Hello, My baby is 3 1/2 months old today. In general she is a very happy baby, although somewhat spirited. She is very interested in the world around her! For the past 3 weeks or so she has had an increase in night wakings and now is waking up every two hours through the night (previously, she was sleeping 4-6 hours, and even had one night of 11 hours with a dreamfeed!). She is on 3 hour EASY during the day, which we are able to follow most of the time. She naps for about an hour at at time, sometimes stretching that into 1 1/2 to 2 hours. She is awake for about an hour to an hour and a half and we usually play on the mat, take baths, go on walks, run errands, etc during awake time. Maybe once a week we are out past her bedtime and her routine gets messed up, But despite that she is really starting to get into a nighttime bedtime routine. Between 5:30-6:30 we start her routine, depending on how her naps ended up that day. Naptime includes a massage to soft music (we decided against bath at bedtime because she would scream during or afterwards everytime, maybe too overtired at the end of the day?). She loves her massage. Then we get her p.j's on and either read one or two short books or talk softly for several minutes to help wind down. Then lights out and breastfeed. Then I usually will hold her until she is staring off and set her in the crib. Eyes are still open when she goes in the crib. She typically goes down on her own the rest of the way and is asleep by 7 or so.
However, lately she has been waking up crying about 40 minutes later. I will try to pat and shush, but often will have to pick her up to calm her down. Sometimes she needs to burp or does better if I hold her prone with pressure on her tummy. Othertimes it doesn't seem to be gas related. )I don't think she has reflux, she almost never spits up, although she is often gassy). She then sometimes wakes up another 40 minutes into sleep. We go through the same routine, each time she needs a little more soothing to help get back into that calm, pre-sleep state. Then for the rest of the night, she has been waking every two hours and it seems as though breastfeeding is the only way to calm her. I tried Tracy's advice and did not rush to breastfeed, instead trying to pat and shush, calm with her pacifier. I've been waiting and trying to "listen" to her cry.For the first three days this worked well. She needed less soothing an doften would fall back asleep after one pat/shush and pacifier. But often that would onlyl hold her for another hour of sleep and she would wake again. We tried this for 10 days and finally I gave up and went back to breastfeeding because it was so easy and I was so tired! But now I am wondering how long this can go on! She is no longer feeding fully at night and falls asleep after about five minutes.
Do I need to go back to pat/shush and pacifier? DO I feed her for the last time at 11 and then not again all night? Or just try to skip one feeding and then not worry about the rest of the night? During those 10 days I was only trying to not feed about every other wake time. Maybe this was not persistant enough?
I would appreciate any help you can offer! Thank you!