Almost 4mth old started wakening to feed every 2hrs- is everyone going to start shouting baby rice at me?

[Caz10]

Dd2 is ebf, and has gone from 4-5hr stretches at night to wakening every 2 hours on the dot! If she goes down at approx 7 she will wake to feed at 9, 11, 1, 3, 5, 7! While I am entertained by her punctuality I am bloody knackered! I can't remember this from dd1 as she slept so badly we never had the 5hr stretches...think sleep deprivation has wiped my memory!
I have no intention of weaning before 6mths but I know if either my MIL or HV gets wind of how often she is up they will start dropping off packs of formula and baby rice (boak!). Is this a phase, will it pass?!

It will pass, she is probably going through at big growth spurt,there is usually one at around 16 weeks.

Are you co-sleeping or is the cot in your room?

Don't tell them would be my advice!

It's a stage - one she will hopefully grow through very quickly for your sake!!

Yes I think you are right, should have learned not to tell them anything after dd1!

The cot is right next to my bed with one side down, and she starts the night inthere, then bring her in after about 3am when she gets harder to settle. So I think I'm making it as easy for myself as I can iyswim!

Definatly second the making it easy for yourself as possible. Sounds like you have got that covered, though if you want to bring her in for longer don't be afraid to.

And I second Chipping

Woa, you must be knackered! Mine DD (2nd baby) is 10 weeks and awake a whole lot less in the night. Poor you and poor boobies.
Agree with baby rice avoidence. It always sounded a bit yuck to me, so never went down that route. Could it be teeth pushing, waking her up?? Or probably like others say, a growth spurt. Is there any other way to settle her? Does she drink from a bottle? Could you dilute some breast milk a bit more each time and try that?? Get her back out of the habit. Would be easier for you if she ate more in the day through a growth spurt.
Hope it gets better soon. I am dreading when this stuff happens here. We're rubbish with badly broken nights.
Good luck.

There's a big growth spurt/developmental leap/sleep regression at 4 months that many, many babies go through - my ds went from sleeping 8 hours by 8 weeks to waking every 45 minutes sometimes by 18 weeks.

By 5 months it was getting a little better, and with a bit of gentle pushing from us we got down to 2 nightfeeds. In the meantime I just co-slept and tried not to look at the clock!

It's a growth spurt, rest, feed and sleep - both of you - it'll pass in a few days. Mske sure you are drinking loads so she can get as much milk as she wants at each feed. DD has just turned 5 months and has done that a few times, never for more than 3 days on a row though.

Why people expect babies to eat and sleep the same way every day gets me, I know I have hungry days, snacky days, lazy days and active ones. So do they. If you're going to wait until six months look into baby led weaning, if you haven't already.

Thanks all! Yes we did blw with dd1 it was great and suits my lazy style perfectly!

Must remember to drink more as I am not v good at that. She feeds about every 2.5hrs in the day anyway, so dont think I can up that much, unlike dd1 she cannot be persuaded to take a feed when she isn't really up for it. Dh has been around so have managed a couple of daytime naps to tide me over!

She does have two tiny teeth popping through, but they seemed to cause their trouble a couple of weeks ago, she was much more unsettled. now she is very content, just wakes, guzzles and sleeps again.

It's been 5 nights so far, maybe tonight will be different?!?

Oh RitaMorgan, can you describe your gentle pushing?!

Basically I decided to do two night feeds, so 7pm/11pm/3am/7am (roughly!). We moved ds from our room to his own room at this point too. If he woke inbetween feeds then DP went in to him and offered a dummy and cuddles - at first basically he just had to sit and hold or rock ds from when he woke until feed time so he wasn't left to cry at all. It improved each night though and within a week he was only waking for feeds (I was flexible about feed times though, so the 3am feed was anytime from 2.30-3.30, and if he woke anytime after around 6am he came into bed with us for a feed). I only actually got up to feed once in the night though.

At the same time though I did stop feeding him to sleep at bedtime, and DP rocked (and eventually ssh-patted) him to sleep. I think part of the problem was he was waking at the end of every sleep cycle and couldn't get back off to sleep without a boob every time.

