3 wk old 5 a.m.wake up

[Ilijansmum]

Hi everyone, I would really appreciate your advice on this because we're getting really desperate here. For 5 nights in a row DS has been waking up around 5am and we're not able to put him back to sleep no matter what we do. Shush-pat, pacifier, nothing works. He seems to be sleeping for 15 min.and then fussing and waking up again, even when he looks like being in deep sleep. Last night we wanted to try the wake-to-sleep, but he woke up at 3h30 for a feed, went to sleep at 4h30 and we thought he wouldn't wake up again that soon, but he did - at 5h15! Besides that he usually feeds well and is on a pretty structured EASY routine during daytime - 7.30am till 8pm and a DF, with some difficulties when it comes to afternoon naps. Thank you!

[jessmum46]

Have you tried a feed at 5am?  That's a pretty common time for such a young baby to wake and want to eat.  It could just be one of those things however....my DS was like that.  I think all babies have a fussy time and if it's not the typical evening fussiness, mornings seem to be another common hour.  Something to do with digestion/gut maturity/gassiness that seems to happen at that time!  We tried a few things such as elevating the head of the bed, Infacol etc but I can't honestly say any of them helped much other than time.  It was a lot better by around 8 weeks or so   In the mean time get yourself to bed early when you can and try to remember your LO is just so tiny right now   It's exhausting but it's normal for this age x

[ginger428]

Welcome to BW Illjjansmum and congratulations!

Echoing what Katherine said... very typical for this age and time is what it took. We did very gentle finger massages on his belly to help with the gas sometimes.  If you look it up, they show you what direction to gently rub. 7+ weeks, it got much better. My husband and I worked out a way I could feed/nurse and go back to sleep in the morning. We alternated.

[Ilijansmum]

Thank you for your advice! I started to give him a night feed and he keeps sleeping until 6h30 now I think he might be going through some kind of prolonged growth spurt b/c he started to wake very 2h at night and to eat more often during daytime as well, every 2h. He also grew by 10cm, which is according to what I read twice the average for the first month. I just hope he doesn't become a snacker!

[jessmum46]

Sounds like he's doing great