DD waking up every hour during night! No hungry, just waking up. why???

[spekulatius]

DD is 4 months old, used to sleep for 10 hours when she was 6-10 weeks old. Since then has been waking up several times during night, thought it might be 4 month sleep regression starting early but it has been 7 weeks now. starting to wake up every hour 30 minutes, last night every hour. Often I haven't gone back to sleep yet when she wakes up again. she has got her first tooth through but it doesn't seek to worry her.wakes up with a big smile on her face. Don't think its always hunger but feed her anyway. why doesn't she sleep? waking up once or twice is fine but every hour? And then decides at 4.30 that the night is over and its time to play. What am I doing wrong?

What do you do when she wakes? If you feed her (even though you think she's not hungry) and give her attention (hence the big smile), you may inadvertently be causing the disruption to her sleep pattern.The thing is, we all wake regularly throughout the night, but for such brief periods that we don't register it or get disturbed by it. It therefore sounds to me as if your DD is waking in this way, but instead of going straight back to sleep, she makes a noise etc, gets your attention (and a feed) and is therefore being rewarded for waking. It probably started because the teething made her uncomfortable and more awake than usual, but it's now becoming a habit. The only way out (assuming you don't want to be woken!) is to stop responding. She will probably cry for a while, but as long as you're sure she's not hungry or unwell, you have to leave her to it. With my son (at about 5 months) this process took only one night and the relief (to him as well as me) was amazing. More sleep made us both happier! Hope this helps.

Hey spek i am afraid I dont have any answers but wanted to let you know you're not alone. DS1 is 16 weeks old today and is diong exactly the same thing. Last night he woke 8 times between midnight and 7am. EIGHT!!!

He also is definitely not hungry, nor in pain or distressed. I know he's not hungry cos we give him an 8oz dreamfeed bottle at 10pm, and when he gets up in the morning at 6.30am/7.00am he is not hungry until 8am!!

Some of the wakings he is doing a grizzly, low level cry, and some of them the more annoying ones he is just cooing and gurgling as though he thinks it's the morning, even though it's 2am. Or 4am. Or 5.10am. Or....you get the idea.

I agree with cathan, that I think our DCs are just waking at the end of their sleep cycles like all human beings do, but they dont yet know how to just go straight back to sleep like adults/older children do.

I agree in theory that leaving them alone to learn to self settle is the best idea, but our problem is our son takes a dummy, and seems to need it so settle off to sleep. If we pop his dummy back in when he wakes in the night he does go straight back off to sleep, albeit only for 90 mins. It is so tempting to just jump out of bed and put the dummy back in cos then we can all be back to sleep within 2 minutes. But I realise this is not a long term solution, if we have to do it 8 times per night. So we have decided this weekend to try and teach him to self-settle without the dummy. It worked really well in the early part of the night (between his bedtime at 7pm and when we gave him his dreamfeed at 10pm)....he woke up a couple of times, did a weird groany tired grizzle cry for about 4-5 mins, we just left him and he went back to sleep - we thought we'd cracked it!! Went happily to bed at 10.30pm after giving him his dreamfeed, but then the 90 minute wakings of horror started at 00.30am :(

The problem is, he seems to wake up much more in the early hours of the morning, ie he is cooing, gurgling and seems very awake. I am not convinced hat he would just go back to sleep on his own, without the dummy. And I am scared that if we just leave him he would work himself up into a real old state, and then we'd all be awake for hours. Cathan - what sort of crying/waking noises was your DC making in the night, when he learned to self soothe? Did he seem quite wide awake??

Hi spek and hello again danger, we seem to be having the same issues with our DS's at the same times!

I don't have any words of wisdom I'm afraid, I just wanted to join the gang. Up until a week ago DS2 (14 weeks) was waking up twice a night, which I thought was bad enough, but it was in fact bliss compared with what he's doing now! He now wakes up at least 4 times a night and last night was wide awake from 4:30-6:30.

