Many night wakings - 4 week old.

[kobe77728]

My lo is not quite 4 weeks, so of course I expect a lot of night wakings.

Just wondered if you thought I should do something deifferently thoigh.

At approx 7/7:30 she become irritable, not necessarily fed or slept long ago, but this is then when I get her changed for bed with a wash and settle down in a darkened room ad feed her while singing songs for about 5 mins. Eventually after a lot of fussing and irritability and lots of feeding she settles at 8:55! This is fairly consistent.

She then sleeps till 12 or 1 ish!

At this point I change we nappy and feed her (in the dark, no talking). After 15/20 mins she's done. I wind and put her back in crib. Then usually 10-30 mins later she wakes and fusses again. I don't usually leave her till she does a full on cry cos I worry about her waking my 2 year old!! I get her up, attempt to wind her in case that's the problem. But always end up feeding her again. So repeat as above and lay back down. Usually she is ok now.

Then we repeat this when she wakes again approx 3am. Then she usually wakes again about 6 at which time I either co sleep with her once fed (until she wakes between 7:30-8:30) or put her back in her crib, where she wakes about 7.

Then we start the day.

I am wondering if she is still hungry after the first feed in the night, so that's why he wakes again so soon? I tried last night waking her after the first winding to then feed more, but I am rubbish at waking a sleeping baby! Maybe I should feed, then change nappy, then feed some more?

I'm also not very good at trying to settle in other ways, I just always seem to feed!!

Any thoughts and advise would be appreciated!!!

Thanks,

Kristy x

[kobe77728]

Just to add - in the day she typically feeds

After 3.5 hours,

2 hours

3 hours

1.5 hours

And then it's 7pm ish

[Erin M]

At approx 7/7:30 she become irritable, not necessarily fed or slept long ago, but this is then when I get her changed for bed with a wash and settle down in a darkened room ad feed her while singing songs for about 5 mins. Eventually after a lot of fussing and irritability and lots of feeding she settles at 8:55!

This was pretty typical for us too at that age -- they get so overstimulated and  overtired at that point in the day -- some people have success with minimizing this by getting in solid daytime naps, but no matter how well my LOs napped during the day, they were always super fussy at that point in the day.  I had the best success with my dd1 and my ds by trying to get them to bed for the night before they got to that super fussy time -- eventually their BT did get later again. 

As for your nights -- at that 12/1 feeding I would try to get as much into her as possible -- so generally what I would do would be to unswaddle (sometimes even strip off some clothes) and feed one side (we BF, but if you're FF you could do as many ounces as she'll take) -- then burp and change diaper -- at this point I'd generally put the swaddle back on (and they'd be good and annoyed again with the diaper change, and messing with their clothes!) and then feed the other side (or some more ounces) -- make sure you burp really well as that can cause the unsettledness as well.  After that, wakings every 3 hours to eat would be perfectly normal at 4 weeks -- generally you just get the first long stretch and then shorter ones after that. 

[kobe77728]

Ok thank you for that. Illvdef give that a try tonight.

We actually had a very different going to bed ad night wakings.
She had hardly slept all afternoon, (I did try) and I actually managed to get her in bed just after 8! Then she woke at 1:20am. Once fed she settled fune(didn't wake after 10/30 mins). She then woke again after 2 hours at 3:30. Then after 1.5 hr at 5:15, then 1.5 hr at 6:50.
But didn't need any settling after any of those wake ups.

Still feel its a bit unnecessary for her to be fed every hour and half but I don't know!

[Erin M]

Still feel its a bit unnecessary for her to be fed every hour and half but I don't know!

I'd say she probably doesn't *need* to eat every hour and a half, but it's tough to judge anything in the early days.  I'd be on the lookout for signs of discomfort (is she gassy, uncomfortable, etc) so you try to remedy that.  Lots of babies get gassy because they don't get good burps up, sometimes there are some other feeding issues as well that can cause them to have a sore tummy (and want to eat more often to soothe it).  There are also tons of growth spurts in the first few months as well.  Will she go back to sleep if you don't feed her? 

[kobe77728]

I don't know. I've always been a wimp and taken the easy option of feeding! Also paranoid about waking my 2 year old.

Things have all been a bit different the past 24 hours so I'll just see what tonight brings

Thanks x

[Erin M]

I've always been a wimp and taken the easy option of feeding!

Me too!  At least then you know they're not hungry!

Things have all been a bit different the past 24 hours so I'll just see what tonight brings

I hope it brings some sleep for you, those first few months are tough!