Sleeping FAQ: 8-12 weeks

Since my 3-year-old son has been back at nursery, the midday nap for my daughter has gone wrong. He has to be collected at 12.30 so I have to leave at 12.15. My daughter is tired at 12.00 so I put her to sleep in her car seat ready to put in the car. She sleeps fine until I take her out of the car at 12.30 to collect my son. I have tried putting the car seat in the buggy and just carrying it but she always wakes up and will not go back to sleep. I know it is because she has come into her light sleep but these are the times I have to collect him. When we get home I try to settle her in a dark room either in her cot or remaining in the car seat but she then cries on and off until 2pm. She is then overtired for the remainder of the afternoon. She will not sleep after her 2pm bottle either. Before my son went back to school she was sleeping brilliantly at lunchtime. What can I do before it begins to affect her routine? Should I try to keep her awake until 12.45 when I get home? Her 2pm bottle will then be late.
At present she naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.35pm and 4-4.30pm. She settles at 7pm.
She feeds at 7am 3ozs, 10.45am 5.5ozs, 2.15pm 4.4ozs, 5pm 3ozs, 6.15pm 2ozs and 11pm 3ozs. She weighs 11lbs.
Team Response

I wrote to you last week about my lunchtime nap problem and many thanks for your reply. I have been trying what you suggested but unfortunately without success. I have tried leaving my daughter for 10-20 minutes, sometimes 30, but she cries and cries. This last week after 45 minutes I have gone to her immediately before she fully wakes up. I know that she will not settle in her cot, so I pick her up and hold her in the dark. She will go back to sleep almost straight away, but when I try putting her back into the cot she wakes again. By doing this I am worried that she may learn the wrong associations and want to be held all the time. My other friends who have had the same problem say that it will disappear, but as I am now entering a 4th week of unsuccessful lunchtime naps, I am not optimistic.
At present she sleeps 9.00-9.45am, 12.00-12.45pm, 1.00-2.15pm and 4.45-5pm.
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I have been having the ever popular problem of the lunchtime nap. At 9 weeks old my daughter hasn’t had the full sleep now for 2 weeks and is becoming a very unhappy baby as a result. For the first week I kept her in her cot, pitch black, well tucked in but every day she woke after 45 minutes. I tried giving her a top up before going down but wasn’t interested. I then tried giving the 11am feed at 10.15 but still not interested so I don’t think her waking is a due to hunger. For the second week I have been taking her out in the pram to see if I could get her past the 45 minute mark. Today is the 6th day and she has made it past then twice, even then she still spent a lot of the time awake and crying. I don’t feel as if this is working and I’m my feet are killing me; I’ve done so much walking! To get through the afternoon I let her have 30 minutes after the 2.30pm feed (which she will fall asleep half way through) then another 30 minutes at 4.30pm. She is still very unhappy all afternoon and almost unbearable between 5 and 6pm. She still sleeps well at night but am worried that it won’t last. I am tempted to just get her up after the 45 minute waking and let her make it up in the afternoon but I realise how important the lunchtime nap is so desperately want to make it work again.
At present she naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.45pm, 3-3.30pm and 4.30-5pm.
She feeds at 7am 6.5ozs, 11am 6ozs, 2.30pm 5ozs, 6.15pm 6ozs, 10pm 4ozs. She weighs 11lb 5ozs.
Team Response

I suffer from an immune disorder which makes me very weak physically; having a second child was a bit of a risk really. I have also just been diagnosed with PND. We have been trying the routine but are having such problems with the lunch-time nap as our 8-week-old wakes after 45 minutes. Our first child, was a “catnapper” and very unhappy as a baby; I am desperate for this not to be the case for our new baby. I have been reading the advice on the website and in the book but am at a loss as to whether to let my son sleep for the two hours by walking him or to start sleep training? He is also not sleeping through the night, he wakes between 2-4am. We need some help urgently. At present he feeds 7.30am, 10.30am, 2pm, 5.45pm, 10-11pm which are all 6oz feeds and takes 5ozs at 2.30am. He naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.45pm,1-1.45pm and 4-4.45pm. He is settled by 7pm.
Team Response

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.

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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. 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?

