Waking 4 times a night again!!!

[ginacr]

After a week with hardly any sleep, from the 14th Nov I then had 4 nights when my baby only woke once. Now from Sunday he is back waking every 2 hours in the night to feed. I can understand that last time's wakings were related to his 4 month growth spurt (was 4 months on the 6th), but why is he now waking all the time again? I'm not doing anything different than before. Every time he wakes I feed him otherwise it takes over an hour in the night to get hom back to sleep. He is over 19 lb, should I be starting him on solids? I exclusively BF him. He isn't taking as long to feed during the day now, is quite distracted by everything going on around him, but this was the same when he was waking only once in the night. He has a bit of a cough, but this doesn't seem to affect him too much. Any ideas?

[Shiv52]

There are many more calories per oz in BM than any solids so that wouldn't necessarily help him sleep longer IYSWIM?

Both mine became more more efficient eaters at 4 months. 

HOw  often is he feeding through the day?  What A time is managing?

[ginacr]

He is doing about 2 hours A time from time the time he wakes up until he falls asleep again. He is feeding between 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours during the day (there is no way he can make it to 4 at the moment). Sometimes he will only feed for 10 minutes, there is nothing I can do to make him take any more, even if I go to a quiet room with no distractions. As he has 2 older sisters (2 & 4) it's hard to get a quiet place sometimes to feed him though! 

 Sometimes he sleeps for 45 minutes, sometimes for 2 hours. Since his A time increased (last week) he has been having more 2 hours naps in the morning.

Because he is having 4 feeds during the night he doesn't seem to want to take much for the first feed in the morning before he gets up, even if it has been 3 hours since he fed. This seems to have a knock on affect to his second feed for the day, as then he can only last 2 1/2 hours usually.

I used to have to wake him up at 11 for his DF, though this week he seems to be waking up himself between 10 -10:30. Last night he woke 10:10, 12:30, 2:30, 5 & then up at 8.

He had a bad week at the start of the month, a week with waking all night (per my earlier forum messages) so this was assumed to be his growth spurt week or 4th month regression. Then last week he went back to only waking once in the night plus a DF, so I thought he had come right again. But no, on Sunday he has started to wake 4 times in the night again. I haven't changed anything during the day, so I just don't get it.

[Shiv52]

It could be he is snacking a bit.  At 4 months i wouldn't expect a BF baby to go 4 hours between feeds but he should definately be able to go at least 3 hours and really should be going 3.5 hours between feeds.    I would work on getting him to at least 3 hours between feeds in the day and work up to 3.5 hours.  I think that will help him take better feeds.  Once you are at that stage I would then start resettling in the night using ssh-pat if he wakes before 3.5 hours. 

Those early NWs (before midnight) may be OT as that is often the case. 

Can you post a rough outline of your day so we can see these naps? 

Hug hun xx  You are doing a GREAT job!  A 4 and 2 YO and BFing a new baby...you're amazing xx

[ginacr]

Yes I think you are probably right, he is snacking in the night, this week anyway. I did try and shush pat him on Wednesday night after the 3rd waking, but it took over an hour and in the end I was just so tired (5 in the morning) I let him sleep beside me as I needed to get up at 7 to get my daughter to school. The only difference that I can think of between this and last week is that he is waking at 8 rather than 7, probably because his last NW feed is at 5 rather than 3ish.

Our day this week has looked roughly like this:

Awake 8
E 8 (about 10-15 mins at the most)
A
S 10
A 12
E 12:30/45
A
S 2
A 2:50
E 3/3:15
A
S 4
A 4:45
E 5:30
A
Take him to room about 7, feed him again and then usually asleep about 7:45

This varies depending on whether he has a long sleep in the morning (2 hours) and two short sleeps in the afternoon or 1 short sleep in the morning, a long sleep in the afternoon and a short one early evening. He has started to sleep longer for naps more often after I had some advice on a previous message on the forum to increase his A time which was about 1 hour 45 to 2 hours.

Today he actually had a short sleep in the morning from 10 - 10:45 after waking at 8 and then a long sleep from 1 until 4:30! I didn't let him have a third nap as I though he wouldn't then go to sleep at 7:30. Let's see what happens tonight.

Hoping for at least only 2 wakings tonight!

[Shiv52]

How has it been going?  Have you managed to stretch those feeds in the day time? Have you seen any improvement in the NWs?

[ginacr]

After my last post he went back to only waking once a night. It is so weird that he seems to do one week of NW every 2 hours and then the next week he is back to only waking once a night. I have managed to stretch some of his feeds to 3 1/2 hours, today he fed at 5, 8:30, 12:15, 2:30 & then 6 & final fed at 7:30 before bed. He is also started to take two long naps in the day, after being a 45 minute napper most of the time. So things are looking good this week, long may it continue!

[Shiv52]

Fingers crossed x

I think they sense when we are getting to the end of our tethers and decide to cut us a break x