In the first few weeks, we had Benjamin sleeping in his bassinet in our room. We didn't do this with Jack, but it was something I felt that I wanted to do this time. Since Dave was working and preparing to go back to uni, he would often sleep upstairs in the spare room during this time. But, after a while, I was ready to move Benjamin into his own room next door. He was such a noisy sleeper that I wasn't sleeping that well with him being in the same room.
From pretty early on I tried to establish a routine with Benjamin. But, it was fairly obvious that he wasn't going to follow any routine I tried to introduce. I followed the feed-wake-sleep pattern and tried to do a 3-hour routine, but he had his own routine and he was sticking to it. He pretty much wanted to be fed every 2 hours during the day, which is still the case now. The only way I can stretch him to go longer is if he's awake for longer or has a longer nap - so different to what Jack was like.
When Jack was a baby he was sleeping through the night at about 11 weeks. I, of course, expected Benjamin to do the same (maybe a little sooner because I now knew what I was doing - ha, ha), but, of course, he didn't. At all. For the first couple of months he was waking up 3-4 times a night. Now he's doing about 2-3 times a night. Sometimes, if I feed him around 10-11pm, he'll only wake up the once. This has been a bit challenging for me as I just assumed that he would just sleep through because Jack did, so Benjamin should. I had always thought that it was a badge of "good parenting" if your baby was sleeping through the night and I just assumed that it was due to "bad parenting" if any baby wasn't. So, now it's time for me to eat my words. I know Benjamin will do it in his own time. God is teaching me patience.
A few times I've tried to do the "dream feed" (which worked so well with Jack), but it doesn't work at all with Ben. He'll just wake up at his usual time as if I've never fed him. Maybe I need to wake him up properly at 10-10.30pm and feed him, but often I'm so tired that I just want to go to bed early. So, I just leave him to wake up when he wants to. He does fall back to sleep really well after each feed. More often than not, he'll fall asleep during the feed and stay asleep as I put him in his bassinet.
It is hard, though, being tired all the time and choosing not to do other things because you need to have a nap or go to bed early. This does frustrate me a little. But, if I don't try to catch up on sleep, I fall apart. I do wonder how people can do this long term. I guess you just get used to being tired - I think that's probably the badge that all parents wear.
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