NW between 3 am-5 am 4 months old

[nanita]

My baby is 4 months old, and is now in a 4 hour EASY. This is how the days usually looks like:

E: 6:30
A: 7:30-8:30 (includes hanging out in momīs bed, bath, walk in garden and wind down)
S: 8:30-10:30

E: 10:30
A:11:00-12:30 (plays by himself, needs one change scenario maybe under mobile and then a swing, then wind down)
S: 12:30-2:30

E: 2:30
A:3:00-4:30 (plays with his 2 year old sister, looks outside the window, listens to classic music)
S: 4:30-5:30

A:5:30-6:00 (plays in his cot)
E: 6:00
A:6:30-7:00 (bath and pj)
S: 7:00

Wind down for naps and bed time is the same: I hold him in my arms, sing a lullaby, kiss him, put him in the bed on his side. Sometimes he needs a pacifier, sometimes no. Sometimes he needs white sound, others he goes without it. He likes putting his face into a pillow and a cloth and starts a mantra cry. I have to hold his arms for a while until he settles down. It takes from 5-10 minutes for him to fall asleep.

During naps, sometimes he wakes up earlier from his nap and with white sound and/or patting his back he settles down and off to sleep for another hour.

I stopped breastfeeding two weeks ago and he turned out to be a very happy baby. Before that he was a refluxer, taking lots of meds, sleeping 45 minutes naps, crying about everything. Now he takes 6 ounces of Nutramigen every 4 hours during the day. He doesnīt eat solids yet.

As he was a refluxer DF wasnīt working for me, but now I started doing it as soon as I stopped BF. So first he dropped the 1 or 2 am feed. But then he started waking up between 3-4 to eat. I stopped feeding him, but he keeps waking up. When he wakes up he fusses then screams. I shh pat or white sound pat and he sleeps again. Sometimes I offer the pacifier. Is easy for him to go back to sleep, but he wakes up at different hours every night between 3:00 am to 4:30 am, so I am not sure when to do wake to sleep. Then he will wake up at 5:20 every day and with a pacifier he goes to sleep in 20 minutes. I canīt wake to sleep either cause he feel asleep an hour or hour and a half ago.  These are the 2 night wakings I want to stop. I know he can go 7 hours without a feed, as in the past he ate at 6 pm and then woke up at 1 am or 2 am to eat again.

What do you think?

[Layla]

I think even though he's done longer stretches before, if he's waking up and is genuinely hungry, I would feed him. There is a big growth spurt at 4 months. Honestly, at 4 months my LO would wake anywhere from 0-2 times and it was very random too. Just because she would sleep all night (12hrs) one night, didn't mean she would do it the next .

I never did the DF and I hear that sometimes the DF can cause more night wakings than not. Would you be willing to not do the DF and see how long he sleeps naturally rather than doing the DF? He might do a longer stretch 7-3am?

[nanita]

Actually ive been doing ap as I have dropped df several times... at the beginning due to reflux and now due to several nw. However I said I was going to give it a try for at least 1 month to see if things work out. He was able to sleep from 7 to 2 am almost all the time without df sometimes less sometimes more. So I see is quite normal to expect some nw from him I thought maybe there is something I was doing wrong. So I will continue 2 more weeks and if things dont change I will drop df once and for all. I appreciate your response thabks so much

[Violet's mom]

I agree with Layla - I had the same experience - df would disturb my dd's sleep and make her wake more.  So she started sleeping 7-3am.  She still gets a feed between 4 and 5.  It's very normal for them to still need 1 or 2 night feeds at this age.  And with the adjustment from bm to formula you might want to give it some time too.  Good luck!