Nearly 4 mo old wakes three times at night

[crl]

DD is almost 4 months old. She usually goes to sleep easily for the night at 6ish. She sleeps for 11-12 hours usually.

She almost always wakes up three times to eat-- once around 11, once around 2 and once around 4. The first and last time she typically eats nearly 4 ounces. The middle time usually just two ounces. She generally goes right back to sleep after eating--I put her down drowsy and sit beside her patting and singing if necessary. No luck getting her to go back to sleep without eating, I think she is hungry, though that may out of habit?

I'd really like for her to drop down to just two wakings per night, but I gather this is totally normal? I'm not up for cry it out. Any other ideas on maybe convincing her to drop one of the feedings?

Or is there a way to get that long stretch of sleep to shift to coincide with MY sleep time? Maybe I should try feeding her when I go bed (around 10 pm)?

Thanks!
Catherine

[BabyBearsMom]

DD is 16 weeks. If she wakes up at the middle of the night, before I feed her, I have DH try to give her a paci and see if she goes back to sleep. Sometimes she just wants a comfort suck and isn't really hungry. If she smells me, she insists on eating, so it has to be DH to get up and get her. I would say that 50% of the time, she will go back down with just a paci and 50% of the time she eats. Good luck!

[crl]

Thanks! DD is ff so smelling me isn't an issue. I haven't had much luck in general with a paci, but I could give it another try.

Catherine

[arivecchi]

My kids woke up more often than that until we did CIO at 4.5 and 5.5 months. They loved pacis and that did not help. Have you tried using a fan for background noise?

[crl]

She has a white noise track on repeat. That seemed to help move a 5:00am wake up to 6:00am, but hasn't helped with the night wakings.

Thanks!
Catherine

[PGTB]

I hear you! I now have a similar problem with DS, which has developed recently, two weeks ago. I've read that around 3-4 months they go through a major growth spurt that turns everything upside down and need to feed around the clock. I am pretty sure DS is having growth spurt because his sleep disruptions are accompanied by an increase of milk intake throughout the day and I am having a very hard time keeping up with producing enough milk for him, whereas before, I was able to satisfy him easily with 3 pumping sessions a day and even froze some.

He is now not yet 4 months old, but his sleeping habits completely regressed to the point of the early newborn stage. He started to eat a bit less over the last 3 days, but his sleeping hasn't adjusted to normal. He also has difficulties falling asleep during the day and his schedule is completely unpredictable. He wakes up more frequently than your DD and if this is how it's going to be for a while now until he is much older I will go completely insane.

Did you try swaddling DD? We have swaddled DS for a couple of nights last weekend and he skipped his 1-2 am waking :thumbsup:. I notice he does sleep deeper in a swaddle. I heard you can swaddle till they are 6 months old. I actually started to use it more now when DS is over 3 months old than before since he slept better before. I don't like swaddling because DS gets sweaty in it when he wakes up (even though we use a short sleeve onesie and light muslin swaddle), but DS doesn't seem to object.

[crl]

Ah, sorry this is happening to you too. DD has started waking even more frequently and taking smaller amounts of formula at a time, perhaps a sign that she doesn't really need a bottle each time she is waking? Maybe I should try harder to get her back to sleep without a bottle. It's a bit of a challenge because I really, really, really don't want her waking my seven year old, who is a horrid sleeper.

Her bedtime has also gotten less predictable, which is messing up dinner for me and ds.

I have noticed that on the rare days that she gets two looonng naps (rather than more shorter naps) she seems to sleep better at night. I'm honestly not sure what do except wait, try for the long naps, and hope things improve.

I am really tired of sleep-deprivation.

Catherine

[crl]

Oh, and swaddling. She hated it so we stopped before she was even two weeks old. I'm not sure if it makes sense to try again? She can roll over both ways and she was not happy in her bassinet on a recent trip because it was too small for her to move around. I had to walk her to sleep because she would not fall asleep in the bassinet--kept running into the side and getting upset. . . .

Do you think I should try it?

Catherine

[Katigre]

I think that's pretty normal - you could try increasing her 4 oz bottle to 5o oz and see if it buys you more time - it stinks to only get 2 hours between wakings b/c that's not enough for you to get a full sleep cycle (at least for me a sleep cycle is 3 hours so as long as the kiddo went that long between wakings I was golden).

[edurnemk]

DS woke 3 times a night for maybe 6-7 months, then dropped to 2 until maybe 10 months, and then 1 until I did some sleep training at 13 months(not CIO, we read Dr. Ferber's book and took a slower approach). He was EBF, though.

Some suggestions you may try:

Gradually reduce the amount of milk in one of the feedings, like 0.5 oz less every few days, at some point she may realize it's not worth waking up for so little. Also I learned fromt he book that if a baby wakes up not from hunger necessarilly, but just because she's programmed by habit to be fed at that time.

Pacifier

swaddling, if it's something that's worked before, she's a little old for this, but some babies like swaddling for a longer time.

