3 month old, Nightwaking, Can't pinpoint a cause.

[PurpleKomodo]

So I have a barely 3 month old.  He has always been a pretty good night sleeper.  We have done EASY from day 1 and it seems to have prevented many of the night sleep issues my friends are always complaining about (day for night, frequent waking, etc.).  However, I kind of thought we would be done or nearly done with night waking at this point.  Am I unrealistic? 

Here's the scoop... when he was a newborn he woke up to eat twice, once about 2:30am and once about 5am.  Seemed pretty normal to me.  By the time he was 6 weeks old, we were able to lose that early morning feeding and deal with residual habitual waking through wake to sleep.  Then he started pushing back the middle of the night feed gradually and I thought we were getting close to sleeping through the night.  He would go until about 4:00am to 4:30am on the best nights and went until 6:00 a couple of times.  Then, around Thanksgiving time (almost a month ago, but not quite) we seem to have reverted and he began waking in the dead middle of the night again.  Sometimes he would wake as early as 1:30 which he has never done.  We tried resettling for a while, but that was exhausting as we would be up for an hour to an hour and a half and then have to get up to actually feed him still at 4:30am ish.  Then we thought maybe he was just hungry and started feeding him when he woke up.  This seemed to help and he went back to his 4:30am wake for a couple of days.  Now we are back to resettling for an hour in the middle of the night and feeding in the early morning.  I have a hard time believing he is super hungry because once he is resettled, he will sleep for another 3 hours and the last couple of days has taken a very small feed in the early morning.  What could be causing all the issues?  Is there anything I can do to encourage him to sleep through or should I just wait it out?  I really thought we would be much closer to sleeping through by now so I am starting to get frustrated.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[PurpleKomodo]

Also, here are the answers to the questions:

How old is your child?
- 3 month on the dot.
What’s his/her daily routine?
- Wake: 8:30
- Eat: 8:30-8:50
- Activity: 8:50-10:00
- Sleep: 10:00-10:45
- In and out (sometimes resettles, sometimes doesn't, sometimes swing): 10:45-12:30 (Never sleep the whole time, but when and how long awake varies too much to depict)
- Eat: 12:30-12:50
- Activity: 12:50-2:00 (or earlier if he has been awake longer in the early stretch)
- Sleep: 2:00-2:30
- Same as above until 4:30
- Eat 4:30-4:50
- Activity: 4:50-6:00
- Sleep: 6:00-6:45
- Activity: (bath or other playtime) 6:45-8:00
- Eat: 8:00-8:30
- Sleep: 8:30
----- I know it looks strange but we had to start a 4 hour schedule last week because he was not hungry after only 3.5 hours and would scream at me when I tried to feed him.

What’s nap routine?
- As you can see from above, we don't get long naps.  An hour is a long nap for us.  Closer to a 40 minute average.  Sometimes can resettle, sometimes can't.

How long are naps?
- 30-45 minutes average

What's bedtime routine? Time?
- We take a bath every other day. Bath or no bath, we have some activity, change diaper, put on jammies, have a bottle and are in bed asleep by 8:30.

Do you bottle or breastfed??
- Bottle
How much? or how long?
- About 6 oz

How many wakes per night?
- Up and down from 2:30ish to 3:30ish and up to eat at 5:30 ish
What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up?
- Fusses a little but isn't normally terribly upset.  Stops crying as soon as he can see one of us.  Will usually be back asleep to stay after about an hour.

When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry?
- We don't go in until he is crying or fussing. If he is babbling, we let him try to resettle himself.

What have you tried to settle??
- We can't do shush-pat because if we even try to roll him to a side he screams. We offer a pacifier and turn on white noise (ocean sounds)

What do you do for A time and how long is it?
- We play together and he plays independently. From wake up to sleep is usually an hour and a half.

Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones?
- No
Have you introduced cereal? Why, how much, and how many times a day? (for LO’s under 6 months)
- No cereal

Do they have a prop? If so what is it?
- Pacifier

Do they have a lovie?
- Yes. Not sure how aware he is of it yet, but he has one.

[Erin M]

Hi there!
I'll start off by saying that a 3 month old waking to eat in the MOTN is totally normal.  The actual "definition" for STTN at this age is really that they're doing a 5-6 hour stretch without eating.  I'm not a bottle feeding expert, but I'm also wondering about the ounces -- I don't know the averages at this age -- though according to this: "How much formula milk does my baby need?" he would be on the low side of things and probably still need the feed. 

However, the fact that he's waking and not going back to sleep after eating makes me wonder if something else is going on.  You might need an increase in A time across the board -- which might help with your short naps.  My guess is that the most likely culprit is that he's getting OT from all of the short naps.  How is he acting when he wakes from his naps?  Is he happy enough or is he crying? 

We can't do shush-pat because if we even try to roll him to a side he screams. We offer a pacifier and turn on white noise (ocean sounds)

Keep in mind that shush-pat can be modified however you like.  My ds needed me to hold his legs and shush, the patting didn't work for him (nor did rolling him onto his side). 

If he's waking at night and looking for the pacifier that could be part of your problem as well, but it seems like he's just waking and having a hard time going back to sleep.  So I'd guess it's the routine that's causing your problems.

What do you think?