How many overnight feeds is common for a 7 week old........

[CRHMOM]

Hi,

I have a 7 week old that for the past 4 weeks has been doing 2 feeds over night. Typically routine is as follows:

7:30 bed

2:00 am First feed

5:00am  Second feed

7:30am up for the day and feed

8:30 -12:30 nap

12:30 feed

1:45 nap (40 minutes working on extending this); if can't resettle her in crib put her in swing to prvent OT and she will sleep another 1.5 hours)

3:30 feed

5:00 catnap 30 minutes in swing

6:30 bedtime routine, bath, feed, usually in bed by 7:30

My question is she has been waking up at around 2 am and 5am (or sometime 1am  and 4 am) for the past 3 weeks. On 1 or 2 occasions she has done a night with only 1 feeding but then she is back to her two. Is this common at 7 weeks to still be up 2x in the night??? My first son was sleeping through the night by 10 week but he was bottle fed so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. I"m trying to make sure I breastfeed her at least 5 feeds during the day, but the first nap being 3 horus long messes up the schedule so I try to sneak in a quick feed some other time during the day. We try to top her off at the dream feed at 10 but she barely takes anything. I"m just hoping she will start to longer stretches soon....

Any advice,

Thanks
Trisha

[anna*]

Totally normal. Don't be surprised if it takes quite a few weeks before she drops one of those feeds - but hopefully you'll get lucky again!

[Colin Macs Mom]

Ditto.

[LizzieN]

We were down to one feed overnight very early and now at 4 months we are back to 2 per night.  Breast milk is really digestable so they don't usually go as long as they would on a bottle, having said that she will get back to feeding just once soon I'm sure, it's very likely a growth spurt

[CRHMOM]

Thanks Ladies for the advice!

[CRHMOM]

Well things have gotten worse shortly after I posted this topic. Friday night she did great...sleeping 13 hours straight with 1 feed. Then the lsat three nights have regressed horribly -- she is back to waking every three hours like a new newborn during the night -- now the 2x wakenings at 2 and 5 am seem like a dream now. The last three night she has woken up at the exact same times going to bed at 7:45, wakening up at 11:45, 2:30 and 5:30 and up for the day at 7:30. When she wakes up I try and feed her and she doesn't take hardly anything -- she CLEARLY isn't hungy so why is she wakening up! I try and see if she will resettle but she gets louder and I dont' want her to wake up my toddler so I attend to her right away. I've tried shusshing her in her crib and she just gets upset. What should I do??? Just still go with the flow at this age??? I don't want this to be a habitual thing.....

Her naps during the day are great....she has been sleeping lots during the day about 5-6 hours between 3 naps.  She goes to sleep independently. The only thing that I do that I know is AP is during her wind down routine for nap, I bring her to the breast to soother her abit then take her off once she is calm, sit with her sing a song, and put her in her crib. SHe is definitely drowsy at this point but totally awake when I put her in her crib. This is big progress for us considering at 4 weeks old, I couldn't put her down for naps for the life of me!

Why is she regresssing if she is not hungry and can't seem to resettle herself at night.

Please help I'm so tired!!

[LizzieN]

Hey sweetie,
Just a couple of thoughts, perhaps now that she is a little older when you do your little top up to soothe her prior to putting her down, try and make it a little earlier just to avoid feed to sleep associations (I know she is going to sleep herself, but she might be feeding to calm iyswim?).

If she wakes at 5:30am I would probably just give her a short feed (enough to settle her down) so that when she gets up at 7:30am she will take a decent feed to start the day.

There is a big gs at about 8 weeks I think, so she might be increasing your supply in preparation for that?

tbh I am having similar issues with my 19 week old, but she has HUGE wind issues and I am pretty clueless and tired too, so mainly wanted to offer you lots of hugs, it will get easier sweetie, hopefully this is a temporarty glitch!

More hugs
xx