No sleep - what am I doing wrong? Help!

[VictoriaMc77]

My DS is 16 weeks old and has never been a great sleeper - we struggle with day time naps and he's never slept through - the longest sleep we've had a night is 5 hours and that's only happened twice!

He is EBF. I had got used to putting him to bed at 7.30 pm ish, up to feed him at 1 am ish and again at 5 am/6 am ish. This suited me fine (even though I still hankered for him to sleep longer!).

Now, over the last week he has started waking every hour to an hour and a half. I know he can't be hungry at every waking and trying shushing him and putting dummy back in but he won't go back off until I feed him. When I do feed him he is feeding for about 5 minutes or so (btw this is normal, that's what I usually get during the day, I think he is an efficient feeder and I have a strong let down, he's gaining weight etc).

Any ideas as to get him back to his old sleep pattern? I'm losing the will to live and feel so fed up .... any advice re getting him to sleep more would be gratefully received. Spoke to HV yesterday and she suggested leaving to cry for longer ... I tried this last night but he got too worked up so I fed him - am I making a rod for my own back I wonder??? Thanks x

From what I remember, around 4 months there is a big increase in babies needing to feed more at night time. So it is possible he is hungry every time he wakes. Definitely not making a rod for your own back and I would say to keep feeding him when he wakes at night as it should calm down (soon hopefully).

OP, I could've written your post. DD is 19 and a half weeks now and is only up every 2 and a half hours now. It's slloooooowwwwlllllyyy improving. It's SHIT isn't it? I'm like the walking dead.

No advice, but you're not alone.

We went through the same 4 mos sleep regression. DD went from feeding once a night to every 3 hours. Also EBF. We weren't keen to let her cry it out so just rolled with it and fed her.
Hang in there. It does get better! DD started sleeping through at 7 mos (coincided with moving to her own room).

Technically, sleeping for five hours IS sleeping through! But this all sounds perfectly normal for the 16 week growth spurt. He needs more milk so he's trying to get your milk up by feeding more often. It's important that you respond by feeding him.