Sleep question

[ireneasheard]

Hi there

I have a 6 week old - he has been on EASY for a few weeks now but have noticed he will sometimes not do 3 hours and will want to feed at 2 - he will not be consoled by any shushing or patting etc. He wakes after an hour and will not resettle and then if I feed him he is happy but then wants to sleep. I know this says to me that despite encouragement he has probably not had enough food at the last cycle.... and he wants to feed more at the moment as he had shots yesterday so perhaps is not feeling the best after that. He slept well overnight - one dreamfeed and one overnight feed after 5 hours - but wondered what others do during the day if it is at 2 hour mark in the 3 hour cycle, how or when should I persist with resettling and for how long as he is only 6 weeks old?

[jessmum46]

At 6 weeks if he is showing hunger cues (I assume you are breastfeeding from what you wrote?) then I would be going ahead and feeding him, especially if he is feeling a little under the weather from immunisations.  The EAS pattern is something to aspire to but I did find with both of mine in the early weeks sometimes we did just need to roll with the variations and accept that feeds would not necessarily be as 'strict' as a textbook 3 hour EASY.  Tracy would have wanted us to respond to our babies cues, and certainly would never have suggested delaying a feed just for the sake of routine.  Resettling naps is almost a slightly different question - if you think LO is awake because of hunger then I'd do a sneaky feed and straight back down, almost like a night feed.  If you think it's because of overtiredness, too much stimulation or just random short naps as commonly happen at this age, then I'd give it a short go resettling and if no joy, just get on with the day   That's with the benefit of hindsight though!  Others may suggest you should try to resettle until the nap is officially over but to be honest even trying for 5 mins or so I know if it was going to happen or not.  Life is too short to be stuck trying to resettle such a tiny baby - get out and enjoy him!!  Good luck, the EAS pattern will come with time if you have that in mind as the goal - baby steps to get there are just fine x

[ireneasheard]

Hi Katherine

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I am breastfeeding. I encourage my son to have good feeds however sometimes despite my efforts he won't take a good feed and sometimes will go to bed then want to come up again for a feed. I agree that we should follow our baby's cues, especially considering the circumstances and might need to feed more as not feeling the best. He fed every 2 hours post shots which I just rolled with and continued to do EAS during this time despite the shorter duration. This has moved back to 3 hours again.

Re resettling thank you. At 6 weeks I am giving patting a go as I've noticed a few cycles where my son will come up out of his nap too early during the day but like you say it becomes obvious pretty quickly if this will work or not. With my first child I did not persist with patting until he was over 8 weeks old (the typical time for catnapping to commence). I wondered if others were taking this approach too and also what about settling for the evening? Last night my son settled on his own to sleep for the evening but something woke him up. He refused to resettle without a feed and I had succeeded twice in patting him to sleep... finally just did a feed as you suggested and put him to sleep like a night feed but I wondered again when do people not so this and continue patting etc?

[Buntybear]

Hello, to be honest at this young age I wouldn't be worrying to much about independent sleep or sleep training. you are still learning so much about him and you sound like you know exactly what to look out for and are starting to understand him already 

It is worth using ssh/pat now though as you are starting to teach him what it is and then you can withdraw it slowly when you so start to teach independent sleep.

There are so many growth spurts at this age then he may have just through one and that is why he wanted more frequent feeds. there is a breast feeding board if you did want to post there about how to get him to take a better feed.

HTH x

[ireneasheard]

Thank you Buntybear. I am doing my best! Things are a little more on routine now and I'm feeling like a rhythm is emerging but am just keen that I do what I can to assist with bedding down our routine. With my first we had no real routine until after 8 weeks but this time around we have done routine a lot earlier. I think I'm seeing the benefits of it so far but we'll see! I did a pat this afternoon and managed to get 45 minutes extra sleep from my son so I was happy with that. Had a feeling it would work as he definitely was tired and had not had a sleep so it was worth trying to see and it worked so good as you say to insert it into the routine.

Thanks for the pointer to getting better feeds I will check it out.

[Buntybear]

That is great - at 6 weeks it is really just about trying to see if there is a rhythm (great word!) and then basing any 'routine' around that. It is all about following his leads  Great that you managed to extend a nap - good stuff