Night wakings

[October]

Hi,
My baby boy was premature (10 weeks early) and there is no advice that I've found to help with babies in this category who have been on various hospital schedules (and bottles) since birth. My son is in a 4-hour routine and knocks back up to 7oz per feed with the first at 7am and the last at 10.30pm. If he wakes (and he always does so far) it's between 2.30-4am and he gets a smaller feed to reduce reliance on night time feedings. However, recently he is refusing to go back down and needs to suck on a paccy.

That was another hospital issue...the nurses gave him a paccy to sleep and Tracy's solution to wean a baby off a 3am feed (my son's about 14lb) didn't work; if anything, it made matters worse.

Any help in settling him back at least into going to sleep after his 2-3am feed would be good and then we want to eliminate the feed altogther in time WITHOUT A PACCY - they prove very destructive !!

Thanks 

[texasmom]

Hi there, how old is your LO?  Could you post your routine including sleeping and feeding?

HUGS to you. 

[October]

My baby is 4 and a half months' old but his corrected age (from due date) is 10 weeks. His routine is :-

bottle 7am
Nap 8.45/9 - 45 mins
bottle 10.45am
Nap noon - 2.15pm
Bottle 2.30pm
Nap 4-4.30pm
Bath 6pm, bottle and bed by 7pm
Bottle 10.30pm
Then again when he wakes.

He is a very gassy baby and has a milk & soy protein allergy which prevented me from breastfeeding when it was diagnosed. Night wakings could have as much to do with wet diapers (he pees a lot !) as needing to suck (which he does a lot too). Paccys are not working as he wants them in constantly not just for 20 minutes. We see the doc in early April to discuss going on to rice cereal.

Any ideas ?   

[texasmom]

When my LO was that age, his night wakings were due to being overtired.  Yours takes a 45 min nap and then is up for 3 hours.  Usually if they take a short nap, they are up for a shorter amount of time.  Have you tried to extend that first nap?  If you are unable to, his activity time would probably be much shorter than average.  Here is some information that I found very helpful.  I found it on this site: 

Here is a general guideline of what you can expect regarding awake time for your lo: (remember some babies get a little more, some a little less. It's just a rough guideline)

Awake time for babies
Newborn 50-60 mins
1 month 60 mins-hour and 15
2 months 1 hour and 15 - 20 mins
3 months 1 hour and 20 - 30 mins
4 months 1 hour and 45 - 2 hours
5 months 2 hours - 2.25 hours
Late 5 months/early 6 months 2.25-2.5 hours
6.5 - 7 months 2.75-3 hours. Some are getting more.

***Remember these are guidelines, NOT rules, so if you feel that your baby is not yet ready for these A times, please do not force them, as this will cause further problems***

Also, would you like to wean him from the paci?  It sounds like it might be a prop for him.  You might check in the "Props" board on that one.  I know there is good info on how to... 

Dreamfeeds (your 10:30 feed) work for a lot of babies.  It didn't work for mine, though.  Mine would wake more with a DF.  So we let him wake for his feeding, and one night - about 4 months of age, he slept through it.  Before that, if we did a DF, he'd take the DF and then wake for another feeding, but if we just let him wake for a feeding, he only took one feeding between bedtime and morning. 

Is he on a

Do you use a bigger size diaper at night?  That helped me so that I didn't have to change the diaper which woke him up more. 

I'm guessing yours wakes at 7am in the morning.  ?

I hope something I've said helps. 

Hang in there...  it will get better. 
 

 

 

[October]

Hi,
Thanks for the input TexasMom.

I am going to extend his first nap as he seems most tired in the morning. I let him sleep on last night instead of waking him at 10.30pm and he woke at 10.45 pm !! He's a creature of habit and needs food every 4 hours. He then woke at 2.30am...not quite 4 hours as he was down by 11.45pm...Then his diaper was full so I'll try the size 3s and see if that helps. He's about 14lbs so they'll be pretty large on him.

I'm going to try to even out his naps anyway so that there isn't a long one at lunchtime only. That may help.

It's not so bad and I feel a bit of a fraud reading some of the other stories here. Poor mums (I'm English !).

Take care,
 

[texasmom]

Sounds good.  Let me know how it goes!   

[woopster]

Hi, mine were 12 weeks early and needed a lot of sleep.
I would treat him as a newborn still.  Keep activity very low key especially in the morning.  For a long time mine could only manage 30 mins in the morning and then it was back to bed for 1.5 hours.

Could he still be hungry at night time? Does he only need a dummy at night?  Maybe you are confusing his need for food with a need to suck. How much are you giving him at night?

When my 2 came home they were on a 4 hour routine.  Within days they went back down to 3 hours and stayed there for almost a year.

[October]

Hi,

My son is fine on the 4-hour routine and seems to wake with wet diapers at night mostly. I'm going to try the bigger size for night time and see if that extends his sleep. He did well last night (7.10pm till 11.30pm and then 12.30-4am when I gave him a paccy). He has strong sucking needs having been on the bottle for so much longer than a newborn and needs one that stays in his mouth ! I'm working on that too.

I'll be back if the diaper/paccy changes come to nought.

Thx.