4 month old started waking at 2 for feed, advice needed!

[Mirabelle77]

Ds was sleeping 8-5 then feed and more sleep until 8 ish.

In the last week since he had a cold he has been waking at 2, not crying but restless and making s bit of noise. Doesn't settle with dummy so change , feed and pop him back in bed again. Takes about 30 mins goes back to sleep fine , but I don't hence my post.

Literally everyone at my baby group has weaned even before 4 months ds is actually 4 months in a few days time . I know not sleeping through is no reason to wean but I doubt myself.

I want to try blw , and as far as I can tell ds does not show the genuine signs of weaning readiness. So I expect weaning is not the answer.

I worry that if I keep giving him a bottle at 2 /3 am he is always going to wake for one then. Should I be trying to settle him without feeding, he is obviously hungry though gulps down the whole carton , I take a carton and bottle up for night feeds .

Any ideas be lovely, I gave heard of the 4 month sleep regression on here , so guess it might be that? Or maybe a growth spurt?

Will try and sleep now and check later. Also I realise he is not waking every hour etc like some mums have to deal with so I know I should be grateful for the 8-2 bit but I struggle to get back to sleep even though I'm sooo tired!

he is still tiny! feed him if he is hungry.

you are right - its probably growth spurt and sleep regression...such fun!

weaning may even make things worse...

hang in there - this too shall pass...

feed him.
he's a very small baby, and at the moment he's waking because he's hungry, not because he's in a habit. doesn't matter why he's hungry. he just is.

Hiya - if its any comfort, my DD (18 weeks now) did the same recently. She had been going 8pm - 7am then suddenly was waking several times in the night. Total shock to my system after getting used to undisturbed nights!

But it was just a growth spurt, and passed after 2 weeks (but it was a long 2 weeks!)

My tactic was to feed as much as she wanted in the night - her waking times gradually drifted later, and once she was lasting until 4am, I would just offer one boob and feed her again at 7am. Worked for us, hope that helps.

If he's hungry 9which he is if he takes a hole bottle, feed him!

whole, obviously!

FWIW I would try and put off weaning for a bit and see if it is a growth spurt, we had similar at 5 months and I held off weaning and just had to do a few extra feeds at night, passed after a week.

My 18 week old DS2 is doing the same thing - was sleeping 8-4 but started waking every 3 hours for a feed.

I spoke to my HV who said weaning would make no difference, as if he is hungry/having a growth spurt then he needs the calories etc to come from milk, not baby rice/pureed veg.

We're just getting over it now (it lasted about a week). I think that so many people start weaning and then the night waking stops that it's assumed there's a link - it's far more likely to be a growth spurt that will naturally end after a week or so, whether you start weaning or carry on with milk.

I wouldn't worry about what the rest of the baby group are doing either. TBH I think a lot of people just can't wait to get on to the 'next stage' of babyhood, that seemed to be the case in my first baby group anyway, there's no need to rush it though :)