Holding steady through the peak
Still in the crying-peak zone, but with more smiles, stronger necks and slightly longer sleep stretches beginning to appear. You're closer to the downhill side than the uphill one.
Strength and senses
Head control improves visibly around now — steadier when held upright, and lifting higher in tummy time. The AAP suggests working up towards a total of 15–30 minutes of tummy time a day by about this age, in short instalments.
Your baby is tracking moving faces and objects more smoothly and may study high-contrast patterns with real concentration. Hands are starting to unclench.
Cooing conversations are getting richer for many babies — answer, pause, let them reply. They're learning the rhythm of dialogue long before words.
Crying: cresting the hill
For many babies, crying holds at its peak around weeks six to eight before easing. If your evenings are still loud, you are not behind schedule — you're in the widest part of normal.
Keep the rotation going: sling, motion, sucking, white noise, bath, fresh air. And keep the tag-team going — nobody should be sole audience to the witching hour every night.
If crying comes with feeding problems, poor weight gain, or your gut says something is wrong, get it checked. Colic is common, but 'you know your baby best' is genuinely how clinicians want you to operate.
Sleep: green shoots
Some babies now offer a first longer night stretch — perhaps four to six hours at the start of the night. If yours doesn't, that's equally normal at seven weeks; this isn't within your control, so it can't be your failing.
The room-sharing, back-sleeping, clear-cot rules continue exactly as before — increasing wriggliness doesn't change safer sleep advice.
If a longer stretch does arrive and you're breastfeeding, you might wake engorged — expressing a little for comfort keeps you comfortable without ordering a full extra feed's worth of supply.
And you
Seven weeks of broken sleep accumulates. Treat rest as logistics, not luck: shifts, a weekend nap handover, one protected lie-in each — whatever your household can engineer.
Loneliness peaks around now for many parents at home with a baby. Baby groups, breastfeeding cafés, buggy walks — the activity is a pretext; the point is other adults who get it.
Next week is vaccination week in the UK (and the 2-month well-visit in the US). Booking a calm slot — not squeezed before nap-collapse hour — makes the day gentler for everyone.
Feeding at this stage
Pick how you're feeding — we'll remember for next time. Every one of these is a good way to feed a baby.
Breastfeeding
- Post-spurt, feeding often settles this week — shorter, more businesslike feeds are a sign of skill, not waning interest.
- If a longer night stretch appears, no need to wake for feeds once weight gain is established — but express a little if you wake uncomfortable.
- Feeding in public gets easier with practice and layers; UK law explicitly protects breastfeeding anywhere, if reassurance helps.
Breast + expressed
- If baby sleeps a longer night stretch, decide deliberately whether to sleep through it too or add a pump before your own bedtime — sudden long gaps are the main cause of supply dips and blocked ducts.
- A small freezer stash buys real flexibility now — even 60–90ml a day adds up.
- Check bottle-feed pacing again as baby gets stronger and faster — gulping a bottle in five minutes usually means the flow is running the show.
Breast + formula
- Combination-fed babies may also stretch out at night — if the dropped feed was a breastfeed, a comfort express protects you from engorgement while your supply adjusts.
- A pre-bed formula feed given by a partner is a popular pattern; the evidence it makes babies sleep longer is honestly mixed, but the shared load is a benefit in itself.
- Keep any formula feeds paced and cuddly — consistency of experience matters more to your baby than consistency of milk.
Formula
- Some formula-fed babies begin a longer night stretch around now — follow their lead, no need to wake a thriving baby to feed.
- Daily total intake matters more than any single feed — a snacky day followed by a hungry day is standard baby accounting.
- Sterilising and safe preparation still apply in full — it's tedious and it matters; a routine (make, feed, rinse, restock) keeps 3am simple.
Totally normal (even when it doesn't feel it)
- Evenings that are still loud — weeks 6 to 8 are the recognised peak of normal crying; the curve bends down from here.
- A four-hour night stretch one night and hourly waking the next — consistency is not a seven-week-old skill.
- Feeds shrinking from 40 minutes to 15 — efficiency improves with practice on both sides.
- A sweaty head during feeds and sleep — babies run warm doing their hardest work; just keep the room around 16–20°C.
- Loud, dramatic straining and going red to pass a perfectly soft poo — infant dyschezia, in the trade; babies are learning to coordinate, not constipated.
- Drooling starting up — salivary glands are switching on; it isn't a teething announcement at this age.
- Preferring one parent for comfort some weeks — allegiances rotate; nobody is being voted off.
Worth checking
You know your baby best — if any of these ring true, or something just feels off, it's always OK to ask.
- Fever of 38°C (100.4°F) or above — still automatic same-day advice at this age: call your GP or NHS 111 (UK); in the US, your pediatrician.
- A baby whose head lags completely with no improvement, or who feels persistently stiff or unusually floppy — raise at the 8-week review or sooner with your GP or health visitor; in the US, your pediatrician.
- Not fixing on faces or following anything with their eyes by now — book the GP or mention to your health visitor; in the US, your pediatrician.
- Poo that is white or clay-coloured, or persistent yellow jaundice still visible — call your GP promptly; in the US, your pediatrician.
- Coughing fits that end in a whoop, vomit or a colour change — call your GP or 111 today (whooping cough circulates, and this age group is most vulnerable before vaccination); in the US, your pediatrician. If breathing pauses or lips go blue: 999 (UK) or 911 (US).
- Vomiting with a swollen or tender tummy, or blood in vomit or poo — call your GP or 111 urgently; in the US, your pediatrician or urgent care.
- You running on empty — falling asleep while holding the baby in a chair or bed is a real risk; tell someone today and re-plan the nights rather than white-knuckling.