3.5-Month-Old with frequent night waking! Please help! :)

[Lumukanda]

My LO's general schedule is this:

A: 7:30am
S: 9:00am
E:11:30am
A: 12:00pm
S: 1:00pm
E: 3:30pm
A: 4:00pm
S: 5:00pm
A: 5:30pm
E: 7:00pm
S: 7:30pm
DF: 10:30pm

Nightwakings: usually 2am, 3am, and 5am. Sometimes she will only wake at either 2am or 3am, or sometimes it is both, but it's always at 5am too. She usually starts out squirming and groaning, but it becomes a full-on cry eventually if we don't intervene. We use shh-pat, have tried feeding her, have tried letting her fall back asleep on her own, replacing her dummy, etc. She doesn't have her own room, so sleeps in our room. She will fall back to sleep, but often her parents cannot!

We have to use shh-pat to get her to sleep, and then we often need to use it again around 30 - 45 minutes after she falls asleep for the evening to help her stay asleep. She is swaddled and takes a dummy and uses white noise. She is put to sleep very drowsy, but awake. As we are in the process of moving, there are some days where she gets significantly less daytime sleep and her EASY is "off," but the night wakings remain at the same times.

Does anyone have any ideas to help us get some sleep at night? This has been going on since birth, and with two other 3-year-olds as well, we're spent. Thank you for your thoughts!!!

[weaver]

Is she breastfed hun? How many feeds is she getting during the day? Looks like she has some long gaps there, so I wonder if she's getting enough calories.  Maybe she is waking at night to get more mik.  What do you think? Does that sounds likely?

[Lumukanda]

Hi there and thanks so much for your reply! She is bottle-fed expressed breastmilk. She eats 4 oz. per bottle. I've wondered if she is hungry, but she doesn't seem particularly hungry when we've fed her during the night. Should I try to increase her calories during the day and see if it prevents night-wakings? Thanks so much for replying.

[weaver]

Should I try to increase her calories during the day and see if it prevents night-wakings?

Yes that's exactly what I'd do.  It might not happen every day but there's a 5 hour gap between feeds in the morning, which I would try to avoid.  Keep the feeds at most 3.5 hours apart and, be warned!, there's a growth spurt around 4 mos so she will get hungrier.  Do you 'tank up' in the evenings before bed?

I want to add that with my two LOs, who were EBF, when we got to 4 hours between feeds, they also needed to snack occasionally, maybe once or twice a day, like an extra mini-feed.  So I would try to get more into her during the day and see if it helps.

One thing you might find interesting to do is to ask on the BF board about other 3.5 mos feedings etc.

HTH.