8 week old - on regular routine but waking up at 3am

[libbyseliger]

Hi,

Our daughter is  2 months old and has been feeding every 3 hours since birth. Her daytime naps usually don't last more than 40 minutes. Until about a week ago I was giving her cluster feeds from around 4pm until 8pm but she would be up and down until the last feed at 11pm. She would wake up at 4/5am to eat, then went straight back to sleep until around 8am.

After reading Tracy's book we decided to see if we could extend her till 7am,  so the last couple of days, the rough schedule has been:

E 7am
S 8:30am
E 10am
S 11:30am
E 1:15pm
S 3pm
E 3:45pm
S 5pm
E 6pm
S 7pm
E 8pm
Dream Feed at 11

Since we started this schedule, the evenings have been a lot less stressful and it's much easier to settle her for the night,  but for some reason she is now waking up at around 3am and we can't settle her properly until around 6am when I have been feeding her and starting the day...

Obviously, the nights are now a lot more stressful than they had been on the original schedule...

Could she be waking up at 3am to eat? I don't mind feeding her, but only if I know she needs it.
I would really appreciate any insight....

Thank you in advance!

[Lindsay27]

It is perfectly normally for her to be waking for a feed at 3am and also normal for her to still be taking multiple NFs.  I would just feed her when she wakes at 3, I can almost guarantee it is a hunger waking, especially because she won't settle.

[libbyseliger]

Thank you so much... I suspected she was hungry but thought it might be habitual waking as its at 3am the last 3 nights.....?

[Lindsay27]

Just wanted to check in and see how last night went - did you end up feeding at 3?

It may seem habitual but what is probably happening is just that if she is having her DF at the same time every night then she is getting hungry for her next feed st the same time, yk?  Sometimes my DD will sleep through until 5am before needing to eat, others she needs a feed at 1/2am and then again at 5am.

[libbyseliger]

Thanks for following up! Yes, I fed her at 3am and then she was up again at 6am. I extended her until 7, do you think I should I have fed her at 6?

[Lindsay27]

Ummm not necessarily.  If my DD woke at 6 after eating at 3 I would pro try to extend her too just to get a 7am start to the day and a good feed to start the EASY routine off.  If you are trying to extend though and she's really fighting it then go ahead and feed, she's still teeny!

[libbyseliger]

Thanks, it's so good to have a listening ear...
She's obviously going thru a growth spurt as she's been eating every 2.5 hours the last two days... Two questions:

1. In Tracy's book she says not to DF after 11pm. If I know that I will be having a late night, can I do it later ie. 11:30?

2. Tonight I bathed her and fed her at around 7:30, but she has still not settled. I had planned on giving her a cluster feed at 9:30 and putting her right back to bed. Should I wait until she settles or just do it at 9:30 as planned...? Always so hard to know these things!

[Lindsay27]

I honestly don't have a ton of experience with DFs or cluster feeds.  With both my LOs I just put them to bed and fed them when they woke because a) I like to go to be early myself and b) I found DFs disturbed them more than helped them and c) I like my evenings for me lol

So based on that, the DF is ideally supposed to happen between 10-11pm...I think if you were having a night where you weren't going to hit that timeframe I might just forget about it for the night.  It might mean an extra NF but personally I'd rather get myself to bed then stay up to do a DF...that's just me though. 

I think with the 9:30 cluster feed too, if she hasn't settled it's likely because she's a little OT, so I'd be weary of doing anything to disturb her once she's down, yk?

[libbyseliger]

Thanks. The 9:30 feed ended up as more of a DF since she was fast asleep.
Yeah, I'm the opposite, I'd rather stay up late to give a DF than have multiple feeds during the night if I can help it.
Haven't decided yet what to do about 11pm DF...

[trimbler]

Hey there, we did do cluster feeds and df, we did try not to make the df too late but I'm not sure that that's such a big issue at this age really. Actually, when we started out with DS, I'd only read Tracy's first book and the only routine example I could find in there was one for twins which actually had clustered DFs! I guess I just mention that to show that there is scope for variation in these things, you can always try a df at 11:30pm and see what happens As for a post BT cluster feed, I do remember our DS struggled a lot with napping and was always OT at BT and would struggle to settle, so that feed did end up often being more like feeding to sleep since he'd not settled since BT. I wouldn't worry too much about waiting for him to settle before feeding in that case, especially if he's not settled for ages he might be hungry again anyway. HTH?