Danger if I were you I'd just pop the dummy back in as many times as necessary so you can all get some sleep. We've tried to give DS2 a dummy but he's not having any of it. Last night I tried to leave him to self-settle but I'm a bit paranoid about him waking DS1 up as we live in a small flat and the bedrooms are very close together. What effectively happened last night was that by leaving him for a bit he was then really awake, had fought himself out of his swaddle, and was starting to cry loudly which eventually did wake up DS1. Not a good scenario. I know that by putting a boob in his mouth I could probably get him back to sleep relatively quickly, but as you've all said, he's not crying through hunger.

How long are your DCs napping in the day? DS2 is not a good napper but I'm wondering if despite that I need to cut down on daytime sleep to help him sleep better at night. At the moment he does about 2.5 hours of daytime sleep. He is extremely alert when he's awake and I'm sure he's usually over-stimulated by the time he goes to bed but I don't really know how I can help him relax more, I think he just is quite an excitable little chap.

Have you read wakeful 4 month olds OP?

Hey margie, yes seems like your DS is very similar to mine....maybe it's something about boys?? Sorry to hear you had a really bad night. DS is our only DC so at least we don;t have to worry about him waking another child up. We live in a block of flats though, so god knows what our poor neighbours must be thinking!

Last night we had a bit of a revelation/breakthrough I think (even though I was not sure about it at the time)....DS had his dreamfeed at 10pm and then me and DH went to bed. He woke at 0030, and 0145 and both times we put his dummy back in as normal. However, at 0145 DH said he'd had enough and put his foot down (most unlike him) and insisted we leave DS from now on, to see if he would go back down himself. We also muted the monitor (harsh, old school, i know - but we are i a small flat and he is right accross the the hall...we can still definitely here him if he really cries, but his low level chuntering and chatting is nicely muffled by the walls!)....anyway, I was really worried that he was going to get worked up into a frenzy and scream the place down, but that's not what happened...

Basically, he woke up another 3-4 times in the night I reckon, and I heard him each time, but he just chattered away to himself for about 10 mins each time (I think, but I was pretty sleepy and wasn't really watching the clock) - in any case he was definitely just 'making noises', not really crying, not in any kind of distress. And each time he eventually went back to sleep on his own, without his dummy.

I don't know if he will do this every night from now on, but I think its a good start...proves he can do it without us jumping out of bed 10 times a night. It is a bit of a harsh method though and requires us to essentially ignore him!

With regards to daytime naps, I have posted about this freuently as well! DS is currently incapable of napping for more than 45 mins at a time during the day, even though he then gets v grumpy and tired after 90 mins of awake time (sometimes less).

This means he is having about 5x 40 minute naps per day: about 3hr20mins in total across the day, which funnily enough is what a lot of the books say he should be getting....it's just they assume he will be having 2 hours of this in a big lunchtime chunk so I can get some cleaning done/read a book/call a friend chance would be a fine thing!!

margie I would be reluctant to cut your DS's naps...i know it sounds weird but the general wisdom on these boards seems to be that 'good sleep breeds good sleep', and that babies who get lots of naptime in the day tend to sleep better at night....as long as your DS isnt getting more than 4hrs naps during the day, i would say you're better off leaving it - or even trying to encourage him to nap longer? (if you work out a way of doing that, please let me know!)

This book is good too .

ps margie - just a thought, have you tried putting your DS in a grobag type sleeping bag, rather than a swaddle? We swaddled DS for every sleep for the first 8 weeks of his life, but then we switched to grobags cos he would fight his way out of the swaddle and wake himself up.

In a grobag he is nice and warm and snuggly all night.

I was really nervous about making the change at first: I was sure he would only be able to get to sleep in a swaddle, but I think all his wriggling about was his way of telling us he was ready for a change. Now if I pop my head round his door at night, I often see him sleeping with his arms both fully stretched out like a big starfish! :)

Hi Danger, hope your good nights have continued? We had a much better night here last night - DS2 fed at 1:15 but when he woke up at 3:15 I just cuddled him instead of feeding him and he then went down until 8am! Maybe it was a one-off but it was so nice to get a stretch of sleep which lasted longer than an hour!

