Habitual Waking? 7 week old

[mstdenis]

Am I expecting too much to think that my 7 week old daughter should be sleeping a 5 hour stretch during the night?  I have started giving her a dream feed at 10:30ish and she wakes up at 2:00 am and then at 5:30 am.  In the day preceeding she is getting 30-32 oz. so I was thinking she would have gotten all of her calories she would need.  She is on a 3 hour EASY during the day and is a great sleeper as she puts herself to sleep (without a paci - see below).

I am thinking that she is waking out of habit.  Now the issue is that I would give her a pacifier to see if she would drift off back to sleep but she was a paci-dependent baby up until one week ago when she was weaned off of it.  So at this point, I do not want to go with trying the pacifier as I am worried she will regress into using it as a prop again.  I know that my first daughter was not dependent on it and I was able to use it to get rid of the middle of the night feeding at around 8 weeks.  Any suggestions??

Thank,
Meredith

[Anonymous]

Meredith...this is a TOTALLY normal developmental requirement for a seven week old baby to wake during the night.  I would seriously advise that you feed your baby when she wakes during the night and not just give her a paci.  As her system matures she will start to sleep longer on her own accord.  Each baby is different.  Also, just to let you know... 5 hours is considered, medically speaking, as 'sleeping through the night' and many medical practioners don't actually expect babies to be sleeping this long until they are MUCH older.

Cheers
Ted