Mid- night waking

Margie84 · Mar 31, 2011 11:39AM

Hi ladies,

So Alexander is nearly 6 weeks old, and for the first 2 weeks, he used to sleep for good 4 hour blocks overnight, which was AMAZING, and everyone told me how lucky I was!!

Now, he seems to sleep really well for the first part of the night (I put him down between 7 and 9ish) after a good bedtime routine and obviously a feed (he is breastfed). So he will sleep for 4 - 5 and a half hours, which I am very happy with. Then 12 - 2ish he will wake, and I will feed and change him, he gets back to sleep fine, but will wake every hour or two after that, so 3am,4am,5am,6am,7am which is exhausting as he needs changing and wants feeding every time he wakes! I was worried that he wasn't getting enough milk at the 12-2ish feed, so I have started expressing for hubby to feed him (he has between 3-4oz, which I thought was quite a lot??), but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

The other thing is, when he wakes at around 4/5ish, he won't settle back in his cot at all, and the only way he sleeps is if I put him into bed with us, with I really don't want to make a habit of doing.

During the day, he sleeps quite a lot, but he gets irritable if I try and keep him awake, and he also cries A LOT (even when fed and clean) so sometimes I don't have the energy to keep him awake.

Does anyone have any ideas why he might be doing this, and what I can do to fix it??

Thanks!!

Maria

piggypops · Mar 29, 2011 4:39PM

at 6 weeks his tummy is still so tiny and needs regular feeds during the night, do you feed him to sleep? could you offer him more once he has finished before putting him back down? he may be falling asleep before hes acctually finished?

he wil sleep in the day a lot too at this age and you will struggle to keep them awake when they dont want to, he'll be a good few months before hes awake for long period

could he possibly have wind? that might be waking him?

Moomin-mama · Mar 29, 2011 5:26PM

I know that you have probably spent a lot of time getting a bedtime routine down, but do you think that for the short term you could try and move it forward? I cluster fed every hour until DD went to sleep, which unfortunately for me was usually between 1am-3am but then she would go for 6 hours so i would get reasonable sleep. If he was going to bed later then you would be getting up hourly at a more sociable time if you see what i mean?

Margie84 · Mar 31, 2011 11:12AM

Hi ladies, thanks for the responses. strangely, the night I posted this (and the 2 nights since), Alexander has randomly slept beautifully, waking just twice in the night. Fingers crossed it was not just a fluke...

Piggypoo, I do think sometimes he falls asleep before he is finished, so I am being a bit weary of this and trying to stop him for falling asleep(as impossible as it is!!!). I also think you are probably right with the wind as he does seem to suffer a lot from it, but he is such a strong baby, so he really kicks up a fuss and screams bloody murder when I try to wind him, so perhaps I am not getting it all out due to my own frustrations.

Moomin-mamma, I agree that our routine is a bit late. Its hard because I try to keep him awake until hubby gets home from work, but I think that was probably on the way to making a rod for my own back. I am trying to start the routine earlier, hopefully that will help.

Thanks again ladies.

piggypops · Mar 31, 2011 11:39AM

glad things are getting better, have you tried some gripe water? might help get his wind up better or a bit of infacol although this tends to have a cumlative effect x

Mid- night waking

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