Am I expecting too much from an 8 week old

[solomonson6910]

My son will be 8 weeks old this week. For the most part, he naps for about 1.5-2 hours at a time and eats about every 3 hours (I breastfeed exclusively unless someone else is watching him in which case he gets EBM). Days are wake, feed, play for 1-1.5 hours, soothe/sleep.

The nights are more or less the same, maybe sleeping for 2-2.5 hours. Is this normal? It seems that most babies at this age sleep 4-6 hours at a time. Am I doing something wrong? He doesn't like to be swaddled or the swing, and rocking doesn't help. It typically takes 15-30 minutes during the day to soothe him to sleep in his crib, which is patting his back, white noise, and letting him suck on a pacifier. At night recently he's been going down with minimal soothing, which is great. But I wish he'd sleep longer. Am I teaching him to be dependent on me to sleep? If so, how do I wean him from needing those things? I'm not comfortable letting him CIO at this age, though I would when he's older. Or am I just asking too much?

[BeachBum]

I think you guys are doing fantastic. Really.

[KrisM]

Sounds pretty normal to me, too.

[Neatfreak]

Another vote that you're doing what you should with your baby!

[Melaine]

Definitely sounds normal.

[arivecchi]

Both of my kiddos woke every two hours at night until they were 4 months old and 5.5 months old and we were so exhausted we did sleep training at that point. Your DC sounds perfectly normal for 2 months.

[firsttimemama]

Yep, sounds normal.

[elektra]

Hang in there! My strategy was to just do what I had to do to survive the first 4 months and not worry about any "bad habits". So I just went to my kids when the cried, nursed whenever, etc. I did try to keep an eat, wake, sleep basic schedule but that was just a loose guide. And then I always nursed to sleep at night. DD liked to be completely swaddled, but DS wanted his arms out. Can you try that?
I think at 8 weeks I was still getting up 2-3 times a night to nurse. So 3 hours max for each nightime sleep stretch I think.
However, at about 14 weeks, lo and behold, DS was sleeping through the night. And at around 12 weeks I started putting him down for naps drowsy but awake and seeing if he could settle himself down, which he did. There was no crying. Maybe some slight fussing, but really no crying.
So my advice is to just give it a little time. It sounds like you are doing great.

[solomonson6910]

This is so good to hear. I had only heard of moms who were getting 4-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, which made me want to cry because I just wasn't meeting other moms like me. Thank you all so much.
And thank you to those who shared your experiences. I'd love to hear more.