When to expect 4-5 hours of night sleeping?

[seagirl]

Hello everybody!
My daughter is 3 week old and from first day we are practicing EASY. She is book girl, sometimes angel, she is falling asleep easy, and crying just because of colic.
I tried cluster feelings and DF, but she anyway waking up each 3 hours at night. May be I want so much from 3week baby? When May I expect she sleep longer at night?
Thank u

[lily_layne]

Congratulations on your LO!
That sounds pretty normal for a 3 week old! My DD also woke every 3 hours at night. She started giving me longer stretches around 12 weeks but all babies are different. I did find that swaddling (tightly) and loud white noise did help her sleep longer at night. Some nights she cluster fed and some nights she didn't - I found that it didn't make a difference in her night. I didn't do a DF either because it didn't help and just kept me from getting to bed early.

[weaver]

Totally normal for a 3 wo, in fact sounds like she's doing really well!  She needs to feed lots to establish supply and to grow.  Make sure she doesn't take any big breaks between feeds during the day so she's getting as many calories as possible in daytime, and that'll help her stretch a bit at night too, but her tummy is still tiny so be patient!

I did find that a DF encouraged a longer stretch as LOs got a bit bigger (anywhere from 6-10 wks).  I did DF around 10pm, and while as a newborn they would both wake around 12, 3, 6, roughly, gradually with the DF that changed to 10, 1, 5, and then 1 am slot disappeared (yay!).  So it was really worth it for me.

Try to make night feedings as relaxing as possible *for yourself*.  I made the mistake with LO1 of getting my book out, turning the radio on, and I missed out on lots of rest.  With LO2 I kept the lights low, did lots of laid-back BFing (also known as biological nuturing) and was much better rested. Have a look here:
http://www.biologicalnurturing.com/video/bn3clip.html

A lot of people talk about feeding lying down, but that never worked for me.  What did work was building a big supporting 'armchair' of pillows as shown above and relaxing into that. HTH!

[seagirl]

THnx so much for your advices! Yes she is doing really good and waking up exactly each 3 hours)
By the way, what can I do at her activity time? She finish her meal fastly, in 15-20 min, then 10 min for change her diaper, and then we have like 1 hour, and I don't know what to do with her:(

[lily_layne]

Try to make night feedings as relaxing as possible *for yourself*.  I made the mistake with LO1 of getting my book out, turning the radio on, and I missed out on lots of rest.  With LO2 I kept the lights low, did lots of laid-back BFing (also known as biological nuturing) and was much better rested.

This is great advice! I always do night feeds in the dark in a comfy chair. Often, I am half-asleep.

At 3 weeks, kisses and cuddles are perfect for A time or she may be content just to lay on her own and look at a toy or picture. LOs don't need much at this age.