Hi
I am asking for help as I don't really know how to help my baby. He is 19 weeks old and is on the following routine:
7am E
9am S
10am E
12pm S
1pm E
3pm S
4pm E
6pm Bath, Eat and Bed
11pm dream feed.
He is breastfed and has his dream feed from a bottle of expressed breast milk - 4oz and he eats it all. He weighs 11.5lbs. He has reflux which he has medication for, however, this was not diagnosed until he was about 9 weeks and his sleep (and ours) was disrupted before the diagnosis.
My problem is he is waking frequently in the night. He dropped his 3am feed at 12 weeks and has been going through the night quite happily until he started to roll onto his tummy. As he cant get back then we have to go in to rescue him. normally he would go back to sleep but recently he has been struggling. He goes to bed at 7pm ish with sush pat and I stay for about 15 minutes until he has jerked when he needs further sush pat for a very short time. He sometimes has a dummy, sometimes not. He can then sometimes stay asleep and even have his dream feed whilst he is asleep and sometimes he wakes frequently. Other times he wakes frequently through the early hours of the morning and last night at 4am he could just not get to sleep and kept crying and thrashing, desperate to go to sleep. I managed to get him into REM sleep however, he could not get into his deep sleep so I then fed him at 5am as I didn't know if he was hungry, this worked and he slept until 7.30am. I even tried PU/PD however I didn't really know what I was trying to achieve.
His daytime naps last approximately 30 minutes. After the morning and lunchtime nap he his happy when he wakes, however, the after the afternoon nap he is red eyed and crying. In between his naps he is happy and alert and he is very active always wanting to be on the move.
I have read in the baby whisperer book that he should be on a 4 hour routine now, which I know will help his daytime naps, however, he cries for a feed after 3 hours so I feed him. He is also very small for his age and has not gained weight as we would expect so feel that I want to feed him as much as possible. As he is feeding I do feel that he is dozing even though he is eating.
This is my dilemma....is he hungry or overtired? I have considered introducing formula, initially for his dream feed, however, don't know if this would benefit him and I am reluctant to give up the breast feeding altogether.
I don't know what to do when he cries for me at night, as he has started rolling onto his tummy I go and check on him and then disturb him, and in the book it says don't rush in to rescue, however, don't leave them to cry??!
Please help, any suggestions are welcome.
Beverley and Oliver (DS)
