was sleeping through the night, now waking at 4am

[JacquiKeren]

Hi, im looking for some advice really,

My little boy was doing really well and managing to sleep through the night for the past week. all of sudden he has started waking at 4am again. iv had to give him a milk feed because water isnt doing anything for him, whereas b4 he settled really well with it. sometimes he wakes crying and then when i pick him up he starts smiling at me.

any ideas how i can get him back to sleeping through the night? I havnt changed his daily routine at all.

 

[chezziepie]

IS he on hungry baby yet? My Health Visitor said around 10-12 weeks our LO will stop STTN ( he doesn't do it yet so maybe he won't) but when they do we would need to replace his bed time bottle with hungry baby. Only thing I am aware off sorry if it is no help x x x

 

[kanga]

My baby had a similar thing at 4 months, which I put down to the 4 month sleep regression.

Could your baby be too hot or too cold? The temp has changed a lot recently so maybe that is bothering him. It does tend to peak at its coldest around 4am.

Do you think he is waking for food or comfort? If food, it could be a phase. If comfort, then don't feed him or he will come to expect another bottle at 4am every morning.

We are just about through our waking up phase now, it lasted about 3 weeks x

 

[JacquiKeren]

hes already on hungry baby hes been on it since 8 weeks.

i thought it might be a temperature thing so i changed him to a thinner sleeping bag and thin blanket as he sleeps in a fleecy onesie but he still woke up. he did seem genuinly hungry last night, but he has 8oz at 10pm which satisfied him before.

 

[meow951]

He's only 11 weeks old.

They have a lot of growth spurts at a young age and need the extra feed in the night to get more calories.

I have no idea why HV say to give hungry baby milk. It is for babies who are drinking like 8oz every 2 hours and still aren't satisfied. It doesn't contain any extra calories that a baby needs, it's just harder to digest and takes longer so they might wake more because of this. It can also be harder on their tummys which might make some babies uncomfortable. There is no proof that it helps babies to sleep through either.

Babies aren't physically able to sleep through until after 6 months anyway.

My LO was sleeping through from 3 months and has done up until a couple of weeks ago. He is now waking for a bottle at about 4am but he obviously needs it so i give it to him.

Some HV are idiots.

He'll probably stop waking once he's out of the growth spurt.

 

[bananabump]

Babies aren't physically able to sleep through until after 6 months anyway.

Can I just ask what you mean by this please? Leo has been sleeping through (10.30pm - 8.30am) for 4 weeks now since he was 8 weeks old and last night slept 9pm til 9am! xxx

 

[meow951]

Babies aren't physically able to sleep through until after 6 months anyway.

Can I just ask what you mean by this please? Leo has been sleeping through (10.30pm - 8.30am) for 4 weeks now since he was 8 weeks old and last night slept 9pm til 9am! xxx

I read it on the forum somewhere, some babies do sleep through before 6 months which is fine. But apparently babies shouldn't be expected to be sleeping through until 6 months at the earliest due to them needing more milk etc. But obviously some babies are happy to sleep through earlier and do it on their own

 

[maddog37]

You have a growth spurt around 12 weeks so you're pretty close. I also would not expect a baby that young to sleep through the night or give water to try, sorry but JMHO.

Even if your baby sleeps through the night in a week or two, don't expect it to last either. There could be another longer period from around week 17 to week 26 when they'll wake (and probably later on too, I've only gotten to these weeks of wonder weeks).

One wake a night is pretty good, I say! Hang in there!

 

[JacquiKeren]

ahh im really not fussed either way if he sleeps through the night or not,

some babies wake up out of habit during the night if they are used to getting feeds at certain times. i know when my little boy is hungry as aposed to being bored or needing a cuddle. he smiled at me last time and just played with the milk teat. thats why i sometimes give boiled water as its more of a comfort thing rather than a feed me thing.

i know everyone has different methods of how they treat wake up calls throughout the night. i dont really want to go down the route of my lo waking up just out of habit.

dont know if its true or not but i also read that babies who weigh over 9lbs and are gaining weight steadily should be able to manage a longer spell of 5 hours sleep overnight. when i say sttn i really only mean from 11pm til about 6ish, im not expecting 12hours or anything, i def think there too young for that.

p.s i didnt buy hungry milk to encourage lo to sleep longer, i got it because he was taking 43oz of milk over 24 hours and still seemed hungry.

 

[RebeccaG]

My LO has started to wake up again at 5ish for a feed when he has been going 10pm - 7 ish last couple of weeks. I think he is going through a growth spurt though as he will take his usual 180 or 210ml. He will then however want to stay up and chat!!