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SLEEP => Night Wakings => Topic started by: lcpoffen on August 16, 2005, 17:28:08 pm

Title: 3 am again... (9 weeks)
Post by: lcpoffen on August 16, 2005, 17:28:08 pm
My baby is 9 weeks old and is on the 3 hour easy schedule. We typically feed him between 10 and 10:30pm (and aim for 5:30am morning feed). He was doing really well and sleeping through the night, however for the last week he has been waking up at ~3:00am. I typically leave him for ~ 5 minutes before going to him in hopes that he will fall back to sleep, but he has been getting fussier and seems to like his sucky in order to fall back to sleep. He'll usually sleep for ~ 15 minutes (exactly the amount of time it takes for his sucky to fall out) and then he wakes up again. This goes on until 5:30 until he gets up to eat.

I know that if I fed him at 3:00 we'd all be back to sleep in ~ 30 minutes, but my pediatrician is adament that if I do this then I'll be establishing the 3:00 feed as a long term solution. He's a big proponent of schedules and 'starting as you mean to finish' so I've been doing as he suggested, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Thoughts?

Additional Facts that MAy be helpful:

- we switched to 100% formula after the sixth week (he's always been bottlefed as I had pnemonia for the first month and had to mix off my milk so that he didn't get the full hit of antibiotics)
- he sleeps in our room, but in a bassinet
- he falls to sleep by himself quite easily when first put to bed (we put him in the bassinet while he is still awake)
Title: 3 am again... (9 weeks)
Post by: Isom'smom on August 17, 2005, 03:26:36 am
I hope you like your pediatricain, but he sounds a bit ridiculous to me.  Routines are a good thing, but schedules are not necessarily a good thing.  If LO is waking up every night, going to sleep w/ paci and continuing to wake every 15 minutes thereafter, he's probably hungry.  And it's probably a growth spurt.  Every time babies have a growth spurt, their "schedule" gets thrown off.  He's used to eating so much to fill him every few hours.  When he grows and needs more calories, he can't always fit them in during the day.  He needs to eat at night until his tummy gets streched out enough to take in an extra ounce or two each feeding.  This might last a week before he's sleeping through again.  Your lucky he sleeps through at such a young age!  I'm a bit annoyed that the doctor told you that, but I didn't go to med school.....  It is important to start as you mean to go on, but babies grow so fast, and they can't always make it through the night without an extra bottle.  Isom did it about every six weeks.  He would be teething or have a cold or a growth spurt, but except for major milestones, he has always slept through since 12 weeks old.

Crystal
Title: Thanks!
Post by: lcpoffen on September 09, 2005, 17:12:55 pm
Thanks so much for your post - we've re-instated the 2:30 feed and now we are all sleeping so much better (Zach's eating a whole bottle and then going right back to bed).

I think I knew I needed to ignore his advice on this specific topic (he's usually excellent, but clearly this wasn't working), but it's nice to have someone else agree.

Thanks again!

Lori