When Doodle was in my belly, he was unusually calm at night. While you hear of most babies becoming overly active and busy when mom lies down (and this was the case with my girls), Doodle was the opposite. I barely noticed him move at all when I went to bed and sometimes I even became panicked in the middle of the night when it would take me 20 or 30 minutes to get him to move. But in the back of my head I always wondered if this tendency would persist into the outside world.
Most newborns tend to mix up night and day. They’ll sleep all day and then want to play all night, which correlates with their in-tummy activity habits. This was certainly the case for Sugarplum (and the reason I resented going to bed, see “Dreaded Sleep”) and early on Honeybun had her issues, too. But amazingly, Doodle has been a great sleeper from the start. His first night with us, at just 12 hours old, he slept 2 to 2 ½ hours between each feeding and easily went back to sleep each time.
We’ve been fortunate this trend has continued. Now getting close to the one month mark, he is still doing great at night. Most nights I feed him and put him to bed between 9 and 10 and he sleeps until I wake him at 1 or 1:30 and then he wakes me every 2-3 hours until morning. I certainly can’t complain. I’ve been getting at least 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep at the start of the night and am usually only waking to feed him 2 or 3 times each night. He is also a very quick feeder, usually 10 or 15 minutes and typically only needs a diaper change once during the night.
Here’s to hoping his good sleeping habits continue and maybe he’ll sleep through the night early like big sister Honeybun (who slept 8 hours through the night at 9 weeks!)
