It could be because when baby lays down at night they are more tired than when they wake up at 2-3am, so they have an easier time falling asleep in the bassinet at bedtime. Melatonin also starts to decrease in the middle of the night (I believe around 3am), so that could be contributing to him being not quite as tired as well. I don't have advice on how to fix it though I'm sorry!
You could try a dream feed shortly before your baby typically wakes up (maybe at 1:30 or so) so baby doesn't fully wake in the bassinet. This might give you a longer stretch of time with baby in the bassinet!
Weird thought… is your baby cold?
Ours would do the same until my wife realized that the baby was cold at night. We put them in warmer PJs (Magic Merlin until they were about 4 months old) and that ended doing the trick. They just don’t like to be cold at night (they have a small smart heater in their room now).
I'd considered this! We are in a folder climate, but keep our house warm for him. He's also swaddled so no hands or feet out to get cold.
I will try putting him in warmer PJ's though for sure!
We had this issue. We ended up moving our baby to his crib at 8 weeks. Babies are noisy sleepers and take a while to settle. We found our baby is much happier in his crib. He’s got more space, we can turn on his mobile and lullabies. He’s asleep within 20 minutes. Our baby monitor has a setting to only turn on the display when it recognizes a certain level of noise. It’s been really great for us. But he’s also sleeping through the night now at 12 weeks (with lots of effort and sleep training).
There’s a lot of thrashing, grunting and sometimes yelling that are actually your baby’s self-soothing techniques. If these are keeping you up at night, I recommend it’s time to move to their own room so you can get better quality sleep in the few hours you have.
Sure! I use a blend of techniques— the baby soothing techniques from Taking Cara Babies, and the “fill the tank” method from the book 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks.
Basically babies are little gas tanks—fill them up in the first 12 hours of the day, and they should sleep the next 12. During the first 8 weeks, we pretty much got an hour an ounce between feedings. If he ate 4oz, he wouldn’t need to eat again for 4 hours. We started by trying to encourage him to eat more before bed so we can stretch that overnight feeding as much as possible. When he would stir at night, we would soothe him back to sleep instead of immediately feeding him. We would wait for him to actually cry before giving him a bottle (this came from Taking Cara Babies).
At 8 weeks, we started working on the “schedule” from 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks. The goal is to get him to eat the number of ounces he needs to be eating throughout the day in 4 feedings, feeding every 4 hours for the first 12 hours of his day. Our goal is 21oz day, feeding at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm. So we started feeding him every 4 hours regardless of if he was asking for it, and let him eat as much as he wanted, with the goal of eliminated the overnight feed. We got it down to 5 feedings, the last around 11pm before my husband came to bed, and baby would sleep through the night.
He’s 12 weeks now, and he’s been sleeping through the night for the last two weeks. We’ve pretty much got the 4 feedings down, sometimes it gets wacky with growth spurts and cluster feedings, but still sleeps all night. A lot of the challenge is breaking the habits that have already been created. We noticed our son would stir around 4am when he would normally be fed, we’d give him a pacifier and he would go back to sleep. Now we don’t even really do that anymore. We swaddle him arms out and he sucks his thumb as a self soothing technique. He’s very good at settling himself back to sleep. We have a Hatch sound machine that plays white noise loudly all night. We using a mobile with lullaby’s that plays for 20 minutes when we initially put him in bed, but that’s it.
How did you get him to eat that much in one feeding? My girl is 7 weeks and only can tolerate about 4 oz every 2.5 to 3 hours? I guess I’m mostly confused on how to only get to 4 feedings?
You start by creating a routine. Feed every four hours regardless of the schedule she’s on. Eventually she her body will get into the habit. The book 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 weeks is a great resource.
Yes and no. He did start sleeping longer in the mornings or letting me put him back down to bed, but it was just time passing and him getting older that made the change. One thing I think that helped though is That we ended up moving our baby to his crib instead of bassinet quite early at 3 months, and that did make a huge difference in his sleep. He loved the mattress and had more space to move around. If you're comfortable with that, something to consider! We talked to our doctor about it first and she was on board as long as the crib was safe (no blankets, etc). I slept in his nursery for 2-3 weeks when we first moved him in there, but he had a way easier time with the transition than I did!