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Since birth my 9 week old daughter has always woken once a night for a feed anywhere between 2.30am and 6.15am (even going 3 consecutive nights until 6am at 6 weeks) but for the past 10 days she has been waking consistently at 2.30-2.45am and will not settle. I am sure she is not hungry and there is nothing obvious waking her (I have checked room temperature, nappy, noise etc). I have tried resettling her with water and a dummy and once succeeded after one and a half hours when she then slept through until 5.45am (surely proving it is not hunger?), other times I have given in after an hour or so of trying to settle her to find she does not take a full feed before resettling easily and then happily goes through until 7am. I am now only breastfeeding during the night so wondered if the smell of my milk was stopping her resettling but my husband has tried and found the same thing. She was a big baby at birth (10lb 10oz) so I am sure she has the physical capacity to go longer - I am wondering if she is waking at this time because she is in such a good feeding routine during the day she is now waking almost exactly 4 hours after the 10.30pm feed. She is a very, very windy baby (we now use Dr Brown bottles, infacol and gripe water) and is on Gaviscon infant for a very mild reflux problem. She settles well providing she has no wind but this is rare and we usually have to go back to the nursery several times to wind her before she eventually goes to sleep. She often wakes midway during her daytime naps (with classic wind symptoms) and won't resettle. She feeds well during the day - I fill each bottle with 7fl oz and she normally leaves a little bit (taking about 6.5). Sometimes I have to wake her for a feed so she is not an overly hungry baby and does not seem to be having a growth spurt. I also have a 15 month old daughter (who slept through from 10.30pm until 7am from 8 weeks!) so I am really very tired coping with such a lack of sleep and don't know what else to try except leaving her to cry.
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My 11 week son is causing me grief during the night. He has slowly become a very good sleeper, sleeping exactly at the times the CLB routines suggest. I don't have to even encourage him to sleep at these times. He has adjusted to the CLB feeding schedule; he is not necessarily consistent with the amounts he takes though. I make him 5 scoops of formula to 150ml water, and sometimes he takes all of it, sometimes leaving between 1 and 2 ounces. Despite the amount he drinks during the day, he always wakes at 2am. For more than 1 month now, I have not fed him at this feed, but give him a dummy, and he then will sleep until sometime between 3 and 4. Until recently, he was breast fed at this night interval, but then he started going off his morning feed, maybe only taking 1 or 2 ounces. So, I have not been feeding him in the night, instead, I have settled him with the dummy. I did try water, but that did not work, he was greatly offended! At any rate, the new pattern has become waking at 2am, dummy, waking again for 3-4am, dummy, waking between 5-6am, dummy then he would happily sleep until 8:30am, if I let him. As soon as I give the dummy (he is quite hungry so takes it eagerly) he falls straight back to sleep.

This current pattern has been in place for about 4 days, and has been exactly the same. Yesterday, he woke at 9pm starving hungry, I gave him 5oz, and then at 11pm he took a further 5ozs. So, yesterday, he had, (if you count the fact that 5 powder scoops and 150 mls actually make 6 ounces) between 30 and 35 ounces of formula. So, I think he is getting enough, but this night waking thing is killing me as I have not had a decent sleep for ages, and I have a 2.5 year old toddler as well, who slept though the night at 8 weeks.

Would you have any suggestions? I tried for a week the split feed at 10-11pm, but it had no affect whatsoever on the night waking. He seems to take more formula if I give this late feed as a dream feed and is happier. It was always 2am, even though he has not been fed at that time for more than a month, and goes straight back down with a dummy. I have tried a few times to see if he'll settle himself back to sleep, but he just keeps on crying. He does settle himself at other times, so I don't worry that he cannot settle himself on his own. I'm just torn about whether this is some ingrained habit, or whether he just needs a feed in the night, despite it putting him off his morning feed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. The sleeping schedule below is for his current evening routine with the waking, avoiding the night feed with a dummy, and him subsequently going back to sleep. We really don't have a period where he is awake, but he is more wakeful between 5am and 6am, presumably because he's hungry and he's more difficult to settle without feeding.

My son takes between 110-150mls at 7.30am, 10.30am, 2.30pm, 5.15pm and 10.45pm. At 6.30pm he takes 4 scoops of formula in 150mls water and may leave 30mls.

He weighs 6.25kg [13.12lbs].

