First post: 4mo old pretty good on EASY-except for the hourly nightime freakouts

[Mariska_heart_Henry]

Hi! This is my first post and I really hope there's some advice out there for me!

I've got my 4 month old son on a fairly consistent EASY schedule for a couple of weeks now of 7,11,3,7,11 feedings and at least 2 naps of an hour and half each with sometimes a cat nap at 5ish. He goes down easily swaddled with a paci which he spits out when he's gone, usually in about 5 minutes. But for the past month he's been constantly waking up crying every hour and half or so throughout the night after the dreamfeed. We don't really need to do much except reswaddle, give him the paci again and put a hand on his chest for a couple of minutes to get him down again but we just have no idea what keeps freaking him out at night. We had hoped the EASY routine and teaching him how to fall asleep without being held would help but these wake-ups haven't changed. The odd night it doesn't happen, but I can't think of anything that went on during the day that would influence this, these wake-ups occur equally after days with longer or shorter naps.

We moved a month ago and he just got his own room and this definitely started around then - from 8-12 weeks he easily slept 7 hours straight. Can a new adjustment really take this long? And why has teaching him how to fall asleep on his own not translated into him also learning how to put himself back to sleep?

Also, I don't really think its food related - he's a big eater for four months and takes an 8ozer and 7pm and 11pm.

Any advice would be really, really, appreciated!

[tarakay]

My LO is just past 4 mo too, and about 2 weeks ago we started having multiple NW's like you describe, but for the past 2 nights she has slept 11-12 hrs w/o needing us to resettle her - YAHOO!  Granted, it's only been 2 nights, BUT here is what we changed:

- We took away her paci cold turkey 5 days ago.  The first two days were rough, but the last two have been great - naps have been longer, less crying to settle, etc.  We substituted the paci with a 'blankie' (appx 16"x16"), started leaving one arm out of her swaddle, and used a combination of shh-pat and PU/PD to get her to sleep (and back to sleep).  (FYI - we took the paci away because we thought this might have been why she was waking all night long.)

- We started double diapering her at night because she was usually soaked all the way through by 3:00 am.  We figured this accounted for at least some of the wake ups.  Since going to the double diaper we haven't had any soak throughs yet.  (FYI - she's too small for overnight diapers, so this was our only idea?)

- We decided in hindsight that some of her wakings could've also been attributed to food.  She'd been on a 4 hr EASY for about a week w/o any problems, but all of a sudden was VERY fussy after about 3 hrs had passed since her last meal.  We didn't immediately think growth spurt b/c she'd just gotten her 4 mo shots - so we thought that the fussiness was b/c of them.  Anyway, b/c she's BF, I started feeding her more often (if she wanted it) during the day and gave in to a night feeding for a few days until things leveled back off.  I know you said your DS is a good eater, BUT if he's having a GS and he's a big boy, then it's possible he needs even MORE food?  I'm not an advocate of solids this early, but depending on how much milk he's getting that might be your solution?

HTH - maybe something will ring true?

Tara