Difficult starts to every day - please advise!

[ggmummy]

Hi there

I was hoping you might be able to offer me some advice / suggestions.

I have a 9 week old baby boy and for the past 3 weeks or so have been trying to get into the EASY routine. So far, it has been great for my baby. But i'm having a couple of issues which I don't know what to do about.

My baby is currently on a 3 hourly routine of EASY (apart from those days where he decides he wants to eat all day!!). Bedtime is between 6 and 7, so the bedtime feed needs to take place at around this time. However, the feed all depends on when he wakes in the morning and feeds. The problem I am having is that, despite a dream feed at 11pm, my baby can wake up to another 3 times in the night (although most often it is twice) and these times are so random. So, this morning for example, he woke hungry at 5.45am (after waking two previous times at 2am and 3.30am) and took 2 ounces of milk (formula) and went back to sleep. But then he wakes at around 7.30am for the day, but is not hungry and just gets really overtired and cranky, and then gets hungry but won't eat because he is so tired! And we are having a nightmare getting him to nap in the day, because he can't fall asleep on his own and needs us to mainly just take him out in the pram! So many of my days are spent outside walking him to sleep!!! So, then he'll finally sleep and then eat about 11am, but then this messes up the bedtime feed - not to mention that we've had quite a stressful morning!!

Anyway, any advice about these night wakings? I've tried to give him more milk when he first wakes in the night, but he is generally asleep by the time he starts eating and just dream feeds, and it is impossible to wake him. What can I do to get him to wake up in the morning hungry enough to start the day....?

Thank you so much!! I hope I have explained myself properly 

From a very tired and desperate new mummy x
 

[Erin M]

At 9 weeks, we'd expect him to only be able to go as long between feeds at night as he does during the day -- so every 3 hours would be pretty acceptable at this age (despite what we may think about that as parents).  Are you sure that you're burping him well at each night feeding?  Trapped air can cause repeated wakings from discomfort if that's the case.

With my LOs, when I was trying to get a good feed in, I'd often change their diapers or unswaddle them before the feed, just to be sure that they were a little bit awake so they would actually take the feed.