Sleeping FAQ: 8-12 Weeks – Night Waking

My 9-week-old son has recently slept until 6.15 for two nights in a row and then 5.30 for another three, so I thought we were gradually getting to the holy 7am, but the other night (and again last night) he woke at 4am.

The first time I tried to use the core night method of settling him with patting or a dummy; patting had no effect so I gave him a dummy, which kept him quiet, but I could tell he wasn’t asleep so I eventually fed him at 5am, and he went back to sleep until 7am. He was then irritable all day which I put down to the disrupted night! Last night I tried to settle him at 4am with water, but he refused to settle and then I had to offer him 100mls of expressed milk to get him back to sleep. After this he woke at 6.50am and wasn’t interested in a top-up at 7.30am, but wouldn’t settle for the 9am nap until I topped him with 60mls of expressed milk.

The core night method doesn’t seem to be working – unless I am doing it wrong? I am a bit worried he will drop the wrong feed if I keep feeding him in the night.

As your baby is nine weeks old and possibly going through a growth spurt we would recommend that you go back to feeding him when he wakes in the night for the next week or so, even if it means he takes less at the 7am feed in the morning. There is always a stage in the routines where a baby will feed at 4/5am and not be so hungry at 7am. If he refuses a top-up at 7.30am, then you will have to top him up prior to his morning nap, so that he sleeps well. If he takes a top-up at 7.30am, you may find that you will have to feed him around 10/10.30am, with a top-up at lunchtime to keep the routine on track.

The most important thing to remember when establishing good sleeping habits, is that your aim should be to encourage your baby to naturally sleep soundly for long spells, even if it means a quick feed in the night. It can take slightly longer for breastfed babies to sleep through the night. If you try to push your baby through the night before he is ready, you will end up with a baby who gets into the habit of being awake on and off in the night, and as you have already found out, is tired and irritable during the day. A vicious circle can soon evolve where the baby stays awake longer in the night, because he is sleeping too much during the day. This is a far worse problem to resolve, than getting rid of a night feed. At this stage we would suggest that you give him as big a feed as he needs in the night to get him back to sleep quickly until 7am. It is pointless restricting the amount you give him, if then he wakes up at 6am !
Once he has been sleeping through regularly to 7am for at least a week, you could try the core night-method again. But always bear in mind that it should not be pursued unless the baby is settling back to sleep quickly with the aid of the dummy, water or a cuddle. If he hasn’t settled within twenty minutes it is best to feed him so that he is not awake for too long. As long as he is settling back quickly, with one of the suggested ways of settling and perhaps a small feed, you could continue using the core night method, provided he is sleeping until 7am. If he does settle back to sleep without a feed, but then wakes again an hour later he should be fed immediately. The aim of the core night is not to eliminate the night feed totally, but to encourage him to gradually sleep a longer and longer from his last feed. If you attempt to settle him a second time in the night with the dummy or water, that in itself could establish the wrong sleep association.