I am planning on putting DS2 in a grobag, particularly as he regularly breaks out of his swaddle now, but he is getting big for his Moses basket and when his arms are free he bashes them against the sides. Next week we should finally get round to putting the cot up so then he'll have more room and I'll put him in his grobag.

Hey margie so glad to hear you had a 4-5 hour stretch of sleep last night...it really makes all the difference, doesn't it!

We had a reasonable night last night:

The positives:

• DS went to bed at 7pm without much fuss and slept well until his dreamfeed at 10pm, stirring once at 8pm but self settling after a few minutes without his dummy :)

• We followed the same policy of ignoring him leaving him to self-settle when he woke up in the night, and all 4 times he just woke up, moaned a bit to himself for less then 5 minutes and then went back to sleep

The negatives

• He woke up chattering and gurgling and decided it was definitely morning at quarter to six ...I managed to get him to drift in an out of sleep for a little bit longer by putting his dummy in a couple of times, but by 6.20am I had to give up and accept that it was morning! But I didn't mind the 05.45 wake up call too much as we'd had a reasonably decent night's sleep.

Am pretty bloody knackered now though!! He has only just gone to bed at 7.30pm as well this evening, as he ended up having his last little nap of the day really late (5.30pm - 6pm) for some reason. Am hoping this might at least mean he'll sleep until nearer 7am tomorrow

Btw, we put DS in a grobag for the last few weeks he was in his moses basket! So he was in a grobag, inside the moses basket! Looked a bit strange but worked for him, maybe worth a try until you get your cot up? (and then when he moves into his cot, the grobag wil be a constant for him?)

Sounds like the 4 month sleep regression is hitting you. It happens to most babies. If you google it, theres lots of information on it. Bounty website was good, will try and get the link to post.

Is he cold? My DD was sleeping through from 6 weeks then around 15 weeks started waking up. I thought she might be ready for solids (which she was but she didn't know it for a few weeks) but actually she was cold. So a little heater on a thermostat sorted that problem. She does sometimes stir or semi wake at night - this morning it was 5.30 - but I left her and she went back to sleep until 6.30 then woke as normal for her bottle. Also doesn't help that she shimmies up her cot and was discovered under a couple of her soft toys!

Hi everyone, I'm so glad it's not only me. I did think it might be 4 months sleep regression and have googled it, came across a website from Nicole Johnson babysleepsite.com, honestly it is so true what she is saying. For example 'It is normal for babies younger than 6 months to take 3-4 short 30-45 minutes naps.' This is exacly what DD is doing but I always thought that she should sleep for 2 hours or so. And the shouldn't stay wake for more than 1-2 hours. And if a baby naps well it usually sleeps better at night. So it's wrong to cut down on nap time to try and improve sleeping at night. We've had quite a few nights of waking up every hour or two but last 2 nights only woke up once at 4.30. Only problem is that after that she only sleeps an other hour from 5-6 and then the night is over. I think if she carries on like that it's fine for her age but I will do a dream feed before I go to bed and see if she can go a bit longer.

Danger, I think it's funny that husbands are the ones that can't cope at night yet they don't have to get up, do they?

I put DD in a sleeping bag (grobag is asleeping bag, isn't it) since we came out of hospital, in moses basket and now in crib. Even in crib she still hits her hands against the sides so I put bumpers up. I wanted to keep her cot in her room so that I've got somewhere safe to put her when I do stuff in her room, go to the loo etc.

It will get better, won't it???? I think for us the problem is sleep association, she needs me to feed or rock her to sleep. I know I need to work on that but at the momet I enjoy it so much. And I think 4 months if so small to let them cry.

Just need to catch up on the lost sleep now.....