3 month growth spurt? Unsure what to do!

[lizzieHarrold]

Hello

Well 12 weeks ago I gave birth to a beautiful, but pretty spirited baby boy.  We have worked hard to get him into a good routine and up till about a week ago he was going to bed and sleeping from 7.00pm till about 6.30am.  Now however he is waking earlier and earlier.   

He is on 4 hour EASY - with A time of around 1.45 although we do battle with the demon 45 minute nap monster, however, pat/shush does the trick and generally he will go back to sleep with no problems and he has started to settle himself and go back to sleep although this is  bit hit and miss.  He has two big naps and one cat nap late afternoon.

He is up at 7.00am and feeds 7, 11, 3, 7 throughout the day.  I dont have any problems getting him to sleep at all he has a relatively short wind down time of cuddle, me warbling nursery rhymes at him and then into his grobag. 

He is bottle fed, and already he is finishing 8oz bottles so we are making the move to hungry baby milk to try and keep weaning at bay a bit longer.  Although not sure if I should be giving him some baby rice already?

He is only waking once a night, but am concious of getting a handle on what to do before it gets any worse.  He isnt crying when he wakes, so am sure it isnt hunger, he is just kind of having a little fuss.  He does self-soothe and recently we have weaned him off his swaddling as it seemed he was waking himself up trying to get out of it.  Other than that we dont use a dummy or any other kind of prop.

Last nigh dh went in when he woke at 4.00am and settled him (I do all the feeding so didnt want to confuse little man by him seeing me and thinking he was getting a feed.. plus wont do dh any harm to get out of bed in the night every now and again!!).  After that he went back to sleep and woke me at 6.15, and I fed him around 6.30.

I am guessing this is all linked in with his 3 month growth spurt perhaps, but when I had my dd 4 years ago, she was an angel baby (how things have changed!) and we had no problems like this with her at all.

Any advice gratefully received!

Thanks
Liz

[anna*]

It sounds like you guys are doing amazingly well!!! Are you doing a dreamfeed? If not, you could try introducing one and that may see him right through til 7am again. It is absolutely normal for them to still need one or two night feeds at this age.

I would really try to avoid starting solids until 6 months. If he's really hungry, he needs more milk - it should really be their main source of nutrition until close to a year old! And there are way more calories in milk than in a few teaspoons of rice.

Another thing to mention is that most at this age are still feeding every 3 hours (until 4 months old), so you could consider adding another bottle in the day time but reducing the amounts a little?

[lizzieHarrold]

Thanks Anna, we did do a dream feed, but dropped it as he didnt want to take any food at that time.  Each time we tried it would wake him up and he would get upset, so we decided against it.

When I first discovered the BW about 5 years and saw Tracey's original series on Discovery she explained that there is no reason why babies shouldnt be sleeping through the night by around 12 weeks.  Is that still the current thinking?  I dont want to get into the habit of feeding him if he is not waking for food. 

If I added in another bottle I would need to reduce his feed time back to 3 hours, is that right? 

Thanks!

Liz

[* Paula *]

Hi Liz,

I agree with Anna, I would try and keep your lo off solids until as close to 6 months as possible as it is recommended that you only wean at 6 months.

Can you post what your routine looks like i.e.
E - how much
A - how long
S - how long your naps

so that we can look at it and see if your routine needs tweaking.

If your lo is able to be re-settled at night, I would not think that he is waking out of hunger.

It is not uncommon for them to wake in the early hours of the morning as they are transitioning from a deeper sleep into a lighter sleep cycle.

The waking could also be that your lo may just require a tweak to the routine, as not enough A time or too much A time can contribute to NW's.

If you post your routine, we can have a look at it.

With regards to bottle feeding, if your lo is draining 8oz every 4 hours, I would consider upping the amount in each bottle by an oz to give him the opportunity to take more if he wants it.  At around 3 months of age, my DD was on 9oz bottles and was draining them.

If you do decide to try the hungry baby milk, just wanted to warn you that it can constipate your lo as it does have extra iron in it.

[anna*]

Some of them certainly do sleep through at 12 weeks, but I still wouldn't say it is usual for that to happen! You only have to look around these boards to see how many are plagued by night wakings well past 6 months (I include myself in that). Paula's right though, if he will settle without being fed (and stay asleep), it is not hunger. I only mention the night feeds because of growth spurts: if he settles and goes back to sleep and wakes again crying soon after, it may be that he is hungry.