As a FTM, I'm curious what sleep looked like for the first few months with an infant - after the baby was fed, how hard was it to get them back to sleep? I know different babies can be vastly different, but I've found it hard to get a sense for the range of normal. I read a couple of books, which made it sound like if you follow their techniques babies will go back to sleep quickly and start sleeping longer stretches at night by 4-6 weeks. On the other hand, there's nothing that people love more than to tell a pregnant woman that her kid will scream for hours on end in the middle of the night for months straight. I know some babies do this, but is it more the norm than the baby sleep books make it sound?
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After I would feed my baby she would fall right back asleep or I would rock her for a few minutes and she'd be out.
She started sleeping through the night around 6 or 8 weeks. I didn't read any sleep books or do anything specific, I just lucked out with a good baby.
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Mine always went right back to sleep after feeding.
I think that it helps to not let them get too awake before they are fed. So as soon as I’d hear him stir (at least for the first couple months) I would make sure his bottle was at least ready. Sometimes I would shut my eyes a bit longer until he sounded more ready but usually I would just go in and start the feed. A couple times we waited too long and then he was up and screaming and while he did go back to sleep it wasn’t totally stress free.
Also, my ped let me know that it’s totally fine to not change pee diapers at night. That wakes them up a lot (changing them). So avoiding changing unless he pooped really helped a ton. -
Don't worry before there is something to worry about! Both of my kids have been good night sleepers as newborns (knock wood, as my second is only 5.5 weeks lol). Almost always with both of them they wake to feed, I change their diaper (because it wakes them up more, which is helpful for nursing-- if you bottle feed you may not need to do that), and they fall asleep nursing. I have held both of my kids upright for 10-20 minutes after feeding (while they slept) before putting them back down because they both have reflux, but if your kids don't have that no worries.
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Well, for the first couple of weeks she'd actually fall back to sleep while nursing, which sometimes was a problem if she hadn't taken a full feeding, especially because she wasn't gaining weight at the rate the pediatrician wanted her to. So I was one of those people who was changing her diaper, stripping her down, tickling her feet, etc, to get her to wake up enough to nurse. Then it would usually take me about 15 to 20 mins of rocking and back patting to get her fully back to sleep. She also always had a very fussy period from about 3 am on where it seemed like she never fully went back to sleep, but just wriggled and grunted and was generally restless.
It wasn't until about 3 months that her sleep sort of turned around to where she'd wake up, take a full feeding, and go right back to sleep without needing extra soothing.
She did have bad reflux though, so they may have played into sleep issues those first 3 months, which is when we got her on meds.
Anyway, that was just our experience!
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My little was a great sleeper until 4 months. She would eat and go right back to sleep and often would sleep for 6-8 hour stretches.
When she hit the 4 month sleep regression she became an abysmal sleeper and was up every 2 or less hours. She'd go back to sleep but was usually super restless.
Every kid is different. You just learn to roll with the punches
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@MamaBear87: I am going through this now. My baby is 4.5monhs old and he has been waking up every hour at night. Naps are now 30mins! Hubby and I are talking about sleep training cause he is capable of sleeping through the night.... how are you dealing with the regression? Mine has been going on for a month now...
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For the first few months, DD would go back into the co-sleeper with no protest at all and just put herself back to sleep after mid-night nursing. I think (?) most (non-colicky) newborns do fairly well after nursing; the trouble is when they get to 3-4 months old and lots of developmental changes are happening.
(Actually even at 3-6 months when we were struggling with naps and sleep training and schedules etc., DD still was very easy and consistent about going right back to sleep after mid-night nursing sessions. With a few notable exceptions.)
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Well... I hate to even post because everyone else has written their NBs basically fell back asleep after nursing/feeding but I guess you should hear the other side of the coin.