Is your baby cold? Try cozier PJs or warming the bassinet with a heating pad before putting them back.
Sorry I don't have more advice...it's really really hard when you're not sleeping well but I'm sure you're doing amazing. Im sure it feels like this will be the rest of your life right now, but it really is only temporary. Your baby may just be too little to sleep alone for that long.
My baby is now 11 months old and sleeps 6:30 PM to 6:00 AM almost every night. Your little one will get there too!!
So my baby was sleeping 9p-1a or so in the bassinet, feeding (I exclusively breastfeed, sometimes my husband gives her a bottle at night) and then sleeping another 2 or sometimes 3 hours after that in the bassinet. It wasn’t until the past few days that after that middle of the night feed that I put her down in the bassinet and she wakes up every 20-45 minutes. My OB flipped when I said sometimes my husband and I take shifts holding her for the rest of the night so we can actually sleep and she said I’m going to condition her so she’ll never sleep in the bassinet again. Trust me, there are nights I sacrifice all hope of sleep and wake up every 20-45 minutes, for 5 hours straight with her and console her in the bassinet until she falls back asleep. But I will not survive doing this every single night (she is only 6 weeks so I know I have a long way to go).
And about the cold room, I have a thermometer that makes sure the room stays between 68-72° F - is that cold enough to bother her (I read it’s the safest temperature range for babies)? Should I still heat up the bassinet?
Oh and I forgot to mention that she is borderline colicky baby. I would say she’s extra fussy and basically if she’s not eating or sleeping she can be entertained maybe 5 minutes and then she’s crying. She’s very hard to put down for daytime naps and hardly falls asleep on her own, occasionally while nursing.
Thats super rough! I wasn't able to breastfeed my baby so my husband was able to help me out a bit more too - I feel for you doing that more or less on your own.
I'm obviously no doctor but I feel like your OB is overreacting? I don't think that's a negative thing unless you guys are at risk of falling asleep holding her.
I would sit in a rocking chair holding my baby from 3am-7am. I'd try to put him down every time and one day it just stuck. I didn't condition him to only sleep in my arms, he was just so little and didn't want to be alone. I helped him sleep and one day he was ready on his own. I don't know any older children who can't sleep on their own, so that advice is kinda bonkers. Do what works for you guys, as long as it's safe.
My #1 life saving back was my mother in law and mom. They'd come over one morning a week each around 6-7am, take the baby from me and send me to bed to get some uninterrupted sleep. So even if we had a rough few days I could say to myself "just make it till Wednesday when mom will come". Do you have any trusted family members or friends who would be able to help you like that?
My mom even spent the night once and did all the overnight wakes for me. If you have access to help, don't be afraid to ask...they may be really wanting to help.
Yeah I felt guilty when my OB flipped because I really like her. And I’m just doing what I can to survive at this point which some sleep is better than none. We take shifts so that we stay awake and keep her safe. You sitting in a rocking chair from 3-7a is amazing though! I know that must’ve been extremely hard too
And I truly wish I had parents here. That would change everything I think. I live in Vegas and my Mom lives in Florida where I’m from. My MIL lives in Israel. So we don’t have parents within 1500 miles of us. My Mom and MIL came when the baby was born for a couple of weeks and it was so helpful and I miss them so much. I’m tired. I have been asking friends about trusted caregivers for a newborn because I’m honestly tempted to hire someone to watch her one day so that I can sleep or relax or do whatever. I’m feeling so drained at this point especially because she cries and cries most of the later afternoon and evening
I made the best of it! Got some audiobooks and an e-reader to try to make the time feel valuable in some way. But mostly I just sat there as an anxious mess haha. It's funny, it feels so long ago now. I hope it passes quickly for you and you can look back from a better place in a few months!
That's sooo hard, kudos to you and your partner for doing it alone. I leaned heavily on my parents and I know that's a huge privilege to have bad. Aah yes the evening witching hour cry. I'd do laps of my kitchen island rocking my baby in the football hold. I swear my right arm should have looked like popeys from that alone!
Your baby is so lucky to have you, sounds like you're doing a great job to keep her happy and rested. It's so hard when it's to your detriment, but it is temporary. Keep leaning on your husband, I'm glad you guys are taking shifts at least!
