My DS is 16w and his night-time sleep/feeding is all over the place. Until his 12w jabs he would have a 4.5 - 5.5 hr (even 6/7hrs on occassion) gap after his last feed of the night and then it would go down to 3 - 4 hourly until morning. He would also go straight back to sleep after his feed too. Now its all over the place - he could wake 1.5 hr after being put down or it could be 3hrs. 3hrs is a rare exception now though and most nights it goes something like 1.5, 2, 1, 1.5, 2.5 hrs between feeds. I try not to pick him up at the first whimper to see if he'll settle but he very rarely does. More often than not he gets himself in a tizz and then takes ages to go back to sleep.
I do have a dummy to settle for naps during the day and sometimes at night I'll try to use it to see if he'll go back to sleep. This used to work but rarely does now though.
Now I know he's due a growth spurt at this age, but I really don't think he's having one as he only feeds for 5/6 mins (this is also consistent with the daytime too) and he doesn't go so frequently during the day. In fact, during the day I have to offer often or else he just doesn't 'demand'. I would have expected the frequency to increase during the day too if it was a growth spurt?
As he's eating so little in the day (suddenly dropped to 5/6 mins from a consistent 20) I've tried increasing the frequency of his feeds during the day to 'tank him up' and also stretching out the feeds to make him 'really hungry' in an attempt for him to take more, but its made no difference. After 5 mins he just pulls off, arches his back and starts to cry if I attempt to latch him on again. Neither of these seems to have had any affect on his nighttime sleep.
So, I'm wondering if he's nursing to simply go back to sleep but I don't want to deny him food if he really needs it. I'm just crap at reading his cues (night AND day) - so how do you do it? What can I do? What do you do? What cues do your 16w olds give you? I'm just so tired I don't know what to do next