6-8 night wakings sometimes only 30 min apart.... 10wo very OT

[pinkmonkeys38]

How do you get out of the OT cycle??? my 10wo ds (FF) has been waking 6-8times for the last few nights as well as being rough to get down for naps. he gets OT very fast, and never used to. how do you break the cycle? i feel he may need more A than he is getting but he practically falls asleep at the bottle when he is so tired. up until 4-5 nights ago he was still waking 2times plus df for night food, but dropped to 1 for food. last night he didn't cry for food at all, just df but was up several times again, and could not fall back asleep. i don't want to put him in his swing for every sleep, but that is what's happening just to get him to go to sleep (so mommy can too!!) is AP (such as swing) really what to do to break the OT cycle?? and how long should i keep this up? just when i think he is set to normal again, then he gets OT/OS.... just need some help so we can get some sleep in this house! i don't mind getting the night feedings back if we can sleep between them!!

[becj86]

What is his bed time, wakeup time and approximate A times?
Is he in pain? Does he have reflux?
How does he sleep during the day?
How much milk is he taking, how often?

At this age, AP is not the end of the world (or at any age, really). Almost all of us AP our babies to sleep at some point to help them recover from OT or to go to sleep in an unfamiliar place, etc.

[pinkmonkeys38]

we start bed time between 6:30-6:45 (depends on when he wakes up from cat nap... if he catnapped..) and feed him a 6oz (drinks 4-6oz depends on the night) and then bath, lotion/massage, read/rock, and bed. he nods off between 7:30-8:30pm. wake up is almost always 7:30am. right now i'm starting to extend A times to 1hr 10min. we were at 1hr because it took so long to put him down, but now it's getting better so i'm pushing A time the last few days. he does not have reflux and isn't in pain when he wakes up (which is much better now... but still not good). he just couldn't go back to sleep on his own, it normally took rocking him back to sleep. he has a hard time sleeping more than 30-45min during the day without being in the swing or in my arms. but is fairly easy to put down (now) takes about 15 min and he is normally completely out. he takes about 4oz every 3hrs and he is roughly 13#

right now he isn't waking as often, but between 3:30-5am he starts waking up ever 10-30mins.. until about 6am (my wake up time) then he sleeps till 7:30am. unless we put him in the swing (almost every night now, since i really miss sleeping...) then he sleeps just fine till 7:30am. last night we put him down as normal, he nodded off about 8:20pm (late for him lately), we did df at 11pm, and then he woke up at 3:30am (which was super nice! great for age) and i decided to try feeding to see if that helped the multiple wakings till i wake up (3oz downed), but he continued to wake up every 10 min... so i placed him in the swing around 4:45am and he slept just fine till 7:30am.

today he has gone 3hr 15min between his feedings so far. and the first one he only took 3oz and this one he just took about 4.5oz. so i guess now my question is: is 10 weeks (almost 11) too soon to move to a 3.5hr easy? might this be his problem? my awake time does not include my wind down (i know it should) because its different each time as to how long it takes to put him down. normally it takes 10-20 min. so right now his awake time is being stretched to a total of 1hr 20-1hr 30min. or should re-adding the 3am-5am (depends on when he wakes up) feeding help him not keep waking up??

[becj86]

It sounds to me like that frequent waking after the NF is discomfort - are you burping him well after that feed? I think the sleep position in the swing (head elevated) is what's helping. Feeding twice overnight (DF & NF) is pretty good at this age, so I'd keep that feed.

Is he swaddled?

Its normal for a baby of this age to have short naps as LO's sleep becomes more cyclical and LO has to learn how to get through the transition from one sleep cycle to the next. For this, you can try hold through the jolts - literally holding LO's legs/arms down between 35-45min as they transition through to the next sleep cycle so he's not waking himself with the Moro reflex.