3.5 Month Old Restless and Wakes Often Overnight

[Bean1218]

Hello:

My 3.5 month old daughter is not a restful sleeper. Wecan't figure out what we are doing wrong. She did have reflux, but thankfully she has turned a corner and really has not had any issues for 3 weeks. She does still aspirate fluid so we have to thicken her formulas to a nectar consistency. She has 2 tsps of rice cereal per ounce of formula. She will eat anywhere from 2.5oz to 4oz per meal. The rice cereal makes the formula so heavy it is really hard to tell if she is truly eating enough. She is now on a 3.5 hour to 4 hour EASY. We normally start at 630 or 7am and then take it from there. She does not nap well during the day unless she is in her swing. She also cannot fall asleep on her own. I am afraid the countless hours of having to hold her upright from reflux may be interfering here.

What can we do to help her nap and sleep better through the night. I am still dream feeding at 11pm and she will go sometimes right through until 5 before eating again, but she wakes up almost every hour. She rubs her eyes a lot and likes to bring her feet up in the air. You can hear she is struggling with something, but we just don't know what else to do. My mother believes she could be teething.

Any help or recommendations would be welcomed.

Thanks!

[Tweakster]

Hi there, wow there's a lot going on, hugs.  My reflux bubs had to be taught to sleep, for the first 3 mths we bounced him on an exercise ball while holding him upright.  Then he also napped in his swing until he was too big for it - while we did sleep training around 16 weeks of age.  So I understand :-)

First I want to ask if she's on medication for her reflux and how you know for sure it's not bothering her?  The thickening does help, we moved to that at around 5 mths and saw a vast improvement BUT he still needed meds to control the acid.

What you describe in your second paragraph really does sound like reflux to me.

Could you also post your routine, we can take a look.  Even just past 2 or 3 days will help us.

[deb]

When we added rice to Josie's bottles to thicken them we discovered that the rice didn't agree with her tummy and ended up trying a couple different cereals. I forget what we ended up on, maybe oatmeal for her and a different one for Natalie (#2), but it might be worth investigating oatmeal or millet or barley as an alternative if you do thicken the feeds. Hard to sleep with gas pains and all.

[courtney3]

Hi, Just had a quick read of your post.

Only new to forum but sometimes early wake ups are related to being cold, between 4 and 5.30 is the coldest, just another thing to think about if nothing else has worked.