Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Sleep, blessed sleep

Aah, sleep. 8 hours of sleep in a row. Blessed, blessed sleep!

If only...I haven't had more than 5 hours of sleep in a row since Lincoln was born.

Everyone new we see or see after a while asks me, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?" And I respond, "No, of course not. You're funny!"

That makes me wonder...do most babies sleep through the night by 3 1/2 months? Is Lincoln spoiled/overly hungry/conditioned to eating in the night? He will sometimes sleep 5 hours in a row (I read somewhere that pediatricians consider sleeping 5 hours in a row "sleeping through the night" for babies), but recently that's been few and far between.

Lincoln will skip his 9 or 10 pm feeding and wake up to eat either 5 or 6 hours after his previous feeding, and then sleep another 2-4 hours, depending on his mood. But the last couple of nights, he's been up every 2-3 hours wanting to eat. I am exhausted!

So really, everyone out there who knows anything about babies or has had any experience with babies--when do most sleep through the night? Or does it just depend on each individual baby? Should I not feed Lincoln in the night, but try to get him back to sleep (i.e., let him scream it out) without eating?

This is another of my questions for the doctor in 2 weeks!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

sleep - you don't need no stinking sleep!

Sarah B said...

I haven't been reading blogs much in the last couple of weeks, so this may come after you've talked to your ped.
I was getting the same questions from people when my first was that age. What my ped told me at the time was that, at night, 4 month olds generally can go 4 hours between nursing/feeding, 5 mo = 5 hours, 6mo=6hrs, 7mo=7hrs and 8=8+hrs up to 12 hrs. He also told me to cluster feed at night, 1 at dinner, 1 just before the baby goes to sleep and 1 just before I go to sleep. That way it ups the chances that the several hour stretch happens from the time I go to bed rather than from the time the baby does.
I know the no sleep phase - I'm still in the no sleep phase, but it does get better as they get older. And makes for a much happier mommy!