2 Sleep issues: 12 week baby has become a bad napper and night sleep stretch

[Urvi123]

I have 2 questions:

Baby is almost 12 weeks old. had been on a 3 hours schedule.

Issue 1: he used to be a great napper, easy to put down (i just had to hold him for a few minutes and he would fall asleep on his own) but now I have to do shh/pat for 10-20mins and he wakes up after 45 mins.   am i gonna be doing this forever.

Issue 2: His usual bedtime is 6:30 (typically sleeps by 7:30 after settling), this is his 6 hours stretch, I do give him a dream feed, although I do not think it helps. He wakes up anywhere from 12-2am for his night feeding. How can I move his 6 hour stretch? I have a toddler who sleeps at 8, and by the time we go to bed after the dream feed is 10:30pm. I hardly get any sleep, since the baby sometimes wake up at 5:30am.

Please please helps. Any ideas?

[jessmum46]

Hi there   Could you post your routine for us with A times?

Issue 1 - this is pretty normal for this age (the short naps I mean) - it's very much a developmental thing as they have 'woken up' a bit more to the world and have to learn how to connect sleep cycles properly.  You won't be dealing with it forever, I promise!  But it can be a very annoying phase.  Things that can help are continuing to encourage independent sleep at the start of naps and making sure A times are appropriate - not too short (which can sometimes mean LO also takes a long time to settle) and not too long.

Issue 2 - I'm tempted to say have you just tried without the dream feed?  For some babies it seems to disturb sleep more than it helps and you may get a bit longer without it (no guarantees though).  What about leaving the dream feed to your partner and getting yourself to bed earlier?  The long stretch is usually the first part of the night so I'm not really sure about shifting it....is baby waking frequently at night?  At this age I think 10.30pm-5.30am isn't really too bad with one wake for a feed   Exhausting I know though!  Especially with another one to care for too.  The only other thing I can suggest is moving baby's whole routine to go to bed later and so hopefully push that night wake later in the night, but then that would probably impact on the mornings as baby would want to sleep in later and I'm not sure how well that would work for your family?