1. my other two started to sleep through the night at 2 weeks. This baby will sleep from 8:30pm to about 2am. How can i encourage him to sleep through the night? or get him on a scedule that will help me sleep too?
2. Today from 8 am until now, he's only had three bottles and has slept all day. very unlike him. he's usually up playing. could he be getting sick or is today just an off day? Hes never quiet during the day....
He is only 8 weeks old. Most babies do not sleep thru the night this early.
If you are concerned about him sleeping all day, call your doc. Is he taking
full feedings? As far as a schedule, does not sound like it will happen now.
You just have to go with the flow!
Think routine over schedule. Sleeping thru the night at 2 weeks is actually not an ideal thing. Babies need to wake to feed to help keep their blood sugars level in the early days. 5.5 hours is great for an 8 week old. And is actually considered sleeping thru the night ;)
If you need to get some sleep make sure you are trying to get to bed around 9:30 at the latest right now. The dishes will wait and so can the laundry. Get some rest. If the other 2 are in school nap when the baby naps right now.
And he could be sleeping a bit more because he's coming up on a growth spurt time. Takes a tremendous amount of energy to grow a whole little person.
My daughter is 8 weeks old and the past few days she has been sleeping a lot more during the day too so I think it's probably a growth spurt. She just started sleeping through the night a few days ago, she goes to sleep between 9-10pm and sleeps until 5-6am but before that she was up every 3-4 hours. I thought she would never sleep through the night because, like you, I was spoiled with my first who slept through the night at 4 weeks and would sleep 11 hour stretches!
I think the reason my daughter is sleeping so much at night now is when she does cry in the middle of the night I give her her pacifier just to see if she will go back to sleep and she does right away. So yes she is still waking at night but instead of picking her up right away, I see if she will go back to sleep if I give her the pacifier, so maybe if your baby takes a pacifier you can try that? My first slept through the night so early because we had him on a routine of bath, bottle, bed every single night and it worked really great for him, but we haven't done that with this one yet because it's a lot harder for us to be consistent when we have a toddler running around. Good luck!
Babies tend to sleep around 20 hours a day the first few weeks. My son was on a bottle schedule of every 3-4 hours so that's about right.
1. I followed the flexible schedule in Baby Wise. My daughter took longer than the book said she would but she was sleeping 5-6 hour stretches by 2 months. Now, at four months, she's sleeping 10-12 hours at night.
2. You need to wake him to feed him. He should get at least 6-7 full feedings at this stage.
Hmmm, my 8 week old also has developed a case of the "sleepies". Started on Sunday evening... She did get her 2 month shots on Monday and wondered if that contributed at all-? I was going to put a call into her pedi, but she starting to get more alert/awake... Maybe it was a growth spurt kind of thing... It's nice to know your 8 week old is doing the same. :-)
As for your schedule question, I asked my pedi when we could introduce a schedule and she advised not until 4-months, at the earliest; 6 months would probably be more successful. Apparently, babies don't develop a self soothing mechanism until 4-6 months and they need that ability for a sleep schedule to work.
