bed time too early?

I have read a lot of posts where it seems like babies a month or two older are going to bed later than my 6 week old girls. I have been putting them down by 7 or 8 depending on when their last "nap" was.

Is this too early?

I am beating myself up trying to figure out how to make them sleep longer at night (wanting to eat every 2 hours). And here I am at 4:42 a.m. with one of the girls up and awake wondering if this is why.

Any thoughts?

 

It's normal for them to be hungry every 2 hrs at that age. Unfortunately! Can you take turns with DH doing feedings, or do shifts or something so that you can get some sleep? Also, how often do they eat during the day? I don't know if it would work, but you could try feeding them a little more often during the day to see if they'd go longer at night. Otherwise, time is the only solution. They'll start going longer and longer on their own before too long.

Their bedtime sounds great to me. If you can get them to sleep at that hour, it's perfectly reasonable. My babies have been going to bed around 7 for as long as we could get them to do so (started around 3 mo adjusted). Lots of moms out here have a 6/6:30 bedtime for their twins, so you aren't doing anything weird!

Good luck! I hope you get some sleep soon! Don't be afraid to recruit help from DH - it's too much for one person to do alone. :hug99:

 

QUOTE(fuchsiagroan @ Jan 16 2008, 07:22 AM) [snapback]574616[/snapback]
It's normal for them to be hungry every 2 hrs at that age. Unfortunately! Can you take turns with DH doing feedings, or do shifts or something so that you can get some sleep? Also, how often do they eat during the day? I don't know if it would work, but you could try feeding them a little more often during the day to see if they'd go longer at night. Otherwise, time is the only solution. They'll start going longer and longer on their own before too long.

Their bedtime sounds great to me. If you can get them to sleep at that hour, it's perfectly reasonable. My babies have been going to bed around 7 for as long as we could get them to do so (started around 3 mo adjusted). Lots of moms out here have a 6/6:30 bedtime for their twins, so you aren't doing anything weird!

Good luck! I hope you get some sleep soon! Don't be afraid to recruit help from DH - it's too much for one person to do alone. :hug99:


Totally agree! At 6 weeks they are going to be waking up several times a night to eat because their stomachs are so tiny. However if you start with a bedtime routine early and they actually sleep in 'their bed' it will be easier on you when they start dropping some of those night feedings.

My girls were eating every 3 hours until about 8 weeks old (8 pm, 11pm, 2am, and 5am for the 'over night feedings), and then went to every 4 hours from about 8 weeks to 4 months (overnights were 8 pm, 12 am, 4 am). This is when we started putting them to bed... after the 8 pm bottle. Then when they were a little more than 4 months old they dropped the 4 am bottle and slept thru from between 12 and 1 am until between 6 and 7 am. GL and definitely take shifts with your partner. I used to sleep from 8 pm until 2 am while DH slept from 12am to 5 am.

 

at 6 weeks my boys did not have a bedtime. Sometimes they would go to bed at 12 or sometimes at 8. I think it is great you are starting them out with that if they will do it. Now they go to bed no later than 7:30.

 

No! It's not too early. In fact you may even have to put them down an hour earlier to keep them sleeping later. I know that sounds odd. I read HSHHC when my boys were 7 weeks old and it changed my life! For infants: early to bed = better sleep = longer sleep.

 

I don't think that 7-8 is too early at all. Mine were going to bed at 6:30-7 at that age (it's 7 now so it hasn't changed much). There are a lot of parents who choose a late bedtime for their kids because they want them to get up late in the morning. Mine like to get up early and resist sleeping later so putting them to bed late is just asking for trouble. I also don't want a big fight later with kids who are used to sleeping until 8 or 9 when school starts at 7:15 here!

Ditto the PPs on them still needing to feed frequently. I think it's great to start a bedtime routine with them and continue to work on making nighttime quiet and dark and daytime busy and bright. They'll get it eventually.

 

we started putting the babies down around 7pm when they were about 8 weeks old. i realized that they had just had enough by then and were begging to go to sleep! the first few nights it took a little bit of fussing, but they quickly acclimated and now fall asleep with little, if any, effort. keeping them up later just resulted in overtired cranky babies who were very difficult to get to sleep.

we would then feed them at 11pm and they would wake again around 3-4 am, and then up for the day at 7am. they have just recently in the last week dropped the 3am feed and are sleeping about 8 hours straight (yay!).

 

I didn't know that 6 week olds really had a bed time. Our girls are still on the eat every 3 hours and sleep in between. They don't really "nap" or have a "bedtime" it's just a round the clock sleep/eat pattern still.

 

I don't think that's too early. At 6 weeks, they still woke up several times a night.

 

I got mine pretty settled with an 8 pm bedtime early on. They have now on their own adjusted it to 7.30 which is even better.

The reason why it was a bedtime even though they were young and on the 3 hour schedule is because of the routine we would do before bed. Starting at say 7 everynight we would give them their baths and then their little massage with the lotion put them in their jammies, sing softly to them, dim the lights and read them a little story with lullabies playing in the back ground. Just before 8 they would have a feed and then that theortically would be their bedtime.

We would then give them a feed at around 11 before we went to bed, a "dream feed". And then let them sleep until they woke up in the night. (they might have gone longer than 3 hours and that was fine, we didn't wake them).

Setting a bedtime routine early on really worked well for us. And has paid huge dividends now in the long run.