Keep in mind - my son had extremely severe reflux (like he was hospitalized for it at one point), so this is likely not "normal". But literally after I nursed him at night, it would not uncommonly take an hour or more of rocking, swaying, bouncing, walking, etc. to get him to fall asleep. Most of this time he was screaming his head off and spitting up like a fountain and choking, not just laying there. (Same for naps.) He would go back to sleep, I would go back to sleep, and we'd be up an hour later to do it again. It was truly a nightmare. I cried a lot. It was a very dark time.
That being said, I think that is HIGHLY unusual and you're very unlikely to have an experience like that.
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@cake2017: my little is now 2. We tried sleep training and it failed horribly. She cried for 2 plus hours multiple times. We ended up cosleeping and that got everyone more sleep. At 8 months my husband started putting her to sleep at night and she slept better, still ending up in our bed by 3 or 4.
There was nothing that worked she just eventually grew out of it. Now at 2 she sleeps great at night, 11-13 hours but no longer naps.
Good luck! Hope your little goes back to sleeping well -
@MrsADS: My son has reflux. It was bad when I supplemented with formula. Right now I exclusively BF and it helps a lot. He does wake up often since changing his schedule to eating every 2.5 hours. Did your baby”s reflux improve?
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My two almost always fell back asleep while nursing. But I agree with @SweetiePie: that the trick was to not let them get too awake. They both also had multiple night time wake-ups, so even though each wakeup was a quick 15-20 minute feed, it was every 2-3 hours in the beginning, eventually getting to longer stretches.
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@cake2017 he is 2 now and it is better although he is still on Nexium. I had to go on a strict elimination diet (I exclusively breasfted and he also had bad MSPI) and he was on 3 reflux meds. We eventually had some improvement but not until about 11 months old when we drastically increased his Nexium dosage.
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@MrsADS: Aww okay! I am glad he is better! thank you for sharing!
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@MamaBear87: Thank you for sharing!
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My oldest was a dream - as a newborn, she would basically fall asleep while eating or while burping and transferring easily back into her bassinet. My youngest - whoa. She had reflux, and needed to be rocked and soothed for an hour plus after eating. It was so bad that my husband and I slept in shifts for a few months and just took turns holding her all night. It was brutal
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Both of mine were the typical sleepy newborns until about 4 weeks. Then from 4-8 weeks they were up screaming at night. My first wasn't too bad, about an hour of rocking and he would go back to sleep. My second though.... he would scream from midnight to 3 or 4am. Every single night for weeks. The doctor said some babies just cry, she gave me some tips to try but nothing really helped.
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My first would go right back to sleep, and sleep in longer stretches from the beginning, but was really hard to get down in the first place. My second would be up for an hour at each night waking, he was on a two hours of sleep one hour awake schedule day or night. He wasn't screaming though, just awake. Both started sleeping better after about 6 weeks, and consistently STTN by 4-6 months.
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DS is 4 months and since day 1, he always went right back to sleep after eating. He started STTN around 8-10 weeks.
DD was a different story. She had her days and nights confused so she screamed all night and slept all day. It took a while to correct that.
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She pretty much always went back to sleep easily after/while nursing her (STTN was a whole other story - that unfortunately took 2 years). In the hospital the nurses got us into this routine of changing her beforehand and we did that at home for a little while until I realized that just because the pee strip indicator on the diaper was wet that it didn't mean she needed a change. So I am looking forward to knowing that this time because we definitely made the wake-ups longer than necessary for a little while. Unless they are not gaining enough weight or falling asleep too soon into a feeding then I think it's good to keep wake-ups as low key as possible. Just something I wish I had realized earlier as a FTM!
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My LO IS 8wks. He's always gone right back to sleep after feeding. I imagined pacing the house with a screaming baby in the middle of the night, but that has yet to happen. On the few occasions he hasn't gone back down, one of us just holds him in bed until he falls asleep (an hour at most). But we stay totally quiet and don't turn on lights so the other can sleep.
