No longer stretch at night for 6 week old

[melloyello]

Hi there,

My DD will be 6 weeks tomorrow. I'll start by saying I'm pretty sure she has already hit the 6 week growth spurt as we had a couple crazy days of non-stop nursing and wacky sleep. I know the gs could contribute to sleep issues but I am pretty sure we are through that.

I fully expect and am ok with a couple night feedings BUT she is really not doing a longer stretch during the night at any point and I'm wondering if there is something I could tweak to help her go a bit longer at night?? The most she has gone is 4 hours, and that has only been a few times. Usually it's more like 2.5-3. So we do a DF at 10:30 and then she wakes between 1-2am, then again 2-2.5 hours later and then she is pretty unsettled for the rest of the night.

Here is our day, although she's only 6 weeks so it really varies a lot!

7am Wake up and E
7-8:15 A
8:15-9:45 S
9:45 E
9:45-11 A
11-?? this nap is hit and miss. If we are out it's usually only 30-45 min. At home I can sometimes get 1 hr. Usually end up feeding early and then putting down for sleep again so next E is often after only 2-2.5 hours.
12ish E
1-3 S
3 E
3-4:15/30 A
4:30-6 S (this nap can often be shorter as well)
6 E (she doesn't usually sleep after this point and is fussy)
8 E
8:30 S
10:30 DF

Then NW between 1-2 and then 2 hours later and then very unsettled at which point I usually bring her into bed with us and she will sleep until 7am.

I know it's still early, but is there anything that stands out or any tips to get a bit of a longer stretch from her at night? Should I try resettling before feeding maybe?

She is swaddled and we use white noise.

[Erin M]

Are you getting good burps up at the earlier night feeds?  I know that it seems obvious, but it was the culprit with both my dd2 and my ds.  I was so desperate to get back to sleep that I'd just feed them and give a few quick pats and back in bed so I could get some sleep!  When I spent another 5 minutes burping and actually got some decent burps up, we got (slightly) longer stretches.  That being said, some babies just can't do longer stretches right away -- while I had one that did long stretches from pretty early on (I had no idea how lucky I was!) my ds was much like your dd in the early days.

[melloyello]

Thanks for your reply! I think not getting good burps could be part of the problem after her second NF (usually around 3:30am) because she often wakes up an hour or so later and is quite unsettled. I will persevere with the burping, although she is a tough one to burp!

I think another problem is that she just doesn't eat much at the DF or other night feeds. She's sooo sleepy at the DF, I can barely get her to latch on some nights and then she only nurses for a few minutes. Nothing seems to work to keep her awake. During the night she usually only nurses for a few min and then falls back asleep. Not sure what else I can do to keep her awake!

[Erin M]

It's tough when they're so sleepy!  One of mine was super sleepy (ds, I think?) and I can remember stripping him down to a diaper and feeding the first side that way, then changing his diaper midway through to wake him up again and then getting him dressed and swaddled for the second side -- at least then I thought he was getting a decent feed. 

For the dream feed, you might try shifting it 15 minutes in either direction (earlier or later) if you haven't already to try to catch her in a lighter stage of sleep.  And give burping a try after the DF as well - I know that Tracy says in the books that babies don't need to be burped after the dream feed, but mine definitely did need to be burped. 

You can always try resettling too with a paci or some patting (none of mine ever took the paci so that never worked for us) -- but if she keeps waking over and over it's almost definitely due to hunger and you should feed her.  Feeding is your best course of action if it's been more than a few hours, but you're right, the waking an hour after the last feed sounds more like discomfort from not burping.  DH was always a champion burper for my LOs, he used to rub their backs opposite their little tummies while they were sitting up and it worked better than the patting I was doing. 

[melloyello]

Thanks for the tips, I will give those a try! We got a decent stretch of 4 hours last night after the DF, I think because she actually woke up on her own and took a good feeding... so I think that's likely the main issue. Will keep trying at waking her up a bit to make sure she gets the full feed and also try playing around with the time of the DF like you suggested.

[Erin M]

Great!  Good luck!