing? Does he fall asleep shortly after starting?
I don't think he will overfeed. He's probably hungry. If he dozes off 8 minutes into feeding, when he normally feeds for 20 minutes... wake him back up, burp him well, and feed him some more (if he will take it). Also, be careful how long you hold him after he falls back asleep before putting him down. There is a window of time that he is in deep sleep that it won't bother him. If you try to soon, he will wake. If you wait too long, he will be past that window in a lighter sleep stage and will wake. If memory serves me correctly, it is about 10 minutes into his sleep (when he first dozes) that is right to put him down.
