4 month-old - Night Waking - constant waking throughout night

[spannarosy]

Hi there -
My little man has never been a great sleeper, right from day one. He is currently 4 months and we are on 4 hour easy. At 3 months, he started sleeping through the night, but still woke up 2-3 times per night, needing the dummy and occasionally a rock back to sleep - maybe a feed during a really bad night or a growth spurt. We were so excited and assumed things would get better and better from that point.. However... it has gone the other way...

NOW he is waking constantly. could be 20, 30, 45 mins or 2 hours, but he will wake constantly throughout the night. Driving us nuts! We are getting hardly any sleep. This has been going on for about 2+ weeks, but doesn't show signs of stopping. I don't think he's hungry as he will go back to sleep if rocked/held - although we try to avoid it and just put the dummy in which works most of the time. He has x5 feeds per day, the last is at the 10 - 10:30pm dreamfeed. When he first started sleeping through he only woke up at the old feed times needing his dummy. Now it's at irregular times, all night long. can't work it out!

During the day he has 2 hour awake times, and usually napping 3 times a day for 1.5 hours (in 2 x 45 min chunks, needing the dummy/resettling/sometimes holding to get him through), and while it can be a hassle getting him to sleep for that time, at least I know he's not getting OT. But at night I want him to sleep more solidly! How can we all get better sleep?

Can anyone offer any advice? Has anyone else dealt with this successfully?

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi there!

Did I get it right that he is sleeping 3 naps (even if broken) of 1.5h each? I am asking because it sounds a bit too much day sleep to me.
My DS is the same age and is doing 2 full naps (1.5-2h) and a CN in the afternoon.
Could you post your day in an EASY format? Maybe something pops out then.

And if it's not routine related, do you think he just got used to you helping him back to sleep with the paci? Does he wake when it falls out?
And last idea, have you tried introducing a lovey? IMO it's a great time to do it. With DS1 I tried later on and it didn't work but now with DS2 I started like 2 weeks ago and he loves his teddy. He actually "buries" his face in it when he loses the dummy. It's a small teddy-bear so nothing can happen to him.

[spannarosy]

Hi - thanks for your reply

So we do:

7am wakeup
feed
awake time
sleep at 9 for 1.5hrs (wakes at 45m, most of time goes down again)
wakes 11
feed
awake time
sleep at 1 for 1.5hrs (wakes at 45m, most of time goes down again)
wakes at 3
feed
awake time
sleep at 5 (has been for 1.5hrs until this week, now starting to only do one 45m nap) - is this the answer?? 
awake at 6
feed about 6:30
bath
bedtime 7:30
will sleep in 45 min increments till about 10
10 dreamfeed (sometimes not very 'dreamy')

wakes at 1:30,2.30, 3, 3:30, 4:30, 6:30 - on a good night. on a bad night many more wakeups.

I have been wondering if it is a dummy issue. He didn't use to need it to fall asleep but now he cries whenever it is out and he needs to go back to sleep. It falls out naturally once he is asleep enough, but if he's not asleep enough, or he gets to a natural wake point, he needs it again. But surely if he was asleep more deeply, the dummy would not be such an issue?

We don't have a lovey. Was thinking that if we have to take the dummy off him, it would be good to get him used to this first to make things less traumatic? How do you get them to 'attach' to it?

Thanks heaps for any advice, experience

[Ima shel Alon]

Your routine seems pretty good and yes, I would keep that third nap a CN and not a full one.
It does sound like it's paci related and that he is very dependent on it to stay asleep. WRT to deep sleep, I can only tell you what I observed with DS2 now, that he will take his thumb if he can't find his finger when he tries to fall asleep and it fell, when he goes through sleep phases during naps and at night and it fell. So it is like that that he is looking constantly for something to suck. Sometimes I even see him while he is sleeping doing sucking sounds and movements with his mouth
Do you want to leave the paci or would you like to lovey to replace it? Either way I would start by introducing one. I simply put it next to him in his cot when he went for naps and at BT and he grabbed it, threw it around, sucked on it, put it on his face, lol. Now I already now to just put it in on his arm and the other arm comes and grabs it and he is happy.

When are you doing the feeds at night? Is it just the DF? Because so frequent NW can also be related to hunger. Have you tried feeding him like 3h after going to bed? And how are his feeds during the day? Is he taking full feeds and spaces his feeds?

[spannarosy]

Sigh - things not showing much improvement.

Now he does okay till about 6, then it all goes bad - no idea why!!

We get to 6pm, feed and do bath etc.
Then we try to wind down for bed, and all hell breaks loose. He won't have it. The whole last week the earliest we can get him down is 9pm, that's at LEAST an hour sitting in a darkened room while he struggles and winges and cries. Very frustrating!!

We are now only doing the catnap at 5pm - 45 mins or so. He seems to have taken to that part ok, but the rest has gone to custard. We have tried putting him down earlier and later, but he just DOESN'T want to go to bed at all!!

Any ideas why he is doing this??  sigh.... thanks

[Ima shel Alon]

IIWY I would try and stick for a 1:30h A time after he wakes up from his nap at 18:00. Try and stick with it for a few days because only if you do it for a while you can see a pattern and see if it works, yk? If you do one day 1h A time for the last A time, then the next day 1.5h A time, then the next day 2h A time, then you are going to confuse him. I would give a bit of A time and only then do the bath and BT. The last thing I would do is a feed, it really does help them calm down from the day.
I would also try and settle him in bed with Shush-pat, have you tried this method? There is some info about it here: Shush-pat - How to but you would also need to be consistent with that.
Sorry, I feel for you, I know how much work it takes and I know how hard it is when they are not sleeping.