Please Help-Night wakenings...........

[melbrad]

Not sure what to do, read some of the new BW book and it siad that by now my lo should be sleeping from 11 to 5 or 6.  She's not doing this.  She woke last night at 330.  Still dealing with wakenings at 1230 but I think it is habitual.  How do I stop them?  Should I try wake to sleep.  I did not feed at 330.  I gave her a paci and she was okay until4.  Gave it again at 4 and she slept till 440.  After that it went downhill fast. She was crying non-stop so I fed her.  I then tried to lay her down and she would not go down.  I've been patting and shushing for close to an hr and I had to leave the room b/c I am so upset and crying.  I feel like I'm doing something wrong.  She's 11 weeks.  I feed every 3 hrs and give her a dream feed at 10 and it's still not working after a week.  I guess it doesn't help that I'm running on hardley any sleep.  I just thought things would be better by now and they seem worse.

[Samuel's mum]

I know the book may say otherwise but don't feel your LO has to follow the book. A recent poll on this bf board showed 61.5% of babies did not sleep for 8 hours until they were 6 months+. For some of those mums their LOs were several months beyond 6 months and it still hadn't happened.
I really think at 11 weeks she really really could be hungry in the time you describe. The fact she woke again at 4.40 suggests she really could be hungry and not waking through habit. You could try and get more calories in during the day and experiment with cluster feeding. The 12.30 waking could be a different matter. If you feel it's habitual have you tried pat/shush or pu/pd - check out the sleep boards.
My main message is - you are doing nothing wrong. Babies are all different. At this age Sam was feeding around every 3 hours pretty all night. He really seemed hungry. They've got a lot of growing to do.
Could someone else do a dreamfeed with expressed milk and let you go to bed a bit earlier?

[melbrad]

I wish!  My husband tried to put her to sleep last night, but with no success.  He helps out w/ the bath and etc.  I don't mind the DF, it's the 12:30 wake that I wish I could eliminate.  In her book she does suggest the wake to sleep method.  I may try that tonight.  Thanks!

[First Time Mom]

Not sure if this is right to do but it worked for my dd at that age. I used to df at 10 and she would wake at 1am and again at 5:30ish (which would mess up her 7am feed) so I stopped the df and she started to wake at 11pm on her own, so I would feed her then, this caused her to stop her 1am wake and feed which then bumped her 5:30ish feed back to 4am. It eliminated the one feed and caused her to be hungrier for her 7am feed. Now at 4 months I've restarted the df at 10:30, she still wakes at 4am for a feed but that's normal for her age group.