Reply To: Urgent sleep help

[Emma H]

Hi Damen,

Firstly, congratulations on your beautiful boy! It sounds like you and your wife are doing an incredible job supporting him—7kg at 15 weeks is fantastic growth!

I completely understand how exhausting broken sleep can be, especially for your wife. And I am so sorry you’re both going through this at the moment.

From what you’ve shared, it sounds like your son’s overnight schedule looks like this:

• 7:00 pm – Bedtime
• 11:00 pm (ish) – Wakes for first overnight feed
• 1:00 am (ish) – Wakes for second overnight feed
• 2:00 am onwards – Wakes every hour for a feed until wake-up time, resulting in 4–5 more feeds.

Based on this, it sounds like your little one is having about 6–7 feeds overnight. Is that correct?

At this age, it’s common for babies to wake 1–2 times for a feed, so we can definitely start looking at ways to reduce the frequency of these wake-ups.

To help work towards this, I have a few questions. When you have time, could you let me know the following?

1. Can you describe his bedtime and nap routine?
2. You mentioned he falls asleep while eating—does this happen for all naps as well?
3. What time does he wake up in the morning? Is this time consistent?
4. During the day, have you been able to follow the wake, feed, play, and sleep routine?
5. How many naps is he having during the day, and where are these naps happening?
6. Where does he sleep overnight, and what is the room like (e.g., temperature, lighting, noise levels)?
7. Does he use a pacifier?
8. How long is he generally staying awake between naps?
9. When he wakes overnight, do you follow the wake, feed, sleep routine without changing his diaper unless necessary?

The answers to these questions will help me provide specific strategies to reduce the number of overnight feeds and increase the stretches of sleep you all get. But in the meantime, here are a few things that you can try:

• Set a Consistent Wake-Up Time (if you haven’t already)
  I know this can be tough, especially with frequent night wakings, but aiming for a consistent wake-up time (within a 30-minute window) will reset his circadian rhythm every day and help in it’s maturation. A mature circadian rhythm encourages wakefulness during the day and longer, more restful sleep overnight.

• Adjust the Bedtime Routine
  You mentioned that he often falls asleep while feeding, which might be contributing to his frequent night wakings. At the start of the night, deep sleep dominates, so babies can drift from one sleep cycle to the next without waking fully (meaning they tend to have a longer stretch at the start of the night). However, as the night progresses, light sleep and REM sleep dominate, especially in the early morning hours. During this time, if he’s used to falling asleep while feeding, when he wakes between sleep cycles (as we all do) he’s more likely to wake up fully and then call out for a feed to settle back to sleep.

  So if he is always falling asleep while feeding for all naps and bedtime, teaching him to fall asleep on his own can make a big difference. Once he learns this skill, he’ll be able to settle himself back to sleep during overnight wake-ups when he’s not hungry, leading to longer stretches of sleep and less feeds.

To help him learn this skill, would your wife be open to adjusting the nap and bedtime routine slightly? And by that, I mean beginning the nap and bedtime routine with a feed, but in a bright, active space with some background noise to discourage him from falling asleep during the feed.

After the feed, you could:

• Put him in his sleeping bag.
• Carry him into his room, dim the lights, and turn on a white noise machine (if you use one).
• Sing a lullaby while holding him in your arms.
• Lay him down in his sleep space and use the settling pyramid to guide him to sleep.

If you are both open to this but feel that making this change for all naps and bedtime would be too much at once, you could start with just his first nap of the day and/or bedtime. Babies often find it easier to settle for the first nap, and at bedtime, the combination of the circadian rhythm and sleep pressure working together (promoting sleep) makes it easier for them to fall asleep.

Does this sound doable?

Emma