Repeated Waking During the Night

[sisenb]

My 4 month old son, Jack, is currently on a 4 hour EASY schedule and doing well except for repeated night wakings.  He has his last waking feed around 6:30 or 7:00PM, next a bath and then generally to sleep by 7:30PM.  We dream feed him and he easily goes back down (we were doing this between 11 and 12 but have moved it back to 10 or 10:30 the last two nights). 

Our problem is his repeated waking in the night.  He will sleep well from 7:30 until the dream feed and then again after the dream feed until 4AM.  He usually wakes (starts fussing and crying a bit) around this time and just needs to be turned over and a dummy popped in his mouth.  He then wakes again around 5AM and we repeat the same thing (turn over and dummy).  Then he either wake again at around 6 and will go back to sleep (after being turned and dummy replaced) or will sleep until 6:30 or 7:00.

As I noted above, two nights ago we pushed back his dream feed in the hopes of impacting the night waking.  We haven't seen improvement yet.

I have thought about trying the "wake to sleep" at 3AM but I am also concerned that the problem may be that we have created a "prop" with the dummy.  I have also thought about just letting him fuss and cry for a bit longer and see what happens but I am afraid he will become too stimulated and neither of us will get back to sleep.

If anyone has any advice, I would much appreciate it!

[Kimberly®]

At 4 months he may be hungry when he wakes too.
Have you tried feeding him at all?
Other then that your doing exactly what you need too, but I think he may just be hungry, maybe give the feeding a try and see if it helps.

[Windsurfer's mum]

Have you tried DF at 11pm to see if that helps? Is he warm enough? Failing that I would wait and see if he does resettle, sometimes I hear my son grumbling and he can take 10 mins to resettle!  Good luck
clare

[sisenb]

I had been doing the dream feed at 11 or 11:30 until two nights ago.  Based on what I had read on one of these chats, I tried pushing his dream feed back to 10 or 10:30 thinking I may have been interrupting his sleep cycle.  Also, he is definitely not hungry when he wakes--he is a bit fussy but readily goes back to sleep.  Also, when he does get up at 6:30 or 7:00, he is not starving and doesn't need to eat immediately.

Any thoughts on using the "wake to sleep" or should I just keep with the earlier dream feed?  Not sure which way to go!

Thanks...

[Kimberly®]

If he's not hungry then you can try leaving him be. Sometimes they grumble as they try to resetle themselves. If he's not crying then try leaving him and see if he goes back to sleep. If he starts to cry you can try pat/shush to settle him. Hopefully given time he'll learn to resettle himself.

HTH