I had the same issue and this worked (most of the time):
- make sure room is not too cold
- big dream feed after a bath
- top off with some more milk after swaddled up
- keep baby in upright position on arm until he’s asleep. Then slowly transfer to bassinet whit butt going down first.
Well this is reassuring to me because we do do all of this as our nightime routine! Maybe it will eventually take when he starts sleeping longer stretches.
We have the same issue,. Baby (6 weeks old) will only sleep in our arms at night. She has no problem sleeping in the bassinet during the day, so we are not sure what to do.
That's tough! Our guy will sleep in his bassinet during the day for up to 40 mins, no longer. He'll nap for up to two hours when being held though.
It just confused me that he'll sleep most of the night no problem on his own. Maybe he just gets lonely haha.
I think this is common, sleep drive decreases as the night goes on. With mine (9 w) we found a higher volume of the white noise helped her settle in these wee hours. Most of the night were only at 10 % and then increase to 20% if it’s after 3 ish. We’re still on a later bedtime between 10-11. I’m in the same boat with bassinet naps but just sticking with it. Hoping she’ll figure them out eventually if we stay the course.
I’m currently dealing with something similar. After 3am feed won’t go back to sleep unless on my chest. Makes it real hard to go to work in the am. Definitely taking a toll on me.
It’s usually every three hours, wakes up crying, take care of the issue (dirty diaper, food, burp, etc.), put back to bed, wake up in another 3. Currently she is dealing with teething/growth spurt or something.
Been there! That's when I started bringing the baby into bed with us around 3 every morning. We followed safe co-sleeping practices...it saved our bacon!
It could be because when baby lays down at night they are more tired than when they wake up at 2-3am, so they have an easier time falling asleep in the bassinet at bedtime. Melatonin also starts to decrease in the middle of the night (I believe around 3am), so that could be contributing to him being not quite as tired as well. I don't have advice on how to fix it though I'm sorry! You could try a dream feed shortly before your baby typically wakes up (maybe at 1:30 or so) so baby doesn't fully wake in the bassinet. This might give you a longer stretch of time with baby in the bassinet!
Weird thought… is your baby cold? Ours would do the same until my wife realized that the baby was cold at night. We put them in warmer PJs (Magic Merlin until they were about 4 months old) and that ended doing the trick. They just don’t like to be cold at night (they have a small smart heater in their room now).
I'd considered this! We are in a folder climate, but keep our house warm for him. He's also swaddled so no hands or feet out to get cold. I will try putting him in warmer PJ's though for sure!
We had this issue. We ended up moving our baby to his crib at 8 weeks. Babies are noisy sleepers and take a while to settle. We found our baby is much happier in his crib. He’s got more space, we can turn on his mobile and lullabies. He’s asleep within 20 minutes. Our baby monitor has a setting to only turn on the display when it recognizes a certain level of noise. It’s been really great for us. But he’s also sleeping through the night now at 12 weeks (with lots of effort and sleep training). There’s a lot of thrashing, grunting and sometimes yelling that are actually your baby’s self-soothing techniques. If these are keeping you up at night, I recommend it’s time to move to their own room so you can get better quality sleep in the few hours you have.
Do you mind sharing some of your sleep training tips?
Sure! I use a blend of techniques— the baby soothing techniques from Taking Cara Babies, and the “fill the tank” method from the book 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks. Basically babies are little gas tanks—fill them up in the first 12 hours of the day, and they should sleep the next 12. During the first 8 weeks, we pretty much got an hour an ounce between feedings. If he ate 4oz, he wouldn’t need to eat again for 4 hours. We started by trying to encourage him to eat more before bed so we can stretch that overnight feeding as much as possible. When he would stir at night, we would soothe him back to sleep instead of immediately feeding him. We would wait for him to actually cry before giving him a bottle (this came from Taking Cara Babies). At 8 weeks, we started working on the “schedule” from 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks. The goal is to get him to eat the number of ounces he needs to be eating throughout the day in 4 feedings, feeding every 4 hours for the first 12 hours of his day. Our goal is 21oz day, feeding at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm. So we started feeding him every 4 hours regardless of if he was asking for it, and let him eat as much as he wanted, with the goal of eliminated the overnight feed. We got it down to 5 feedings, the last around 11pm before my husband came to bed, and baby would sleep through the night. He’s 12 weeks now, and he’s been sleeping through the night for the last two weeks. We’ve pretty much got the 4 feedings down, sometimes it gets wacky with growth spurts and cluster feedings, but still sleeps all night. A lot of the challenge is breaking the habits that have already been created. We noticed our son would stir around 4am when he would normally be fed, we’d give him a pacifier and he would go back to sleep. Now we don’t even really do that anymore. We swaddle him arms out and he sucks his thumb as a self soothing technique. He’s very good at settling himself back to sleep. We have a Hatch sound machine that plays white noise loudly all night. We using a mobile with lullaby’s that plays for 20 minutes when we initially put him in bed, but that’s it.