[YouAreTheFocus]

I don't have much advice, since our didn't wake up that often--he went to bed ~8 and then ate at 11 (dream feed, see below), 3 or 4, and 7. This was from maybe 3-8 mos, then he dropped the 3am on his own. When he did wake up, he was hysterically hungry and we simply HAD to feed him (even if only a small amount).

I will say that I very much recommend feeding when you are going to bed. A friend of mine introduced us to this, she said it is called a dream feed. You just pick her up, plug the bottle in, she'll sleep thru the whole thing. It made a big difference in how much sleep we got.

[SnuggleBuggles]

It was my normal experience too. It'll get better soon!!!

Beth

[PGTB]

Oh, and swaddling. She hated it so we stopped before she was even two weeks old. I'm not sure if it makes sense to try again? She can roll over both ways and she was not happy in her bassinet on a recent trip because it was too small for her to move around. I had to walk her to sleep because she would not fall asleep in the bassinet--kept running into the side and getting upset. . . .

Do you think I should try it?

Catherine

Absolutely try it! you have nothing to lose, right?

I am going to swaddle DS today using this new technique (different type of swaddle) similar to miracle blanket.

I found this forum thread (http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/babies/swaddling.html#0109) on the internet and was inspired by it.

I think swaddling works with much older kids, in fact DS was extremely fussy and impossible to swaddle in his earlier weeks and now it's a bit easier, don't know why. We swaddle him for naps too when nothing else works and these are the best deep naps he ever takes now. Usually, it's when he is restless and shows signs of being very tired (rubbing his eyes, fussy and some vocal sounds particular to his lack of sleep). A bit of BM before swaddling works great too. Basically, we swaddle only if he is sleepy, makes it easier. We decided when he was younger that he hated the swaddle and quit. But now, i am very desperate and will try anything. I don't think I can go on with the baby waking up all the time during the night like some people do for over a year, I simply don't have this type of stamina. If swaddling works, I will stick to it for as long as it takes. We only swaddle his arms anyway at this point.

During this 2 week growth spurt we have been miserable, his longest sleep session would be about 3 hours followed by 1-2 hour sleep sessions. We also suspect he is starting teething, because he also shows these distinct signs, like excess saliva, eating his hands and massaging his gums with the bottle nipple and my nipple. This probably contributes to his sleep disruption. Has your DD started showing the signs of teething as well?

When we swaddled him for a couple of nights, his longest session was over 5 hours! When we stopped, he went back to waking up frequently for a quick snack, seriously, for just 5 min and going back to sleep unless he gets uncomfortable or fussy. I am pretty sure he can go without a meal easily for 6 hours, he has been doing this since he was 8 weeks old. I don't believe the growth spurt has to continue for endless weeks, it should really be a few days, it's probably him getting used to looking for comfort in the middle of the night when he stirs himself awake with his flailing arms.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I will say that I very much recommend feeding when you are going to bed. A friend of mine introduced us to this, she said it is called a dream feed. You just pick her up, plug the bottle in, she'll sleep thru the whole thing. It made a big difference in how much sleep we got.

I also did this with nursing. It was so much better to do it then rather than being woken up like 30-60 minutes after you fall asleep. Highly recommend it!

Beth

[crl]

She is definitely very drooly and she gnaws on my finger and her Sophie quite a bit so it is very possible that she is teething.

Will definitely give the dream feed a try. And will ponder swaddling.

Thanks you all!

Catherine

[crl]

Dream feed really helped last night. Thanks for suggesting it!

Catherine

[PGTB]

Dream feed really helped last night. Thanks for suggesting it!

Catherine

Awesome! Please post details, like time when you fed, etc. I want to try this too.

Actually last night I sort of did it, except it was DS who woke up at midnight and not me picking him up to feed. He goes to bed at around 10pm after his bath and his feeding. Then he woke up, something must have stirred him at around midnight, I was going to bed, so was still awake. I then gave him breast for about 2 min and we went back to bed. He slept almost 4 hours till 4am skipping his 2 am feeding, he was also swaddled.. When I fed him at 4am he was starving and went back to bed, but slept only 1.5 hours despite his full feed, diaper change and swaddle... At 6am he pretty much was fussy, didn't want to eat, turned his head away from the breast and didn't sleep afterward.

Could this be something else other than growth spurt? I think his gums bother him, but he is only 3.5 months old, it will be a while before his teeth cut, does this mean we will have to endure another 5 months of sleepless nights till his teeth come through? Is this supposed to be like this every day? He used to sleep from 10pm to 4am at least every day...

[crl]

Well, dd went to bed at about 7 pm. When I went to bed at 9:30, I went in and picked her up and fed her. She took about 3 ounces and went back to sleep after a few minutes of patting and singing. Then she didn't wake up again until 3 am. Which means I basically managed to move the usual 11pm feeding up to 9:30 without moving the 3 am feeding at all. So I got a much longer block of sleep for myself.

Hope it continues to work!

Catherine

[arivecchi]

Great news!