Sleeping through the night

Emma - posted on 12/10/2008

My daughter was born at 35weeks and is now 8months and she's been really good. She will go to sleep between 6-7pm of her own accord and will only wake up again at 5-6am then goes back to sleep until 8-9. She won't sleep during the day because she's so curious. What I think helped us get her in a routine was that we started giving her baby rice because she was always hungry. She would have 6oz or more and then wake up for more food so I decided a trip to the doctors would be handy and they advised me to this. so I ssuggest you try a thicker formula milk or baby rice on advise of the doctor. what formula is he on? Good luck

Courtney - posted on 12/09/2008

yay! there is hope yet- my son is 3 weeks (born at 34 weeks) and we still have to get up every three hours to feed him and i feel like a zombie and i will never get more then 2 hours of sleep at a time. The NICU put him on a 3 hour schedule and that is pretty much what he keeps to though it is never a set time typically it is 8-11-2-5...or some variation close to it.

Caroline - posted on 11/28/2008

My daughter was a 32wkr, she was feeding every 2hrs up to the age of 1! She is now 22mths old and still doesn't sleep through. I may get 3 or 4hrs from 9pm to 1am, but that's it. I don't feed her when she wakes I just put her in bed with me and go back to sleep. There are 3 other children that I have to get up to at 6am so the sleeping in bed with me works at the moment.

Ashley - posted on 11/26/2008

Just an update, the past two weeks have been much better during the day. My son has been getting up between 8 and 9 and then takes a decent morning nap about 2 hours after he wakes up. He also takes a long afternoon nap and then catnaps a couple times throughout the day. I have been doing a bath, bottle, bed routine the same time at night and he goes to bed consistently at 8 now, but I am still getting up twice throughout the night to feed him and can't get him to take more than 4 or 5 ounces. It has gotten a lot better except for the nighttime feedings. I think at this point I would gladly do a feeding once a night!

Corrie - posted on 11/25/2008

Ashley-Thanks for posting this question. We've been dealing with sleep issues as well. My son was born at just under 35 weeks & he is now 10 weeks old. He can sleep up to 4-5 hours at a time during the day, but night is a differendt story!! We only had to wake him up to feed him (every 3 hours) until his due date (so about 5 weeks). Recently he's been waking up every 2 hours at night & then sleeping long stretches during the day. I think he's a bit confused. :) I've been working harder at only letting him nap 2-3 hours during the day & then hoping that he will take those long stretches at night.

Kierstin - posted on 11/23/2008

PS. Mine never ate more than 5 1/2 to 6 oz at a time until I switched him to Almond Milk at 13 months and now he sucks down 9-11 ozs!! It's amazing!! They are funny like that!

Kierstin - posted on 11/23/2008

Ohhh gosh can I relate to you!! I had 1 boy before my preemie and my first I can on such a schedule and then alone came Zack-- 12 weeks early and he's impossible to get on a schedule like my last one!! He's 14 months (11 months adjusted) and I feel like he is just now really getting the schedule thing. We tried early on but he doesn't nap great consistently-- just now like in the past month does he consistently sleep through the night-- except for times of teething or illness. Hang in there-- it will get better!!!

Suzanne - posted on 11/23/2008

my son was born at 32 weeks as well, now is 13 weeks and only sleeps 3 hours at a time. We are ramping up to 4.5 hours!!! I want to know the samething! I am soooo tired, especially since returning to work!! ugh! of course he want to be the cutest at 3am! ha.

Ambra - posted on 11/22/2008

My daughter was also born at 32 weeks and she used to be the same way (she's 4 months old tomorrow), once we got her to sleep she'd sleep 5-6 hours but she would cry from fatigue, and possibly a bit of indigestion for an hour or two before falling asleep at 1 am... We went away on vacation when we would have her in her stroller for several hours in the late morning/early afternoon and after a couple days of crankiness in the evening and not wanting to sleep she started waking up in the mornings (not in the stroller), sleeping for awhile in the mid-day (in the stroller), and waking up until about 9 or 10 pm and going to sleep. She's kept it up for 3 weeks since we got home, sleeping between 7-9 hrs at night. I guess we got her on a schedule by putting her to sleep in the stroller when we wanted her to sleep, dealing with the consequences for a couple of nights and eventually she settled into it. When we got home we put her in her crib at 9, even when she's not fully asleep, and she plays for a bit and then she dozes off. She wakes up between 4 and 6, feeds, sleeps til 8 or 9, feeds and sometimes goes back to sleep until 10. As for the reflux, we tried rice for awhile, but it didn't work that well. We had her sleep in her bouncy chair too, which worked for awhile too. I don't know if your son is on iron supplements (ours was) and I think that was causing the problems so if he is and doesn't need such a strong dose you could try reducing them.

Suzanne - posted on 11/06/2008

my son was born @32wks and wont go longer than 3hrs sometimes 2.5 hrs at a time between feedings! so am still not getting much sleep! he is now 11wks old! he know weighs 10lbs. whendid all of youre start sleeping more?

Monica - posted on 11/05/2008

My son is 17 weeks and he started sleeping through the night 2 weeks ago. He sleeps between 6 and 9 hours depending on what he feels like :) He doesn't have a "bed time" yet but I like to get him to bed between 8 and 10 so I can get some sleep too!! He was born at 35 weeks so I think he's doing pretty good :)

Katie - posted on 11/05/2008

You're very welcome! We originally had to thicken the boys milk with rice because of reflux and aspirating and I remember them sleeping better with that so that's another reason I thought of it. As soon as we went off of that things got worse so I think it really did help them with sleeping at night! Good luck and let us know how it goes with the doctor next week!!

Ashley - posted on 11/05/2008

Katie--My son is the same way. He has been eating 4 ounces for the past 2 months, but will not take more most of the time. It's just very hard to force him into a schedule because he has been colicky and we realized that when he is tired is when he is the worst, so I don't want to wake him from a nap just to try to get him scheduled if it means dealing with a crying baby for two hours at night. I have a doctor appointment next week for him; I'll ask about adding rice. Thank you all for your input!

Katie - posted on 11/04/2008

Hi Ashley. My 28 weeker twins are now 8 months old this week. For about 3 weeks in Sept/Oct we had a good schedule going on and I loved it! I stay home with them and was always stressed because someone was always up! But they generally go to bed between 7 and 8:30 pm, up between midnight and 1am, up again between 4 and 5am and then up between 8 and 9am. My sister told me her kids took 8 ounce bottles when they were around 4 months old and would sleep thru the night (well, 6-8 hours). My twins take 4 oz bottles and no matter how hard I try they won't take more. So I think that's our problem... they don't eat enough so they are hungry again. Have you tried to give your son more milk? Other friends were told by their doctor to try adding rice to the milk at bedtime, use a cross cut fast flow bottle nipple and babies might fill up and sleep longer... but ask your doctor before trying this!!!

Kendra - posted on 11/04/2008

If your baby is putting on enough weight (ask your doc) you can start putting him on a schedule. Keep in mind that baby isn't born with a schedule, mommy needs to impliment it. The sooner you do it, the better it will be in the long run. It's not easy, but it will make your life easier!!

Beth - posted on 10/28/2008

I am not sure about this. Our Doctor still has us wake up our 5 month old every 3 1/2 hours to be sure he is getting enough to eat. Maybe at his 6 month appointment she may let us see how long he will sleep if we don't wake him.