5 month old waking hourly WTF?

[SarahJinx]

Please please can someone offer me something to try? DS is 2 weeks, combination fed, started two weeks ago to wake through the night, just a little cry, dummy in and back to sleep. Goes to bed like a dream after 8pm bottle feed, starts to wake around 11, and hourly thereafter. Also, two or three times a week the dummy replacing doesn't work, and we're up at 3am for an hour or so, then acctually getting up at 6.

I don't think he's hungry, he wakes up in the mornings cooing and playing in his cot but he has two purees a day, two ffs (Hungry baby) and three bfs. I don't think its temperature either - sleeps in a gro bag, room 23 degrees and feels fine to touch.

He's doing brilliantly, has clung doggedly to 91st percentile since birth and slept through from 2 months. Until now.

I'm awake for what feels like the whole night, waiting for him to flick his dummy out and wake up, even if he doesn't do it I'm awake waiting for him. I'm comig close to the end of my rope.

Please please, what is going on?

[nearlytherenow]

Similar here. My EBF 25 week old has recently become a nightmare sleeper. He'll go to bed and sleep for a reasonable chunk of time (7.30 - at least 12, sometimes as late as 3) but once he's woken that's it, he's up hourly for the rest of the night. He was (apart from a brief blip at 16 weeks) a great sleeper until a couple of weeks ago. He now refuses to self settle (had done since birth) and will hardly nap. He doesn't have a dummy, so wants fed to sleep. We started weaning a few days ago so too soon to know if that will help, but I honestly don't think it's hunger, not all of it anyway. Nobody could be that hungry. Developmental thing maybe? No advice, just sympathy. I'm going to leave it a few weeks and see if it resolves itself, if not I think I'll start being mean and leaving DH to settle him for at least some of the night wakings. I cannot cope with looking after a baby and toddler and doing 6 BFs a night.

[Angel786]

Sounds like sleep regression ladies. Have your babies recently learnt something new - sitting up? crawl / shuffling? or just generally more alert? Alternatively it could be a growth spurt.

We went through something similar (although DD was never a great sleeper!) at 4/5 months. My heart is with you as it's a nightmare being woken every hour or two.

Are the babies swaddled / have any music / comforter to sleep? I know OP said there was a dummy.

I know this doesn't make you feel great but it will get better

[childsleepsolutions]

Hi ladies. I think it could be some of what angel says but think they also sound like they have an association with sucking to get to sleep, sarahjinx yours with the dummy and ntn to breastfeeding. It involves some hard work but if you decide on a different method of settling them and stick to it instead of putting dummy in/bfeeding they learn to self settle. You don't need to do controlled crying, you can try controlled comforting (comforting in the cot) and pick them up only when they really need it and not for too long. This way you can be there to support them as they learn to self-settle. I'm a child sleep consultant and believe me, this is so common (my youngest ended up wanting to bfeed to sleep so had to do it with her)! When they are that age once they go into lighter sleep in the second half of the night they can't re-settle between sleep cycles without repeating the pattern they use at bedtime. Good luck, Nicola Watson

[Caz10]

Nowt wrong with bf to sleep imo! Similar 5mth old here, now just cosleeping and feeding lying down, I only really half wake, feel much better for it!