Sleeping FAQ: 8-12 Weeks – Night Waking

Core night method at nine weeks

I am unsure whether I should be doing the core night method with my nine week old daughter, who has been sleeping very regularly to 5am in the morning; we have even had a couple of 6am wakings. However, in the last week we have had a couple of 4am wakings. One night, I tried settling her back to sleep with patting and the dummy, but after an hour I ended up feeding her to get her back to sleep.
Another night, I left her to cry for 20 minutes, but she worked herself into such a state that I again resorted to feeding her. On both of these occasions when I tried the core night method, she was in a very irritable mood the following day due to overtiredness and was a nightmare to deal with.

I am really worried that I will get her into bad habits by feeding her in the night. She weighs nearly 13 pounds and is gaining weight well each week. She is fully breast-fed during the day, and takes 150 mls of formula at 10pm and 120 mls of expressed milk in the night. Do you think that I should continue to persevere with the core night method to get her sleeping through the night?

At nine weeks your baby is possibly going through a growth spurt and I would not recommend enforcing the core night method at this stage. The core night method is recommended for babies who have slept a longer period for several nights in a row and takes a full feed at 10pm. If your daughter wakes at 2/3am, it would be sensible to try and settle her back to sleep without a feed. If she wakes at 4am and you have not managed to settle her within twenty minutes by cuddling, patting or by offering her some cool boiled water, I think you should feed her. It is pointless trying to follow the core night method if your baby is unsettled for long spells in the night, with a knock-on effect of making her more tired and irritable during the day.

As your baby has naturally extended the length of time she sleeps since she was born, I think that you should allow her a couple more weeks to see if she will naturally start and sleep through to 7am. At the moment your baby is taking a feed of 150 mls at the late feed. For her current weight, she may need to take 180-210mls before she manages to sleep right through the night. Again, it is essential that you allow her to increase this feed naturally; if you try to force her to take more than she is willing, it could result in her being very sick, or worse choking. Once she is taking nearer that amount, if she wakes up at 4am you could then try the core night method again. Before you attempt this method, please ensure that you have read up on how to proceed correctly. If a baby is ready to drop their feed in the night, they will do so quickly. It should not involve lots of crying over several nights.

It is also important to remember that it can take slightly longer for breast-fed babies to sleep through the night, and that your main aim is to get your baby sleeping soundly for long spells, even if it means a short, quick feed in the night for a bit longer than the book recommends. If you try to push your baby through the night before she is ready, you could end up with a baby who gets into the habit of being awake on and off during the night, or even establish an early-morning waking problem. This problem is much harder to resolve than eliminating a night feed.

Some babies go through a stage where they need to feed between 4-5am, but may reduce the amount they take at 7am. Do not make the mistake of reducing the amount you give your baby in the night too quickly, which could result in her waking up at 6am; make sure you give her the minimum amount she needs to get her sleeping soundly until 7am. During this stage, when a baby feeds at 4/5am she may not be so hungry at 7am. This means that you might have to feed her at 10/10.30am, with a top-up at lunchtime to keep the routine on track. Remember that this stage will not last forever; the fact that she is settling so well in the evening and sleeping soundly from the 10pm feed until 4/5am at nine weeks, is proof of this. It is also important to remember that when your daughter does drop the middle of the night feed, she will need to take that extra amount of milk during the day