12 week old sudden erratic wakings!

[regina1987m]

Hi everyone.

My 12 week old baby has been on a 4 hour easy schedule since 10 weeks. She started showing no interest in eating every 3 hours and started moving it up to 4. With the feedings, we have been doing pretty well (she has 6-7oz of breastmilk every 4 hours, 7oz of formula for her last feed and no night feeds). Up to today, she has rewarded my efforts with 3 nights of STTN (12 hours straight) but for the most part, she wakes up once or twice in the middle of the night for her paci (sometime between 4-7am)

About a week ago, we decided it was time to unsaddle her because she had been fighting it a lot lately and even, when waking up at night, trying to undo her swaddle or taking both arms out. We bought the Zippadee Zip to help her with the transition and the first 2 nights when great. She did not wake up at all! We were so happy except the next nights everything went awry. She has been waking up erratically since 12:30am and sometimes can fall back to sleep on her own, some other times she doesn't.

I don't know if this is a matter of early unswaddling or that there is something I am doing wrong on our routine.

Our schedule, on good days, goes as follows:

8:00AM - 1st feed: 6-7 oz of breastmilk / if she doesn't wake up I wake her 8:15max
9:00AM - 12:00PM - 1st NAP / she almost always wakes up somewhere in the middle of the nap and falls back to sleep alone or I have to place the paci back in, she goes immediately back to sleep.
12:00PM - 2nd feed: 6-7 oz of breastmilk / if she doesn't wake up I wake her 12:15max
1:20pm - 4:00pm - 2nd NAP / she wakes up at the 45 min mark, plays in her crib and asks for paci until she's asleep again
4:00pm - 3rd feed: 6-7oz of breastmilk / if she doesn't wake up I wake her 4:15max
5:30pm or 6:00 - catnap / usually last about 30-45 min max
7:35pm - bath / she is somewhat cranky, witching hour about to begin...
7:50pm - 4th feed / 7 oz of formula / WE STRUGGLE A LOT DURING THIS FEED, AS SHE IS VERY TIRED AND JUST WANTS TO SLEEP.
8:30pm - bedtime

So here are my q's:
1. Downtime spent in crib can affect her sleep at night? If so, maybe my approach for the 2nd nap is not good? Should I pick her up and let her have A before her E? I did try one time to do a EASAS cycle but didn't work, she was unable to sleep for the second part... should I keep trying?
2.  Was my lo not ready to loose the swaddle?
3. How can I help her with the witching hour?

Thanks so much!!!!!

[Katet]

Have you tried feeding her at the night wakings. 12 weeks if a huge, did I say huge, growth spurt for Babies who have breast milk where the fat/nutrient content changes lots and to do that they need to feed lots particularly at night when your body is most relaxed.

That evening formula feed is possibly confusing your body and milk production changes. As she's getting expressed milk and depending on when you express your body may not be getting the message to change the milk content.

Also she does seem to have quite short A times. Off the top of my head I can't remember the A time for 3mo but I'm thinking it's about 2 hours at 4 mo so 1 hour at 3mo seems pretty short. I think I'd also try not putting her down for her nap until 1.5 hours. Also baths are exhausting at that age so I found it was much better to do it earlier in the day and they weren't as exhausted at the bedtime feed.