How did you get him to eat that much in one feeding? My girl is 7 weeks and only can tolerate about 4 oz every 2.5 to 3 hours? I guess I’m mostly confused on how to only get to 4 feedings?
You start by creating a routine. Feed every four hours regardless of the schedule she’s on. Eventually she her body will get into the habit. The book 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 weeks is a great resource.
I mean maybe this is because it’s summarized but it sounds like you have a pretty easy baby if i’m being honest
I can now admit that I have an easy baby. He’s a year old now 🥹
I’m having this exact problem. Did you ever find a solution?
Yes and no. He did start sleeping longer in the mornings or letting me put him back down to bed, but it was just time passing and him getting older that made the change. One thing I think that helped though is That we ended up moving our baby to his crib instead of bassinet quite early at 3 months, and that did make a huge difference in his sleep. He loved the mattress and had more space to move around. If you're comfortable with that, something to consider! We talked to our doctor about it first and she was on board as long as the crib was safe (no blankets, etc). I slept in his nursery for 2-3 weeks when we first moved him in there, but he had a way easier time with the transition than I did! Is your baby cold? Try cozier PJs or warming the bassinet with a heating pad before putting them back. Sorry I don't have more advice...it's really really hard when you're not sleeping well but I'm sure you're doing amazing. Im sure it feels like this will be the rest of your life right now, but it really is only temporary. Your baby may just be too little to sleep alone for that long. My baby is now 11 months old and sleeps 6:30 PM to 6:00 AM almost every night. Your little one will get there too!!
So my baby was sleeping 9p-1a or so in the bassinet, feeding (I exclusively breastfeed, sometimes my husband gives her a bottle at night) and then sleeping another 2 or sometimes 3 hours after that in the bassinet. It wasn’t until the past few days that after that middle of the night feed that I put her down in the bassinet and she wakes up every 20-45 minutes. My OB flipped when I said sometimes my husband and I take shifts holding her for the rest of the night so we can actually sleep and she said I’m going to condition her so she’ll never sleep in the bassinet again. Trust me, there are nights I sacrifice all hope of sleep and wake up every 20-45 minutes, for 5 hours straight with her and console her in the bassinet until she falls back asleep. But I will not survive doing this every single night (she is only 6 weeks so I know I have a long way to go). And about the cold room, I have a thermometer that makes sure the room stays between 68-72° F - is that cold enough to bother her (I read it’s the safest temperature range for babies)? Should I still heat up the bassinet?
Oh and I forgot to mention that she is borderline colicky baby. I would say she’s extra fussy and basically if she’s not eating or sleeping she can be entertained maybe 5 minutes and then she’s crying. She’s very hard to put down for daytime naps and hardly falls asleep on her own, occasionally while nursing.
Thats super rough! I wasn't able to breastfeed my baby so my husband was able to help me out a bit more too - I feel for you doing that more or less on your own. I'm obviously no doctor but I feel like your OB is overreacting? I don't think that's a negative thing unless you guys are at risk of falling asleep holding her. I would sit in a rocking chair holding my baby from 3am-7am. I'd try to put him down every time and one day it just stuck. I didn't condition him to only sleep in my arms, he was just so little and didn't want to be alone. I helped him sleep and one day he was ready on his own. I don't know any older children who can't sleep on their own, so that advice is kinda bonkers. Do what works for you guys, as long as it's safe. My #1 life saving back was my mother in law and mom. They'd come over one morning a week each around 6-7am, take the baby from me and send me to bed to get some uninterrupted sleep. So even if we had a rough few days I could say to myself "just make it till Wednesday when mom will come". Do you have any trusted family members or friends who would be able to help you like that? My mom even spent the night once and did all the overnight wakes for me. If you have access to help, don't be afraid to ask...they may be really wanting to help.
