routine, what routine?

[pandapuss]

my ds is 16 weeks ols, from about 3 months if not before the loose routine that we had went out the window, he used to sleep from 12pm through to 6am, thats long gone and now wakes up about half 2 then again between 6 and 7ish, this wouldnt be a problem if he went down again but its impossible for me to put him down he wakes as soon as head hits his cot, for a while my dh would put him down and that would work but he soon wised up to it and now it takes me snoozing with him in bed for hours before hes asleep enough to put him down.
ive been combination feeding but mostly bottle and im wondering if this is confusing matters as i think he only bf for the comfort and to drift off to sleep.
during the day his feeding is in no way fixed and im constantly guessing when he will next want a feed, his naps are never at regular times either and have a knock on effect in the evening and night time.

does anyone else have this problem? should i be trying to sleep train him or is he too young? and should i be putting him down in his cot for a nap at a regular time even if hes not sleepy? he never naps in his cot anyway!!! eek so many questions! im begining to feel really down that im unable to predict what hes fussing for!!

Hi, I had a similar problem with my ds2 at about the same age. From a couple of weeks old he would only wake once a night, I would feed him and he would go down happily again in his cot no bother. Then, around 16 weeks he started waking up once, twice and eventaully three times during the night. Much like you described he was very difficult to settle and the only way to settle him was to take him into bed and put him back on the breast and let him fall asleep. At first I thought it might just be a growth spurt so we went on like that for several weeks. We tried giving him a dummy but he refused it so we then thought he may be waking because of hunger (i should also say that he had become more unsettled between feeds during the day). So when he woke at 1.30am we gave him a bottle instead of bf to try and determine how hungry he was and he finished the whole bottle and had a breast feed as well! So for us it was definately hunger - I was bfing but we had given him 1 bottle a day of expressed milk since he was 4 weeks old in the eveing...we changed this feed to formula at about 15 weeks to help with the transition of me going back to work after 6 months. I wonder whether this affected my supply and then hence why he was hungry? Anyway, we ended up increasing his formula feeds to 2 per day and also starting him on a bit of baby rice at about 20 weeks and that has done the trick... he is now far happier and sleeping from 7.30pm to 6.30am.
Its strange though because with my ds1 we followed a similar pattern of mixed feeding...exclusive bf until about 4 months (withe 1 expressed bottle)...then 1 bottle of formula...until about 6 months when I went back to work he was 50:50 and I managed to carry on giving him 2 feeds a day until he was about 10 months...i guess they are all different though! My ds2 is still not a great sleeper during the day..he tends to have short cap naps of about 20mins at a time but he is happy and content so its not really a big problem.
So, I can totally sympathise with how you feel..I don't know if my experience is of any help..but I would maybe try to rule out hunger first before trying any sort of sleep training etc.

Hi my baby is exactly the same but is getting even worse, last couple of nights he has been up to eat more times than I can count. Sorry I have no idea what to do, its killing me actually. Please let me know if you think of anything or if it suddenly improves

Oh and my baby is EBF at the moment so I dont think it is to do with the combination feeding

im not sure if its hunger thats the problem, when he wakes at night he never finishes his bottle though i try to encourage him to, im at a loss, i guess i'll have to wait it out and hope that some kind of routine emerges!
i feel for you goodname, its killing me too! i'll keep you posted if i come across a miracle solution.

4 months sleep regression?

You have my sympathies...
Keep chanting 'this too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass...'

yes but when will it pas?

bump

If you can encourage your baby to have most of his milk in the day and not sleep too much in the day (not more than say 4/5 hours) he should be less hungry/more tired & hopefully be easier to settle.
Personally I never cuddled DD off to sleep. I let her have a little settling down cry. Do you do that at all? He might just need help developing some sleep skills.

unfourtunatly he's nowhere near sleeping for that long during the day anyway!!! he only sleeps for half hr or an hour at a time if im lucky, and no more than 2 hours in naps a day, he sleeps longer if out in his buggy, and his feeding is way below what its recommended he should be having, im pretty much exclusivly formula feeding now, and for his weight and age should be on about 35 oz in a 24 hr period, instead he has approx 25, he's still putting on weight though and everyone keeps saying not to worry too much about how much eats, easier said than done!!!

Do you feed on demand? My DD stopped demanding afer the first few days so I did 'routine' feeds. Maybe he needs to slepp at home more for a couple of weeks so he's not used to cuddles or motion when he sleeps?

yeah as i was writing i was thinking the same thing....hhmmm house bound for a while then!

Wouldn't go housebound - maybe out for couple hours, home for sleep then out for couple hours in afternoon. Good luck x