How to get 6 week old to sleep longer at night

[BabyHenry]

My 6 week old has been on 3 hour EASY since birth and weighs about 11 lbs now. My 'problem' is that he wakes up several times a night, but not always due to hunger.

He has his DF at 11:30 pm and will wake up fussing around 1-ish. After some patting and the occasional cradling, he will settle to sleep (he doesn't seem hungry). Then he wakes at 3am for feed. At 5 or 6 am, he wakes and fusses again. He goes back to sleep after some patting. He'll wake for food or I will wake him to feed at around 6:30am-7am.

How do I get him to sleep right through and eliminate the fussing? Any ideas?

I tried moving the DF to 10:30pm last night but it didn't work. He woke up hungry at 1:45am and 5am (and woke up fussing at 3am).

His day routine looks something like this:

7am Feed (BF)
8:30am  Sleep
10 am Feed (BF)
11:30am Sleep
1pm Feed (BF) followed by Bath
2:30 Sleep
4pm Feed (BF)
5:30 Catnap (not always successful at putting to sleep)
6pm Feed (bottle)
7pm Catnap (not always successful at putting to sleep)
8pm Feed (BF)

[scruffymax]

Hugs, it is tough. I fed my 8 week old nearly hourly between 3 and 6 am last night because it was quicker than patting to resettle. Ourrroutine is similar but without the second catnap ie around 530 feed, then bath, then top up feed then to bed for the night. We're not doing a df and he usually wakes 2-3 Times to feed. Also my lo can't make it to 1.5 hours awake time - he's usually an hour or just over. The only thing I can think with the unsettled periods overnight is pain/discomfort, overtired or undertired. I don't think there's a whole lot you can do to make them stretch their feed Times overnight at this age. My DD was sleeping 9 hours straight at 4 weeks and 12 hours with a df at 8 week's and I haven't done anything differently this time!

[jessmum46]

To be honest his nights sound pretty good for a 6 week old....I do wonder if there could be some gas or reflux discomfort at play?  Or as supply tends to be higher at night perhaps he is taking a bit too much/swallowing a lot of air with his feeds and feels uncomfortable?  Do you get a good burp up after feeds?

Have you tried not doing the dreamfeed at all and just feeding when he wakes?

You say you want him to sleep all night...do you mean with no feeds?

[BabyHenry]

I'd love for him to last more than 3-4 hours between feeds, but he may not be able to right now? I understand that all babies are different.

So if I could somehow eliminate the waking due to fussing it would be a big help! It *could* be due to gas as I don't always get a burp out of him after feeding (DF and 3am are bottle feeds). Any advice on how to get the gas out?

[jessmum46]

If LO is managing as long at night between feeds as during the day then that's fine.  You'll probably find that over the next few weeks you'll end up with one stretch that gets a bit longer, maybe up to 5-6hrs (that would actually be considered 'sleeping through' at this age) and then go back to 3-4h between the other feeds.  For a breastfed baby (do you give formula in the bottles??) it's very normal to have night feeds until well after solids are properly established at 7-8months plus.

To get a good burp out you could try holding LO up over your shoulder and rubbing his back, or holding him in a sitting position supporting his chin and rubbing/gently patting his back that way. 

You could try missing out the dreamfeed and see what happens - for some babies it seems to disturb their sleep more than help.  I never did a dreamfeed at all and just fed when LO woke which worked well for us - we had a good long stretch from pretty early on, a feed at 4am ish and then back to sleep until morning

[BabyHenry]

Thank you for your replies! 

I've moved the DF up to 11pm and LO has been waking up one time less per night (previously twice a night for fussing, now once a night). Hopefully this sustains. For DF, I give breastmilk in a bottle as it's much easier than nursing.

I'll try skipping the DF as suggested and see what happens... I'm also going to try giving wind drops to see if it makes any difference to his sleep.