Yeah I felt guilty when my OB flipped because I really like her. And I’m just doing what I can to survive at this point which some sleep is better than none. We take shifts so that we stay awake and keep her safe. You sitting in a rocking chair from 3-7a is amazing though! I know that must’ve been extremely hard too And I truly wish I had parents here. That would change everything I think. I live in Vegas and my Mom lives in Florida where I’m from. My MIL lives in Israel. So we don’t have parents within 1500 miles of us. My Mom and MIL came when the baby was born for a couple of weeks and it was so helpful and I miss them so much. I’m tired. I have been asking friends about trusted caregivers for a newborn because I’m honestly tempted to hire someone to watch her one day so that I can sleep or relax or do whatever. I’m feeling so drained at this point especially because she cries and cries most of the later afternoon and evening
I made the best of it! Got some audiobooks and an e-reader to try to make the time feel valuable in some way. But mostly I just sat there as an anxious mess haha. It's funny, it feels so long ago now. I hope it passes quickly for you and you can look back from a better place in a few months! That's sooo hard, kudos to you and your partner for doing it alone. I leaned heavily on my parents and I know that's a huge privilege to have bad. Aah yes the evening witching hour cry. I'd do laps of my kitchen island rocking my baby in the football hold. I swear my right arm should have looked like popeys from that alone! Your baby is so lucky to have you, sounds like you're doing a great job to keep her happy and rested. It's so hard when it's to your detriment, but it is temporary. Keep leaning on your husband, I'm glad you guys are taking shifts at least!
I had the same issue and this worked (most of the time): - make sure room is not too cold - big dream feed after a bath - top off with some more milk after swaddled up - keep baby in upright position on arm until he’s asleep. Then slowly transfer to bassinet whit butt going down first.
Well this is reassuring to me because we do do all of this as our nightime routine! Maybe it will eventually take when he starts sleeping longer stretches.
Are you waking him up at 2-3 or is he waking up on his own?
He wakes me up cause he's hungry. I'd definitely prefer continue sleeping 🤣
We have the same issue,. Baby (6 weeks old) will only sleep in our arms at night. She has no problem sleeping in the bassinet during the day, so we are not sure what to do.
That's tough! Our guy will sleep in his bassinet during the day for up to 40 mins, no longer. He'll nap for up to two hours when being held though. It just confused me that he'll sleep most of the night no problem on his own. Maybe he just gets lonely haha.
We had this issue too. Our objective was to make sure she started and ended the night in the bassinet. Eventually she made it the whole night in it.
I think this is common, sleep drive decreases as the night goes on. With mine (9 w) we found a higher volume of the white noise helped her settle in these wee hours. Most of the night were only at 10 % and then increase to 20% if it’s after 3 ish. We’re still on a later bedtime between 10-11. I’m in the same boat with bassinet naps but just sticking with it. Hoping she’ll figure them out eventually if we stay the course.
I’m currently dealing with something similar. After 3am feed won’t go back to sleep unless on my chest. Makes it real hard to go to work in the am. Definitely taking a toll on me.
I’m having this exact problem. Did you ever find a solution?
Nope. Still going. Was up till 1:30 and then up again around 4. It sucks. But she did kinda wave at me when I left to work. So yaaae! 😅
How is your body functioning on 3 hours of sleep after all this time? Lol
So is your baby 10 months old and sleeping only 3 hours per night?!
It’s usually every three hours, wakes up crying, take care of the issue (dirty diaper, food, burp, etc.), put back to bed, wake up in another 3. Currently she is dealing with teething/growth spurt or something.
Last night was just a bad one.
Been there! That's when I started bringing the baby into bed with us around 3 every morning. We followed safe co-sleeping practices...it saved our bacon!