Will 6 Wk Old Wake in Night If Hungry with a Paci?

Perfectly normal! Be happy to be getting some sleep :) I used that time in the morning to pump since I was so full. Don't wake her to eat. If you wake her you'll get into an ugly sleep pattern disaster. She'll let you know when she's hungry, trust me!! Enjoy getting the extra sleep :)

If baby is truly hungry, a paci will not suffice. My babies would both refuse the paci if they wanted the breast at night.

my daughter slept for a 5 hr stretch from a week old, i never woke her up to feed her i would let her let me know when she was hungry even with a binkie in.

Sounds like she is on the down side of a growth spurt, the sleeping stage. They eat and eat and then sleep and sleep. Takes about 3-5 days.

Typical growth spurts are 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 9 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, etc.

Babies have a sucking instinct that needs to be met. This instinct last 4 to 5 months.

You baby doesn't need to nurse every two hours at night time. Instead, you should be holding it to twice a night, nursing her every two hours during the day. You take her to the doctor and have her weighed - if she is gaining weight and has wet diapers, you are doing fine.

Letting her suck on a paci is in my view, better than letting her suck her thumb. It's easier to break the "habit" after the sucking instinct is done if you have a paci to take away, rather than breaking the habit of sucking the thumb.

I know your breast are full at night, but that's because you've been nursing so much at night. You need rest, and your baby needs to start sleeping longer at night too.

Start out nursing at 10:00, and put her down full and groggy, but STILL AWAKE. Let her fall asleep in the crib or bassinet - not on your breast. Keep her awake long enough to fill up - tickling her feet, rubbing her head with a cool wash cloth, pulling on her clothes, etc. Only give one breast so that she will empty it and get that heavier hind milk that takes longer to digest. (If you let her only half empty and give her the other breast, she'll only get the thin front milk that digests really quickly.)

When she wakes later and fusses, put the paci in her mouth. Let her suck on it, and then when she drops it half out of her mouth, take it out of the crib. Only do this for a few months - you want to get her off the paci during the night time as soon as you can.

Look, every baby wakes in the middle of the night. (A lot of us adults do too!) But the point I am trying to make is that you don't have to be the one to always put her back to sleep by putting something in her mouth. You can pat her on the back. You can wait and see if she starts screaming - if she is whimpering, she might just fall back asleep. Don't run into her so quickly, especially if it's not time to nurse her. (Remember, only twice a night! Not every 2 hours!)

Don't pick up your baby - she will not learn to self-soothe if you do. Later when she is bigger, she will not need to nurse in the middle of the night at all. And that's when you should use the Ferber method. Look it up and try it when you are ready to get a full night's sleep. I did that with my babies (I was going back to work) with the full support of my doctor. I HAD to get sleep or I would have made mistakes with people's money in my job.

Good luck,
Dawn

I would suggest waking her up until she has a good feeding before you go to bed and again make sure she is awake for a good feeding during the night. Bottle babies would drink about 4 oz of milk at a feeding at this age. All babies are different. My boys were good sleepers and would wake up maybe twice during the night. My daughter would be up ever 2 hours for feeding. Back then we would give them a very thin rice ceral mixture in their bottles to get them to sleep better at night, now they say not to give them ceral until they are 4 or 5 months old. My granddaughter started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old. She wasn't starving and she was always very healthy.

I think that while it is unusual for a 6 week old to sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch I also think that if she's hungry, a pacifier won't cut it and she'll tell you. Maybe she was topping off for the night? How is her output? Her output tells you about her input.

I didn't read all the posts so I may be repeating stuff here. I was so relieved that my 3rd baby would take a pacifier because I actually got to sleep at night. But she was also sleeping most of the day. Thanks to my fabulous doctor I learned that she was actually sleeping all day because she was too hungry to stay awake. The doctor told me to wake the baby every two hours to feed her until she was about 2 months old. She was right. My poor baby was being underfed and too tired to even cry about it. Waking her up to feed her made a world of difference.

If baby will sleep well and not wake if you do this, you could try easing the paci out of her mouth after she falls asleep.

I don't think that a paci will do that, BUT I know that people say don't wake a sleeping baby but I would wake her up to nurse her/or pump for your milk supply. Once my babies started sleeping through the night my milk supply went way down. At 6 weeks your body is still regulating. Just my 2 cents! I'm jealous your baby does this! ;)

Oh, honey! Please, get some sleep! Some babies need to suck more than others, so there's a possibility that she's been nursing just for comfort, which is totally fine when you are awake during the day, but the sooner you can get her used to sleeping when it's dark out, the better for everyone!

I remember my son was around 6 weeks as well when he began to sleep for longer periods at night. The first time he slept 5 hours, I woke up in a major panic and ran down the hall, only to find him sleeping away, content as can be. =)