Daytime naps have been more challenging. That's usually when he screams and gets overtired. Some days he's able to easily fall asleep in the car seat, rock n play, etc., others I can only get him to nap in the Tula carrier. But I'll take what I can get
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DS was born at 35 weeks so he definitely was the sleepy newborn for the first month who we had to keep awake to maintain his weight. We had to wake him to feed every 2 hours after his previous feed ended. It would be about 1 hour to change him, feed, burp, rock and back to sleep.
After he caught up and we didnt need to wake him, we still had wake ups every 2-4 hours for like 3-4 more months. He usually went back to sleep easily so it wasn't like dealing with screaming all night...it was more the frequency of wake ups that was killer. I would feel like I would just get back to sleep and he would need to eat again, or I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep after waking up with him. At 9 months his sleep turned a corner with less nursing and wake ups and by 12 months he was mostly STTN and continued that.
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DD was the nightmare child people talk about. She had her days and nights mixed up for far longer than any of our friends' babies. Then she would wake up 5+ times a night (but go back to sleep quickly) until we sleep trained around 7 months. Didn't sleep through the night consistently until 16 months. Since then she's been great though!
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Thank you everyone - this has been super helpful in terms of getting more of a sense for the range of what to expect. The advice about not doing anything to make them too awake, unless they need to wake up more for weight gain, is really helpful. Also, good to know about the 3-4 month regression.
Really sorry for everyone who had lots of difficulty with reflux or other sleep issues, and best of luck to those who are still in the middle of dealing with it.
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Both of mine just fell right back to sleep nursing for MOTN wake ups. I would change diapers and reswaddle always before feeding.
For DS, he found his thumb around 6 months which has made putting him down for sleeps and naps super easy. He always just pops in his thumb and is out like a light.
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I think there's a wide range of normal. My first struggled with sleeping and was up for hours at night. It was really hard to get her to go to sleep. This was for the first few months. Eventually she got better at the sleep thing, but she always woke up a lot as an infant, no matter what we tried. We eventually just co-slept because that's the only way we could get any rest.
My second would go back to sleep with minimal rocking after a feeding, and slept through the night at three weeks. So, the exact opposite of my first! If I could guarantee our next baby would sleep just as well I would definitely have a third!
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@LemonJack: I agree on wide range of normal. My first needed to be rocked for anywhere between 10 minutes and like... hours. My second always fell back to sleep while nursing. They're just very different sleepers.
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My kids never screamed for hours in the middle of the night. I nursed them and they fell back asleep. If they didn't want to be in the bassinet, we coslept. I'd honestly stop wasting your time reading books about sleep. It's ever changing in the first few months, even years. Just do what works at the time. There is no magic bullet that will create a unicorn baby that sleeps through the night consistently. Part of being a parent is losing a lot of sleep. The sooner you accept it and know it's all a phase that you'll get through, the easier it will be to manage.
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@periwinklebee: here are some tips to help Keep them sleepy at night:
- no lights on. Just use a nightlight (leave it on when they go to sleep so it’s not “New” light if you have to turn it on for a change or feed. This is also wonderful, I left it on the changing table and had it down near his feet so it never bothered him and it’s a very soft glow:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Munchkin-Light-My-Way-Nightlight/23258644?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222228017178797&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=40341142232&wl4=pla-78298297352&wl5=9004075&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=23258644&wl13=&veh=sem- no talking. No whispering or engaging or anything. Shushing is the only thing that’s ok if they are crying.
- no eye contact. Glancing down for feeding is ok but don’t lock eyes if they are open (it stimulates them almost more than anything)
- change as little as possible (as I mentioned, often it’s ok to leave pee diapers and only change poop).
- try to feed soon after they stir so they don’t wake too much
- try not to use phone or watch tv or anything during night feedings. The glow/noise can wake baby up more AND it also makes it a lot harder for you to get back to sleep.
