Starting a sleep routine for a 6 week old.....HELP!!

[Ashley G]

We are trying to establish a routine for our 6 wk old.
He eats every 2.5-3 hrs. Here are my questions..please help! I believe that he's a touchy baby. He's also very gassy and we have given him natural drops for gas as well as simethicone drops and gripe water. They don't seem to help a ton. He has been on Enfamil Gentlease for the past 2 wks. We have noticed that he's actually starting to spit up more too. He gets really fussy when trying to pass gas and sometimes it's hard for him to have a good feed because he's concentrating so hard on trying to relieve himself.

He eats 3oz of formula in a feeding. He's about 10 lbs 5 oz give or take.....is that enough for his age and weight?

How often do we feed when we are trying to establish a routine? every 2.5 hours or every 3hrs? We have kinda been doing the EASY routine but now that I have read so much about it, there's more things we need to be a little more firm on.

Should we be putting him in his crib to nap during the day or keep him in a lit room so he knows its daytime and during the daytime it's naptime?

When he sleeps he has a paci but spits it out at times when he's getting ready to fall asleep. Sometimes during the day he keeps it in. Lately he's been a cat-napper and has only been sleeping like 30-60 mins at a time during the day. How do i get him to sleep longer and how long should each of his naps during the day be?
oh....and we do swaddle and do the shhh'ing thing. We also use white noise and we also have an app for a vacuum cleaner sound which seems to help him when he's fussy.

When we get ready for bed we usually do a bath every other night which startles him at first being in the water but then he loves it. We feed him before or after the bath it just depends on his fussiness and the last time he ate. Then we turn down the lights and TV in the house and rock him to sleep. On nights we dont do a bath, we just change him, feed him and rock to sleep. It takes him like 20-30 mins to actually get into a good sleep but the problem is, he wakes up all the time! He doesn't sleep long at all. How do we get him to sleep longer than 2-2.5 hours at night? Should I feed him more during the day?

Also, has anyone heard good things about Gerber Goodstart Soothe formula compared to Enfamil Gentlease? I know the gerber one has probiotics in it and I'm wondering if we should switch his formula again and maybe this will help with his gas /fussiness? Or should I keep him on Enfamil Gentlease and add probiotics?

Please help! I just want more consistency with his routine especially his sleep schedule!!

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi and welcome to the boards!

Hun, have you got him checked for Reflux? If he is spitting a lot then he might have Reflux and that can cause a lot of discomfort and pain that can disrupt sleep.

Your LO is very very young. At this age if you manage to separate feeding from sleeping during the day then you already manage a lot! You are not going to break him if he feeds more often than 3h (actually most babies that young do that), or if you rick him to sleep or if you find any other way for him to fall asleep and stay asleep. If there is AP that works for you then I would say just go for it. You will anyway won't be able to sleep train at such young age and most babies start and respond to ST when they are around 5-6m old. Of course you can use Shush-pat till then and if you want you can insist on all naps and night time sleep in the crib, but he still needs a lot of help to fall asleep, like any other baby this age.
If you want you can post your day in an EASY format and we can have a look at his A times. Often it's the A times that can cause too short naps and many NW. Please also mention how the night looks like - when are the NW, how are you settling back to sleep and does he fall asleep straight away. But like I said, a lot of it he will just need to grow out of.

I am afraid I don't have experience with the formulas you mentioned, but if you think he doesn't respond well to the formula you are giving now you can always try another one.

[Ashley G]

Yes, we actually went to the Dr yesterday and showed him a video of him eating. The Dr told us that we were feeding him too much at one feeding. He said my little one should only be eating around 2 oz every 2 hours during the day. We tried that yesterday and today and that seems to have helped. We burp twice during each feed. He is not spitting up anymore. I hope this was all it was. We are just sticking with the formula he is on, and feeding him less but more frequent feeds throughout the day. For his last feed in the evening, we will try to feed him 2.5oz and see if he sleeps longer than 2hrs.
I will post our routine in about a week after we have established a better one since we went to the Dr and are trying something new with his feeds.

What the average amount an infant eats around 7wks of age?

And when do you think we should start sleep training? Any suggestions as to how to get him to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time during the night?

Also, have you heard of colic calm? I started giving that to him about 2-3x/day to help with his gas and it seems to have helped a little. We have tried those gas drops in the past but I didn't think they really helped, although we weren't very consistent about giving it to him before each feed.
Any suggestions on the gas drops?

[Ima shel Alon]

Alon had really bad colic, I will never forget the screaming, it was so obvious it's pain, yk? Once couldn't mistakes it with anything else.
The only thing that helped us was Caraway oil (you can get it in health food shops). I massages it clock wise on his tummy for about an minute and I was surprised how much it actually helped.

What the average amount an infant eats around 7wks of age?

Most manufactures state that 2.5ozs per pound of body weight is the average.

And when do you think we should start sleep training? Any suggestions as to how to get him to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time during the night?

It so much depends on you. If you have lots of time and you have the energy you can do it as early as you want, but you'll need to do a lot of Shush-patting and will take quite a while.
I think that in 4m it gets a bit easier, but still needs a lot of input and at around 5m (it still take a great input, of course) you see a response. This is the age (5-6m) that a baby starts to have the ability to fall asleep by himself and to stay asleep, but they still need some help learning how to do so.