Sleeping FAQ: 8-12 weeks – Night Waking

I cannot get my 9 week son to sleep a longer stretch in the night

My 9 week son wakes up consistently at around 2am-4am and continues to wake up every hour until 7am. I cannot get him to sleep longer than an hour stretch after 2am. I have tried to settle him with a dummy, cooled boiled water, pat/sshhing, white noise cd, before feeding him 2.5 ounces which he usually is sick after but he will still cry for more. I don’t want to increase his night feeds and struggle to get him to take more in the day but feel like I have tried everything else. I have tried to leave him cry but this doesn’t make him stop and again if he does sleep he will wake an hour later crying. I am unsure whether he wants to be with us as he settles well at 7pm and 11pm really well and goes down well in his cot for daytime naps too.

At present he feeds at 7am 4ozs, 10am 5ozs, 1.30pm 5ozs, 4.30pm 4ozs, 6.30pm 4ozs, 11pm 6ozs and 3.30am 2.5ozs. He weighs 11lbs 4ozs.

My son naps at 9-10am, 11.30-1.30pm and 3.30-4.30pm. He is settled by 6.30pm.

At present your son is taking his long stretch of sleep in the first part of his night; i.e. 6.30-11pm. To help him shift this stretch of sleep to later in the night you need to wake him at 10pm, make this feed a split feed and keep him awake for over an hour. Gina describes this on page 138 of The Contented Little Baby Book. Also, on page 86 of this book, you will see the question and answer relating to a similar problem.

As you have only just started to use the routines in the daytime you may need to make some gradual adjustments to your son’s feed times and naptimes so that he receives a split feed at 5pm/6.15pm. As your son is sleeping from 11.30am-1.30pm he needs his next feed by 4.30pm. You may like to offer him a small top up before he goes down for his lunchtime nap. This should help him sleep until nearer 2pm and you can adjust the rest of the day’s timings so he receives the first part of his split feed at 5pm.

The idea behind split feeds is to get your baby to take two good feeds before the middle of the night. Although you may not like the idea of waking him at 10pm it is better to do so and keep him up for over an hour. He will then take a bigger feed and also will not have too much sleep in the evening. This should help him to push on towards 3am/3.30am before waking for another feed. Although you do not want to give a very big feed in the middle of the night to a baby of your son’s age, he does still need around 4ozs. Once he shows signs of not being interested in his 7am feed you will know that it is time to cut back a little on the night feed. Have a look at the notes on page 149 of The Contented Little Baby Book to see how to do this.