My son was born at 35 weeks 4 days in relatively good health. He’s now over 10 weeks old and still only sleeps 2 hours between feeds at night. I know we’re a long way off sleeping through the night and I’m not expecting anything crazy at this stage, but keep dreaming he’ll sleep just a little longer than he is now!
So for other parents of preterm babies, when did your little one/s start sleeping longer at night (e.g. 3/4/5/6 hours etc).
@sarahgren Our son was born at 37w2d and has been consistently sleeping for 4-6 hour stretches at night for a few weeks now (he’s currently 9 1/2 weeks old). We started doing a bedtime routine a few weeks in (diaper change, bottle, & story, then rocking gently & song to finish settling; white noise machine on and lights totally out), and usually get that all done by 8pm. He’ll then typically wake to feed between 1.30-3am and then be back down again until 6-7.30 or so. He doesn’t sleep loads during the day (usually a 2-hour nap in the morning, then a couple shorter naps or one longer nap around 3pm, then sometimes a final catnap around 5.30/6pm before bed), which maybe explains the good night sleeping habits? In each wake window during the day, I’ll start by giving him a change & bottle before we try to do a bit of play/tummy time, get outside (even if it’s just in the backyard), and have some face-to-face time (and a few snuggles!). Sometimes he’ll only settle through contact naps during the day (I’ll try to transfer him after 10min or so- not always successfully!), other times he’ll go through a modified nighttime routine to settle for the longer naps (bottle, song & rocking, white noise machine on and lights totally out).
@sarahgren All babies are different when it comes to sleep patterns but a few things I did : only use bassinet for bedtime, naps were in swing, bouncy chair, contact or in playpen. I also put one of my t-shirts in bassinet as she loves to contact nap I just tucked edges into sheet ( suffocation hazard ) we started nighttime routine around 3 weeks. Bath , bottle bed. She is my 4th so I have some experience but my youngest before karma rose is 13 so it's been awhile. Hope this helps Karma has slept all night 7pm - 4am since about 2 months.
@sarahgren Premature babies (born less than 37 weeks gestational age) typically take longer to sleep longer stretches and through the night. Your babies corrected age is 5 weeks and I would lean out that for sleep guidance. With that being said, my 36 week premature baby started giving us longer stretches around 4 months and they were every 4 hours at that point. I promise they do eventually give longer stretches and eventually sleep through. Hang in there!
@sarahgren Agree with the comment that all babies are different and basically most sleep patterns are normal. My first son slept 6 hour stretches by the time he was 6 weeks. My 2nd son didn’t sleep 6 hours stretches till 3 months and that only lasted a couple of weeks before he reverted back to 3-4 hours.
