3 night wakings at 3.5 months... anything I can do, or just suck it up?

[thekooks]

Hello,
I recently discovered these boards and have been reading them voraciously. I've read the BW books and really like them, although I don't always follow the advice to the letter. We're on an EASY schedule in the sense that LO always eats (nurses) right after he wakes up, and I never nurse him to sleep. He's able to fall asleep on his own much of the time. We are not following the BW advice in the following ways: 1) Up until now he has needed to eat every 2 hours, and we're working on stretching him to 3 right now (in other words, we are miles away from a 4-hour EASY); 2) he sleeps in a bucket-seat cradle (the Rock n' Play), not a crib, due to a lot of spitting up and acid reflux; and 3) he still has a lot of naps of varying, unpredictable length, usually around 45 minutes (unless he's in a stroller or car, when he sleeps longer). He can usually handle being awake about 1.5 hours before he needs to sleep again. A typical day has him taking about 5 short naps (the one in the morning can be a little longer, 1 hour usually or 1.5 if I'm really lucky).

So, after a day of about 5 short naps and relatively frequent feedings, my LO settles for the night around 9pm and wakes up about 3x per night. He nurses and goes right back to sleep. He's up for the day around 6:30am.

I am well aware that consolidating his naps and stretching out his feedings will probably allow him to wake less often during the night – the trouble is, we've been trying to achieve this from the very beginning, but without success. We've also been battling with acid reflux and teething pain.

Oh, and I have tried the dream feed, but it didn't really seem to change anything.

I'm a little confused about when PU/PD can be used and if it would be appropriate for my situation. Is it ever used for a baby who is able to fall asleep on his own? Are the short naps the source of the problem, and if so, what can I do about it? Or would you advise that I just suck it up for a bit longer and see if he grows out of all of these issues on his own?

Thank you SO much to anyone who is willing to read this and offer their two cents.
(And sorry for the length.)

[Layla]

Hi and welcome... sorry your post has been missed.

He may need more A time, to consolidate some of those catnaps, even if you can get it down to 4 catnaps and an earlier bedtime. At 3.5 months, we were doing 3-4 naps, usually 1.5hr nap in the morning and the rest of the day were 2 or 3 catnaps. Babies do best on 11-12hr sleep at night so if he is waking up say 7am, his bedtime probably needs to be around 7-8pm... Does he fall asleep independently though? That may be the issue here. I didn't use pu/pd, I used shh/pat because I found mine could settle well with shh/pat. With regards to short naps, he may need a little more A to be tired enough to sleep longer. When he wakes up after 45mins, is he happy or does it look like he needs more rest? If he's being rocked to sleep in the rock n play, it may be a prop issue too. I don't know much about reflux... is he on medication at the moment?

Are you able to post what the last 3 days or so have looked like?

[thekooks]

Thanks for your response!

Yes, he is usually able to fall asleep independently, especially if he's drowsy or very calm. That's what makes this so confusing for me -- usually the problem is that they can't fall asleep on their own, so you teach them that, and then they start sleeping through the night! Or so I thought.

Re: reflux, I am starting to reach the conclusion that it never was reflux after all, and that it's just teething pain. I am giving him ibuprofen for it and I just ordered one of those amber necklaces for him, to see if it helps. The last 2 nights, I have needed to give him iburpofen in the middle of the night, which tells me the pain is pretty significant. But I also know that the teeth may not break through for another few months, so we might be in this for the long haul.

When he wakes up after 45 minutes, he is groggy for a minute or two and then quickly becomes smiley. We did have a couple of longer naps (1-1.5 hrs) over the last two days, so maybe this means that he is learning to consolidate them...

First thing tomorrow morning I will post his eating/sleeping for the last 3 days (I'm not home right now). It has been pretty irregular. And his bedtimes are waaaaaaay too late. But I can't figure out how to get him to sleep earlier. Usually if I try to settle him in a darkened room, he freaks out. We have been attributing this to teething pain, but sometimes I think that he just wants to socialize/be held.

He has been waking more and more often at night. Last night he settled at 9:15 and woke me up at 11:15, 12:30, 3:30, 5, 6, and up for the day at 7:30. Needless to say, I am feeling tired.

Thanks again for your response and I will post more tomorrow morning.

[thekooks]

Hi again,

OK, here is a pretty typical day for us:

Awake at 6:45am
E 7:30
A 6:45-8:15 (1.5h)
S 8:15-9
E 9:00
A 9-10:30 (1.5)
S 10:30-11:30
E 11:30
A 11:30-1 (1.5)
S 1-1:45
E 1:45
A 1:45-3:15 (1.5)
S 3:15-4
E 4:15
A 4-5 (1)
S 5-5:45
E 6:30
A 5:45-7:35 (almost 2)
S 7:35-7:50
E 7:50
A 7:50-9:20 (1.5)
S 9:20 (down for the night, finally)

On a day like this, you could set your watch by it: naps last exactly 45 minutes, A time is exactly 90 minutes. But that leaves us with a whopping 6 naps per day! I agree with you on stretching out A time, and I will try to do that more. I feed him every 2.5 hours but lately have been having some success stretching it out to 3 hours.

The last 2-3 days have been really all over the place because his sleep and rhythms are getting messed up by whatever it is that's making him super fussy. I'm going to call his pediatrician today because I'd like to get it figured out and treated ASAP so I can address his sleep and get him on a better schedule.

A top priority is to get him to settle for the night earlier, and of course, stop waking up so often during the night. If I could get him down to one nighttime feeding, I'd be very happy.

Thanks again for your response, I really appreciate it.