Lots of night wakings getting worse.

[Phoenix Blue]

Hi. I'm new to this website and have been reading lots of the FAQ and other posts but I'm wondering if anyone can offer any advice on our situation.

My son is 3 and a half months old (almost 16 weeks) and the for first 10 weeks, he was a beautiful night sleeper. From about 6 weeks onwards he'd only wake once a night for a big feed, and go straight back down again. He then started lengthening this to 10 hours at 10 weeks. We were in heaven!

Then it changed suddenly. He started waking a couple of times for feeds again just after his shots which was fine. I expected him to be unsettled. The he started waking more to be resettled. And it has gradually gotten worse and worse to now where he is basically waking every hour. My partner and I are taking it in turns to resettle or feed and usually by about 4am when we are both completely shattered, we bring him into our bed to feed/sleep the last couple of hours.

At about 8 weeks I started on a feed/play/sleep routine and got him napping pretty well during the day. About half the time I would have to resettle at the 45min mark, but other times he'd resettle himself and sleep for 2 hours. This is the approx routine that worked for us for a while...

E 0630 (I am breastfeeding)
A 0645
S 0800
E 1000
A 1015
S 1130
E 1330
A 1345
S 1500
E 1700
A 1715
E 1900
S 1930
Then hopefully only 1 or 2 night wakings for feeds but geting progressively more and more until our day time routine broke down due to lack of sleep at night, and we were both trying to get sleep anytime and anyway we could.

In the last 2 weeks our day routine is all over the place!  I've tried a variety of different things to help with his night wakings. These include...
1 - extending time between feeds during the day (3.75-4hrs) so he'll take more each feed and get used to going longer at night.
2 - reducing time between feeds during the day (2hrs!) so he loads up on more calories during the day so needs less at night.
3 - A Formula comp feed last thing at night (about 730ish) after BF to make him really full to hopefully sleep longer.
4 - Top us BF before naps to help lull him into sleep land.

Also, his day sleeps are now getting worse too. He won't sleep longer than 45 mins (I can set my watch to it!) and is pretty much impossible to resettle. He is getting harder and harder to put down, with screaming more often than not. I'm trying every trick just to get him to sleep during the day so he isn't overtired and we can work on the night sleep.

Sleep cues. He is always wrapped to sleep because he waves his arms around and can't sleep without it yet. He has a dummy to sleep, and it usually falls out after he is asleep. He rarely goes to sleep on his back, and sleeps much better on his side. If he does sleep on his back, his head is always to the side. Naps he needs sounds for silence CD most of the time, especially if he works himself up to screaming when I'm trying to put him down. It is the ONLY way I can calm him.

Complications: He recently had infected skin on his head that was very itchy and we thought this was affecting his sleep in that he'd wake and try to scratch it and fight the wrap. This has cleared up with medication over 2 weeks ago and he hasnt' improved his sleeping.
We've also had very hot weather here for the last week (35-40C) and even though we are sleeping with the air con on, it is still a bit uncomfortable - so we thought this might contribute to night waking. It has been much cooler the last few days - but no change to sleeping.

This is what is happening at night...
Bedtime routine begins about 630ish with bath on alternative nights (he has mild eczema so not recommended to bath every night) - then dressed for bed lightly - quiet BF in room with lights low and calming music on in background. Top up FF if he wants it (sometimes takes, sometimes doesn't - max of 120mls) - wrapped tightly - 1 or 2 stories - then into cot on side with dummy in.  (On a good night this will work and he will peacefully go to sleep with only a couple of shhhh and a cuddle - on a bad night he will scream and fight the wrap and we have to walk the house jiggling him in our arms to get him to sleep)
Wakes up anytime from 1030-1230 for a feed.
Wakes again an hour later by grunting, grizzling. Burping sometime helps, otherwise have to pick up and cuddle, and rock and jiggle in arms to get back to sleep. Sometime wakes again only 20 mins later...
Wakes again 200 or 300 for another feed.
Wakes again at 4
Wakes again at 5 bring him into my bed to feed and sleep
Wakes again at 6...

Often my partner is trying to resettle if it has only been 1-2 hours since last feed, but he won't have a bar of it, and will only calm if fed - even though it's only a short time since last feed. We have to pick him up and shush and jiggle to get him back to sleep. If he isn't completely asleep when we put him down in his cot he starts screaming. He'll go down dozy for day sleeps though.

He recently went through a growth spurt I think (10 days ago?) as he was feeding every 2 hours and also learning to roll and grab things. I'm sure that has passed now. He isn't teething.

Anyway - very long winded. I'm all over the place at the moment. I'm even sleeping in the other room to see if it's me responding to him too much in the night. Now my partner is bringing him to me for feeds and trying to resettle at other times.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, or at least give me something ot start with.

Thanks in advance.

Kate

[tinachris]

Hi Kate,
I just checked our routine when LO was at that age:
I have put him on 3,5 hours with feeding as I noticed with 3 hours he didn't take enough and woke up at 5am.
So our EASY routine was like this:
7:00 E
A/S
10:30 E
A/S
14:00 E
A/S
17:00 E
A
19:00 E
bedtime 19:30
between 22-23 Dreamfeedwakeup anytime between 6:00-7:00

As far as I read in your mail you don't give a dreamfeed. Try this one - it helped us and LO and also friends tried it and it was working well.

After 3-4 weeks on 3,5 hours our LO was able to extend to a 4 hour EASY.

I would not try to BF him before naps as he will get used to that for sleeping. We did and do every day the same sleep ritual (we figured out that LO wasn't to happy with bathing in general so we only did that during the day once a week as it was too upsetting for him, all other days I just gave him a sponge wash in the mornings). Also for naps I use a similar ritual just a bit shorter. I.e. our LO doesn't like music for sleeping at all - when he was little we had a sleeping music clock for him - but it was upsetting him, so we skipped that only carried him 5 times through the room, were talking quiet to him and put him to bed awake. Sometimes we had to adjust his sleeping routine a bit (now LO and me sit down for a couple of minutes on my bed before I put him to bed).

I just read about the wrapping in your mail again: maybe he doesn't like the wrapping anymore ? Our LO never wanted to be wrapped - just in the very beginning, but as soon as he was able to move a bit he pushed it away - he even doesn't like to be wrapped for too long in a comfy warm towel after bathing...

Maybe there is some useful information for you in my reply.

Martina

[Hayden's mom]

I have a son the same age and experiencing very similar issues.  I wish I could offer some advice but I feel like I'm drowning as well.  I'll keep reading the replies you get and hopefully get some help myself.

[tinachris]

Do you give a Dreamfeed between 22-23h every night ? This helped us quite a lot. We got a good night sleep out of our LO with the DF.
And the best was this was done by my DH as we gave him a bottle and I was not able to take LO out of bed without waking him

The other thing is that they should have quite a regular routine with regular naps during the day too. Means we kept him always on the same bedtime in the evening without hardly any exception and I was arranging going out around LOs routine.

Martina

[Alenka]

The same here.  My son is 3 mo and slept well at night and had good naps during the day, but right now wants to be fed every 1.5 hours at night! I wish I knew what’s going on….