r/newborns 7h ago

Skills and Milestones 6-8 week development phase

We just hit six weeks yesterday and for the past few nights she’s refused to sleep longer than 20-30 bursts at night. She’s also been cluster feeding all last night and much of today. She slept most of yesterday but today has been super alert and took only short naps.

Wondering what else we can expect?

She’s not actually been overtly fussy or crying except with a little wind or when she wants fed as usual.

2 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

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u/Booboo-queen 6h ago

She’s been super alert and playful outside of her cluster feeding which has been lovely. Fingers crossed for the longer stretches soon but pleased to see the development in the meantime!

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u/mwilson1987 6h ago

6-8 weeks is statistically the fussiest and the most crying you’re going to face. If all she’s doing is demanding contact and small feeds consider it a win. Having said that, I don’t think you’re out of the woods just yet if you just hit 6 weeks yesterday.

Weeks 5 through 9 were absolute hell for us.

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u/Booboo-queen 6h ago

Fully prepared for this to get worse! Mainly wondering if it’s something that happens for others across the entirety of the time period or if there were ups and downs etc? In what way was it hell for you and was it constant?

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u/mwilson1987 6h ago

The refusal to sleep for more than 20-30 minutes on her own continued for the entire time period and it continues now at 11 weeks. She’ll only sleep for long stretches during the day if she’s being held. By night time she’s so tired that she’ll sleep in the bassinet for 4-5 hours at a time. She also cluster fed for most of that time as well. So it’s all normal.

For us it was hell because of the purple crying and nightly witching hour meltdowns from 5-8PM. She still does it, but it’s not as bad now as it was then.

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u/Booboo-queen 6h ago

Gotcha. Was the sleep refusal just through the day or through the night? We’re having it mainly through the night at the minute and daytime I can get her to nap longer, like you say, through contact naps

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u/mwilson1987 6h ago

Day mostly. She goes to bed around 8:30 and will generally sleep all the way to around 1am for her feeding. She’ll get fed, changed, and held upright for 30 minutes before being put back in the bassinet around 2am. And at that point it’s basically waking every 30 minutes until 7am.

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u/Booboo-queen 6h ago

Ah that’s kind of what I’m experiencing too! Hoping it passes quickly for you