3mo not sleeping through the night

[brooksieboy]

I was hoping that you all could look at my schedule to see if I'm missing something.  My lo is still waking about every 3 hours during the night.  I have been reading and it seems that maybe my lo is OT when we put him down at night.  Could this cause him to wake in the middle of the night?  Also, I'm crazy exhausted.  Can this affect my milk supply?  Maybe he's not getting enough milk?  Here's our schedule:

7am - wake and eat
8:30-sleep
10 - eat
11:30 sleep
1:00 eat
2:30 sleep
3:30 eat
5:00 sleep
5:45 ish eat
7:00 eat and bed
10:30 DF
1:30a wake (sometimes will go back down with a paci)
2:30a eat
At this point, he usually will sleep till 7am.

I think this may be a sleep problem and not an eating issue.  I'm definitely frustrated because I have a 23 mo DS that wakes at 6:30 or 7am so with the night wakings with the younger one I'm OT.  Also, it is so easy for me to get down on myself because I'm trying different things to help him sleep and I'm wearing myself out.  And then I look at my friends (I know I shouldn't compare) whose babies have been sleeping 8+ hours a night without a schedule - urrrh.  I even had an emotional breakdown last night at 3am when my lo was wide awake for 2 hours.  Any suggestions?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Well, I'm not going to be much help routine wise (been out of that stage for way too long to remember!) but I can tell you that my youngest had a DF and woke twice more in the night for feeds until she was 5.5 months (we were dong mixed feeding, so all feeds at that point were BF except the one right before bed, DH gave her formula then)  It was not a sleep issue, she was def. hungry and once she outgrew the need for it she started sleeping through. I know how hard it is not to compare, my first was one of those rare babies who started sleeping through the night very young.

[brooksieboy]

Thanks. Thats really encouraging. I guess I thought because I was trying to do everything right he would start sleeping through the night. when he does wake up at night he does seem legitimately hungry. I've been thinking that I've been doing something wrong I
and didn't occur to me that I could be doing things correctly but he still needs the extra feed.

[michaeljacknnugg]

It's so easy to beat yourself up! It may well be that he is one of those babies that needs a feed more often. I don't know how active he is but maybe he is burning more energy than the average LO? My DS was extremely active (many photos of him are a blur, even at a few weeks old) and didn't sleep through until 9 months at least.

It's been a while for us too but there are a couple of things I remember:
The dream feed didn't work for us, it just created a wake up and didn't take out a feed if you see what I mean. I ended up giving it up so I could go to bed earlier and get some rest. Instead I put in another feed in the afternoon so it went something like 7, 11, 1,, 3, 5, 7 for feeds. It didn't take out all the night feeds but I felt I could carry on with just 1 night feed for quite a while. I took down the feeds as he went on to solids more.

Hope this helps!

[yjlzelik]

I am very new at this (DD is 11 weeks) but I am experiencing a similar thing. She used to go from 11-5 almost every night. I just started EASY because her days were a mess and last night she woke up at 2:40 and 6:40. I talked to my sister (3 kids) and friend (5th is 4 weeks) and they both said that 3 months is very young to be sleeping through the night. Even one wake is unusual! They both said that until your LO starts solids you shouldn't expect a night without one or two wakings.

EASY is amazing but every baby is different! My sister also mentioned that if you are exclusively BF it is very different then formula. A baby on formula could sleep longer no problem... if you are desperate maybe try a bottle of formula for one of the night feeds? It might buy you a free more hours!

[Erin M]

My ds was the same way -- and my girls both did longer stretches from early on so I feel your frustration.  Honestly, at this point I would feed at the 1:30 waking, hope he goes right back down (rock him a little if he doesn't, that's what I did with ds) and see how long that gets you.  If you can do a df and one night feeding, you're really doing fabulously well at this age.  (((hugs)))

[brooksieboy]

Thank you everyone for the encouragement.  He has been doing much better lately, but we've started to have 30 to 45 minute naps.  I think a lot of it is because I'm visiting my parents right now so the schedule is a bit out of whack.  Also, I discovered blood in two of his diapers today so I spent most of the day finding a local ped and then at the hospital.  I think its because I've been eating too many rich foods (like chocolate cake three nights in a row!).  The doctor says he looks healthy but she still wants to test a stool sample so he currently has plastic wrap on the inside of his diaper to get enough for them to test - yuck.  This should make for an interesting night.  Lets hope that we can get things straightened out after we get back.