What has gone wrong?

[Fenella]

Ds is now 7 weeks old.  We have been on easy since he was a week old.  The day time runs like clockwork pretty much at the moment.  3 hr easy a time around 1 hour.  we had trouble with df to begin with but had started to improve.  we had also got nightwaking down to once between 3/4am.  however the other night i thought because of the trouble we had had with df we wold try without it.  Big mistake.  He went from 7pm till 1.15 am fed him 1.45 but wide awake in the end fed again at 3.15 to save getting up again and he went back off at 3.45.  till morning. so obviously last night we brought the df back at 10.45 as before and he still woke at 1.15am only partially awake and had to give dummy till 2.15 seemed to be pulling legs up but not crying so seemed windy.  then woke at 2.45 so fed him but would only take 3oz but straight back to sleep till 5.45 this am.  He has been cutting back on feeds he was taking around 32/35 oz per 24hrs and yesterday went down to 29.  can't be hunger waking as at 2.45 would only take 3oz.  At df had only taken 3oz also. What do you think is going on?    Do you think by giving the dummy and leaving him in his cot he will have better night tonight?  Just feel now that we have made no progress since birth with night wakings.  before he moved to 3/4am he was consitantly waking 3 hrs after df. so at least 2am now worse than ever. last 2 days had 6hrs naps though 2hrs of this made up of 20 min jolt sleep cycles.  Do you think that is too much it's just that after an hour he settles so well for a nap if i wait till 1 1/4 hrs before wind down doesn't settle so well.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Are you BFing or bottle feeding? If BF, are you making sure to not eat gassy foods?

[Fenella]

i am bottle feeding.  if i feed him at 1.15 he will wake around 3-3 1/2 hrs later making 2 night feeds.  I don't like feeding him at this time as it is earlier than it has been for weeks.  from around 3 weeks he would sleep till 2/3 am and last week was more like 3/4am so to go back to 1.15 is a killer and then for him to show no interest in the feed either really confuses me.  i think maybe i need to be more consitent.  we were cluster feeding which had the effect of a longer stretch after a night feed so stopped that and gave much bigger feed at bedtime then the other night we tried dropping the df to see what would happen and that is where it seems to have gone backwards from.  Do you think more consistency here could be helpful.    I just have been trying different approaches to see what works best for him.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Absolutely, consistency is key with any LO. There's nothing wrong at all with trying different things to see what works, in fact I recommend it! However you do need to know when enough's enough and whatever you're trying isn't working. Sounds like you were all better off with tactic #1?