My son naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and 4-4.30pm. He settles by 7pm.
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My son of 8 weeks is fed at 10.30pm and goes through until 3.45/4am. He will take 3-4ozs of formula then is settled back by 4.30am. For the last two nights he has woken screaming at 5.30/45am.

What could be the reason for this waking? Surely he is not hungry? I manage to settle him with a dummy and cuddle and then have to wake him at 7am.

Should I think abut settling him with water at 4am and seeing what happens then?

I have also started to half swaddle him at the 7pm sleep. When should I half swaddle him for the rest of the night? When do you recommend a sleeping bag?

My son takes 6ozs feeds at 7am, 10.30am, 2.30pm and 10.30pm. He takes 3-4ozs at 5 and 6.15pm and also at 3.30am. He weighs 11lbs 1oz.

He naps at 8.50-9.50am, 11.30-2pm and 4-4.15pm. He is settled at 6.30pm.
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My 11 week old daughter is waking at around 4.30/5.00 every morning for the last week. She settles well in the evening and only has 3 hours (sometimes less, as the lunchtime nap often goes wrong) sleep in the day. I am concerned it is linked to her becoming dependant on her dummy as when I go in and give her a dummy she goes back to sleep, sometimes waking again but then settling once the dummy is in her mouth. She will then sleep often past 7am; I always wake her by 7.30am. She is kept awake for 1 hour from 10pm to 11pm each night and takes 4-6 oz then. I have not fed her in the night for 4 weeks now. Should I go cold turkey with the dummy? She does not have the dummy when she goes to sleep at 11pm.

My daughter is fed with expressed milk and formula.

She takes 4ozs expressed and 3ozs formula at 7.30am, 10.30am and 2.30pm. At 6pm she takes 4ozs expressed and 4ozs formula, at 10pm she takes 2ozs expressed and 3ozs formula.

She weighs 11lbs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2pm and 4.30-4.45pm.
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My son is 10 weeks old; he is well established on 5 feeds a day as per the CLB routine for 8 - 12 weeks. He naps well during the day in the morning, at lunch time and in the afternoon, however he will not settle when we put him in his cot at 6.30 - 7.00 pm and has not done so since he was 4 weeks old. I feel like we have tried everything! He has a bedtime routine of a bath at 5.30 and then his feed at 6.00 and then bed at around 6.30 pm and I try to keep him calm and quiet after his bath. As he is now on formula I am confident he is not settling due to hunger. After his 10.30 pm feed he sometimes cries for another 20 minutes and then sleeps through to between 6 - 7 am. In the evenings we have been leaving him to cry for about 15 - 20 minutes and then pick him up to calm him down and then put him back in his cot. As this is not working we are now not picking him up but just going in to re-assure him every 10 minutes or so. When we did pick him up he stopped crying almost immediately but then would start to cry as soon as we put him back in his cot. I am hoping that he will grow out of this but am beginning to be concerned that this will not happen and hate having what feels like a constant battle evening after evening, especially as in the days he is so good at sleeping and settling himself.

My son takes 5oz feeds at 7am, 10.30am and 6pm. He takes 6ozs at 2.30pm and 10.30pm. He weighs 11.10lbs.

He naps at 8.30-10am, 11.30-2pm and 4.15-4.45pm.
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My son is in the perfect routine; he settles himself nicely and is waking up contented before I even get into his bedroom after his day time sleeps. He goes to bed in the evening well - normally around 6.45 (so that I can get the older child settled for 7pm), but the he wakes up between 7.30 and 7.45pm crying. The only way I can settle him is by picking him up and cuddling him for about 3min. He goes back into his bed awake and settles himself back to sleep for the night. This time is the only time when I have to pick him up, any other time he requires settling I can always do it from the bed. I am just rather worried that this is going to become an issue in the future?

My son takes feeds of 210mls at 7am, 10.30am and 10.30pm. He takes 180mls at 2.30pm and 120mls at both 5 and 6.15pm. For the last three nights he has not woken at 5.30am needing a 90ml feed.