These all worked for me! Inevitably my husband would do one of the above no-nos when he took an occasional shift and I’d wake to a screaming baby (he was a major offender of turning on all the lights and talking in a normal voice. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever been more mad at him than in those moments
)
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@SweetiePie: I actually had good luck with not feeding immediately, I felt it led to my babies being about to self soothe earlier, because sometimes they would just go to sleep. They would almost always poop while feeding, which required a diaper change, and would wake them up, so there would not be much advantage. I always turned on a light, I found it very difficult to get a good latch with the lights on. I also always watched tv, it never seemed to have too bad of an effect, and it made night feedings so much more tolerable for me. I did avoid talking to the baby and eye contact.
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@mdf106: What I said upthread was that I tried to get the bottle ready at the first hint he was waking up. I then waited until it was obvious he wasn’t going back to sleep, but not wailing. I agree that waiting a bit can help them self soothe.
As for all the other stuff, different strokes for different folks I guess. I like to follow professional sleep advice to a T. Sleep is vital for me so it’s the thing I’m kinda crazy about.
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My first was like MrsADS' son. He was almost an only child and I have PTSD from his newborn stage.
DS2 had reflux too, but milder and he's way more laid back so his second month of life was tough but that was it.
I generally say this to new moms:
Weeks 1-2 they will likely be sleepy, but want to clusterfeed and be held a lot.
Weeks 3-6 they "wake up" and often have their days and nights mixed up. So it's not uncommon to have a kid who naps like a dream during the day and then is up and at'em at night.
Week 3 and week 6 is usually a growth spurt so sleep is rough during that time. Feed the baby as much as possible - the more they eat, the faster the spurt passes.
Weeks 6-10 are considered the height of fussiness if you have a colicky or fussy baby. It will taper after week 10.
Week 8 is a big Wonder Week for development so they are also often fussy during this time, so that will affect sleep.
The biggest thing I can recommend is line up help the second month, not the first. Pick a wake time in the morning and get baby up, exposed to sunshine so the circadian clock can align ASAP. Bedtime should roughly be 12 hours after the wake time. After that bedtime hits, keep it dark and quiet to enforce nighttime, again to help set the circadian rhythm. Newborns can hardly stay awake beyond a feeding - like 45 minutes and they're down. 2-3 months, my kids had 45-60 minute wake times. By 4 months they could do 75-90 minutes before nap.
If your child needs help sleeping in the middle of the night, you can feed and hold until they are dead asleep like past the twitching stage and you can pick up their arm and drop it (20 mins after they doze) and transfer. Swaddles help, and I usually put a warm rice sock in the bassinet so they felt warm and cuddled.
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I would be up with my first child for HOURS at night. I thought I was totally losing it. I don't think I was feeding him enough. With my second and third child, I have bedshared so I hear them rustling, I nurse them, and they immediately would go back to sleep. Rarely was I ever up with them for more than the time it took to feed them!
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@SweetiePie: @gingerbebe: Thank you, these tips are super, super helpful!
@matador84: Interesting, seems like hearing them stir before they're fully awake could be really useful.
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@periwinklebee: getting to them before they fully wake up is key for my babies. Then they sort of sleep/eat for a few minutes (anywhere from 5-20) during the night and it’s much easier to put them back into the crib beside me.
Some babies stay awake longer and if they poop or get gas it can make it take longer. I find at night that if they’re sleepy they actually latch better, that’s my kids anyway, so there’s less gas occurring.
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@LemonJack: I agree, there is a huge range of normal!
My first was way more difficult than my second, but at the same time I think I was much more intuitive with my second. I also really tried from the beginning to teach him to fall asleep on his own. (Not cio style though.) I was also much less anxious about it and didn't spend so much time recording or over analyzing the patterns, etc. I watched tv but I tried to hold him so he didn't face it and I kept it pretty quiet.
Just remember nothing is permanent especially with little babies. A lot of how you do things will just depend on the baby!
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@Mrs. Goose: @2littlepumpkins: Thank you, this is super helpful!
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