Anybody, please help! 4 mo with horrible night sleep.

[IrinaSh]

I have so many sleep issues with DS2 that I don't even know where to start. He is 4.5 mo, not teething yet (I checked), otherwise healthy.
We had a whole bunch of sleep problems in the beginning, but then I figured out that he sleeps best on his tummy with the blanked tucked in under his arms (kind of semi-swaddled). He always woke up at night to feed every 3-4 hrs, but for the last 10-14 days has been waking up every 1-2 hrs. Since I have a 16 mo toddler to handle during the day, I did a lot of APOP - nursing him to sleep at night, co-sleeping, rocking to sleep. Well, now it's out of control: he wakes up every 1-2 hrs, cries, falls asleep aftre I nurse him (I don't think he takes a full feeding, but it's not a "couple of sips and drift back to sleep" kind either). At 3 or 4 am he wakes up screaming (even if I just nursed him an hour ago) and it takes walking around the room, rocking, holding, patting, stroking etc to get him back to sleep. The whole thing usually takes up to an hour. I'm so exhausted and sleep deprived, that I can't go on anymore. He is a real angel during the day, on 4 hr EASY, taking 1.5-2 hr naps, going to bed at 6pm, taking 5-10 min to fall asleep during the day. At night this angel turns into a little red screaming monster.
Here is our routine (more or less: because of DD1 it's always give or take about 30 min):

6am-ish wake up and feed
8- nap
9-9.30 wake up and feed at about 9.45
11- nap
12.30 - wake up and feed
3 or 3.30 nap
4.30 - wake up and feed
5.30-6 another feeding and bedtime. Most of the times he wakes up in an hour after this, but goes back to sleep with some patting/binky/rocking - depending how much time I have to spend with him, sometimes I take a shortcuts and just walk around the room with him.

So our multiple sleep issues include:
-NW (Oh, and I experimented with letting him to sleep more during the day or less or feeding more and feeding less - results are about the same!)
-I'm not sure he is able to soothe himself to sleep - he needs me to kind of hold him on his side and hold the binky (otherwise he looses it and we have to start everything all over again)
- he is a tummy sleeper, I tried to teach him to sleep without the binky, but he was looking for it with his mouth (even though I left his had unswaddled and he could suck on his fingers) and ended up in the pool of his own saliva. Bad!
- I suspect he may have reflux, but I'm overseas and don't think we can find a reflux meds here.
- He is really gassy at 4 am - sometimes I;m afraid he will fly away with all this gas!

I don't know where to start and how to unravel all this mess. I feel like jumping out of the window at 4 am sometimes!
Thank you. I had some really good advise here before and it's wonderful to have a support group like this (even just to find out that there are others in the same boat!!
Sorry, it's kind of long. Part of it is just venting... It already feels better!

[*Jo*]

hello!

just looking at your routine, that first A time seems a little short, resulting in a short nap, can you extend that A time by 15mins?

[IrinaSh]

he is usually up for 2 hrs in am and is REALLY tired by the end of it. He gave me a solid 2 hr nap in am today - from 8 till 10. I could try to stretch it a bit more. I guess, if it makes him OT I'll just cut it back to 2 hrs...

Last night I tried to put him to sleep without his binky. He cried for 45 min and then fell asleep. I caved in at night and gave him his binky back, but he generally slept better: still woke up at leat 5-7 times, but at least wasn't screaming and was settling down very easily with the binky. So now I'm wondering: what did the trick: him crying pretty hard and geting tired enough to sleep better at night or binky as a prop (but I ended up giving it to him anyways)... What do you think?

[*Jo*]

hmmm not sure, i think the binky might be becoming a prop, if you have to replug it, perhaps ask on the props boards about that one?

[brenda2]

It might be the paci

when I weaned dd2 paci it took her 5 days to find her thumb and now she goes to sleep so easily with sucking her thumb

unfortunately we still have nw issues...

[IrinaSh]

Well, I had 2 really good nights (some NWs but at least no crying and no need to be picked up, but now we are back to all the crying and not being comforted even by the binky!). He can fall asleep without the binky at night by sucking on his fingers, but not in the middle of the night.
I also wonder: he has quite a bit of gas issues and when I started to put him to bed without binky he would cry quite a bit and swallow a lot of air (and then burp it later), but I'm concerned that he is also swallowing a lot of air when he is sucking on his fingers. Is it a real concern or am I making it up? 2 nights ago he almost didn't cry but was very noisy sucking on his fingers and then was waking up at night all the time with gas...

[*Jo*]

they do gulp air when crying, not sure about handsucking though, have you tried gas drops like infacol or maybe gripe water?