My son takes infant Gaviscon for reflux

He naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

I would like to know a little more about crying down. I have successfully used controlled crying techniques with my older son, when he was a year, but it is recommended by Dr Ferber that these are only used on babies over 5 to 6 months. I have been struggling with my 11 week old daughter for 11 weeks now! She was very colicky (I think), fretful anyway all evening and wouldn't settle until at least midnight, until very recently, when I think she was no longer in pain and probably just over-tired. I therefore decided to try your routines. Feeding wasn't a problem as I had her on a regular feeding schedule in any case. Sleeping was more of a problem. She would settle well at the times suggested but needed a dummy to settle her. She also woke 45 minutes after being settled for her lunchtime and night time sleep. When I gave her the dummy 45 minutes after waking from the night sleep she then settled well but I left the dummy with her. I am very conscious of creating sleep association problems, as had happened with my older son, and note that you suggest not letting the baby have the dummy in the cot. I therefore, removed the dummy as she was getting drowsy before she was asleep and she began to cry and continued to do so for a good 30 minutes. She did finally fall asleep, but began crying again after about 45 minutes. Please help - I don't know whether to leave her or not, and if so how long for? Am I supposed to be going in to her at regular intervals as with controlled crying, or just leave her? At present she takes 6ozs formula at 7am 12midday, 4pm 7pm and 3am. I have only been using the routines for a day or two. She naps at 8.30-9.40am, 12.15-2pm and 4-4.30pm. She settles at 8pm.
Team Response

My 10 week twin girls are sleeping after the 11pm feed through to 6/7am. They started off as easy to settle and were following the routine well. In the last week the girls are refusing to settle themselves to sleep during the day. We return from dropping my 3 year old to pre-school and they scream through their morning nap. I eventually feed them as close to 11am as possible but sometimes as early as 10.15am. I try to entertain them a little if they manage to stay awake until 11.45am, although they are sometimes tired and sleep before that. If they do sleep they wake shortly [20-30minutes] and scream through the rest of the nap. I check they are clean and dry. If I try to settle them by themselves, they scream the whole 2 hours. In the afternoon they catnap in the pumpkin seats whilst picking up their sister.

I have used the controlled crying method so far to no avail; I have separated them for all naps and sleep. I am at a loss as my daughter was a CLB baby to the last word. We moved house a week ago.

My daughters feed at 6/7am 4-6ozs, 10/11am 5-6ozs, 2.30pm 6ozs, 6pm 5-7ozs, 11pm 5-6ozs.

They weigh 12lbs and 12lbs 9ozs.

They usually nap from 11.30-12.15pm and are settled by 7pm.
Team Response

I have already been given a pretty detailed response by the Team about my daughter and her not wanting to sleep in the day. I have followed this but the advice unfortunately did not work fully, very frustrating!
Certainly the advice on wind down was of some help and she will go down now but wake up after 30 minute or sometimes 45 minutes at every nap.  For the morning nap I take her for a walk in the pram and she sleeps just fine, coming round after 30 minutes but after a couple of minutes of looking around she goes back to sleep (as long as I keep walking that is!). The lunchtime nap is a nightmare –I put her down after wind down, she wakes up after 30 minutes so I have tried a top up feed (40mls, even tried more - 70ml) either before she goes down or when she wakes up at 12.30. She basically just bawls her eyes out when she wakes up. She is not interested in my going in to sssh sssh her to calm her - she just cries even louder when I go in and I end up walking out with her in an even worse state than when I went in there. I have left her many times for up to an hour, today I left her for 30mins and she stopped crying but then started up again after 15 minutes (I went in after another 25 minutes of crying). Previously I let her sleep in the lounge as I was getting nowhere in the nursery but that does not seem to work now either (unless I am at my sisters house - she seems to like noise around her?). I have totally blacked out her room
My daughter sleeps perfectly at night - wakes up once or twice (4am or 2.30/5am). It can take me an hour to feed and get her back down though as she seems to wake right up.

At present my daughter feeds at 7.15am 100-140mls, not very hungry at this feed. 10.15am 100-140mls, hungry for this feed and not able to wait until 10.45am. 2.30pm 80-120mls, the amount varies depending how well she has slept at lunchtime as she can be sleepy. Woken at 3pm to be given more. 6.15pm 120-170mls Just dropped the split feed at 5/6pm as my daughter seemed happy to wait until after her bath for this feed. 10.30pm 120-170mls, 3am 60-100mls. She weighs 11lbs10ozs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.30pm 1-1.30pm, 4.30-5pm. She settlers by 6.40pm.
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For the last week my 10-week-old daughter will not settle at 6.30/7pm. She settles well at other naps and has been going through the night since six weeks. I wake her at 5pm for her split feed of 4ozs. I have tried to drop this but she is always hungry and demanding food at this time. Sometimes even after this she is still crying for more food. I bath her around 5.45pm and start to feed her again at 6pm. She normally falls asleep on me after this feed so I will end up putting her to bed at about 6.30pm. She will then wake at 7pm and demand more food, normally around another 4ozs then go down again to wake again at 8pm. Then I have an hour of trying to settle her until around 9pm. I have tried increasing her day feeds but she won’t take any more milk in the day. She also can't stay awake for more than an hour and a half. Why has this suddenly started happening?

My daughter feeds at 7am 7ozs, 10.45am7ozs, 2.30pm 6ozs, 5pm 4ozs, 6.15pm 4ozs, 7pm 4ozs and 10.30pm 7ozs.She weighs 12lbs.

She naps at 9-9.45am, 11.45am-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My 9 week old struggles to take a morning nap. He sometimes goes down for a lunchtime nap but can waken after an hour in which case I cannot get him back to sleep, which results in a really cranky baby from about 3.30 onwards until bed time. My husband and I are at our wits end with the constant crying all day if we can't get him to take his naps. He is an excellent baby at night. He goes down no problem at 7pm, gets woken up for the 10.30pm feed and goes back to sleep until 6.30am/6.45am in the morning. We don't understand why he sleeps so well at night, which we want, but can't settle for his naps during the day. Could it be we are over stimulating him too much in between feeds or do we possibly need to use the controlled crying method? He takes 6ozs at 7am, 10.30am, 6.15pm and 10.30pm. He takes 5ozs at 2.30pm. He weighs 12lbs 5.5 ozs. He naps from 8.50-9.20am and 12-1.15pm.
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Although my daughter feeds at the approx times stated in the book, I find sleep in the day a bit hit and miss. She is very awake in the morning and does not settle well for her morning sleep; she cat naps and does not like being in her cot in the day. Because of this she is very tired and therefore she is only lasting to approx 11-11.30 am when has a good sleep. She then wakes any time from 1pm onwards, having a knock-on effect that she sleeps again at 3 not 4pm. Due to us having a 2 year old as well, it is not possible to do 2 bath times so we have moved his back and doing it at 6.15pm. She is very unsettled in the early evening; she is not always crying but wants to be cuddled or suck on the dummy to sleep. We then put her down and she wakes up any time from straightaway to 15 minutes later, resulting in her bedtime being any where from 8pm until her next feed at 10.30pm. She does not go to sleep on her own. I have tried pick up/put down, the dummy and then removing it when she is nearly asleep. I have left her to cry twice for 1/2 an hour to try and teach her to sleep on her own once in the evening and once for her morning sleep, but was not sure how long was too long to leave her and whether it was too early at her age to do this. After her 10.30pm feed she goes straight to sleep, and I can put her down from her night feed. Sometimes she is still awake and she goes to sleep on her own. How can I make her more independent to sleep on her own so we can have more of our evenings back? I do not want the same problem I had with my two year old who had to be rocked to sleep and patted down till he was 1, it was not until we left him to cry for over an hour that he now goes to sleep with no problems. Is she too young for this yet?
At present she feeds at 7am 5-6 oz, 10-11am 5-6 oz, 1.30-2pm 5-6oz, 5pm 3oz, 6.45pm 6oz, 10.30pm 4-6 oz. 2-4am 4-6oz. She weighs over 13lbs.
My daughter naps at 9-9.30am, 11.30-1.30/2pm and 3-4/4.30pm.
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My three-month-old daughter has never followed a routine, but now I have realised that I have to establish a routine if I am to maintain any sanity and get some sleep! She feeds approximately every two hours and obviously isn't drinking enough each time to keep her going for four hours. During the night, this is becoming a serious problem as I am suffering from major sleep deprivation. I have tried the routine suggested for her age group but after the 10.30pm feed she is still getting up at 2am, 4am etc... During the day, however, she can manage three to three and a half hours between feeds. I am breastfeeding and am trying to change to formula. She only sleeps approximately two hours a day, at thirty minutes four times a day. Please help me . . . I can't go on like this!!
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