We had this with dd2 and even though she is 4 (years) now, I still remember it well. It is really tough Caz.

We lasted well until 25 weeks with exc bf which for us was the right decision despite the lack of sleep. I continued to bf for another year, along with a bit of puree at first, the occasional bit of formula, and also finger foods from 25 weeks. None of that made her sleep better, despite me hoping it might!

I was glad I didn't ask advice - that may have put doubt in my mind and made me consider formula/rice or whatever a bit earlier, and as I found out at 25/26 weeks it made no difference.

Hang in there, my dd2 is a much better sleeper now although the first 2-3 years had their moments. :)

Don't tell the HV then.

Mine fed 2 hourly until 6 months so I do sympathise but it is too soon for baby rice. Feed on demand and sleep when you can.

All my three started waking a lot at that age - I think it was a growth spurt.

Mine did this too. I was smugger than smug when he started doing 6-7 hours at 8 weeks. WAs smiling on the other side of my face at 4 months, but didn't start baby rice - even though HV said he might need it as he was 'a big lad'. Ds ended up settling into 1-2 feeds per night until he was 9 months old and I had to get him off night feeds cos I went back to work. You get used o it

My DD did the 4 month growth spurt with style too, feeding every hour for a few days. We were on holiday at my mums and after the second night I cried and asked to go home!

Needless to say it soon passed and and I breastfed to 22 months, you can do it and ignore the baby rice advocates their guts are nowhere near ready at 4 months :)

Ahhh, can I join in too? DS is 17 weeks, but was ten days over, which according to wonder weeks books in how you ought to calculate their age. We've had about a week and a half of shitty wakings. Thankfully he wasn't that brilliant before all this started, but seemed to peak last week.

Last night he teased us by going down at 7, having dreamfeed at 10:30, then through to 4:30 when I fed him. Back to sleep until 6:45, then even more sleep until 8am.

Today he's had dodgy naps and not enough and so I put him down to bed at 6:20pm. Already woken up twice and I fed him about an hour ago. Convinced we're in for a crap one tonight.

According to Wonder Weeks book they have a huge developmental leap at 19 weeks. The way that I construed why they wake is because their brains are working nineteen to the dozen. So in the same way that I often cannot settle when work is manic, it's the same for them. They're trying to digest and process everything they're seeing and experiencing, combined with some pretty huge physical changes. And the net result is the inability to fall asleep, stay asleep and fall back to sleep.

Oh, and I have seen areas of white on his bottom and top gums - accompanied by copious amounts of spit and a propensity to chew on absolutely anything that gets within 20cm of his gob. So I'm pretty sure he's got some toothy ishoos too.

When I write it down I do have a lot of sympathy for the poor buggers. But when I wake up feeling more tired than I was when I went to bed, it diminishes somewhat.

DD did this at 4 months - big sleep regression at this age. She was sleeping 11 hours before this AND she was EBF. Got gradually better....but it does take time.

Sounds exactly like what we're going through too. DD was sleeping four/five hour stretches until a couple of weeks ago when she hit 15 weeks and started waking hourly/two hourly. It's been a nightmare, particularly as she started to refuse going straight back down after a feed, meaning we were awake for hours a a time.

We're now a couple of weeks on and things have improved slightly. We're down to two or three night time wake ups - better than five or six, but still a long way from those halcyon days when she was waking once! I'm just telling myself if won't last forever...

For what it's worth, I'm adopting a similar approach to Rita. Now I'm pretty sure that the growth spurt is out of the way, I'm not feeding every time she wakes up. If she wakes up within a hour or two of her last feed, DH is trying to resettle her first. The sssh/patting seems to work more often than not.

"Waking up more tired than when you went to bed" is a perfect description! However it might just be a tease but things were slightly better last night, still up a couple of times, but not the 1.5/2 hourly torture!

Dd1 was about 27 weeks before we even contemplated solids, there is no way I would go down the baby rice route, but it would be nice to know we won't be getting up this much forever! Dd1 started sleeping through at the ripe old age of 3yrs, I'm really hoping that has earned me a sleeper this time round!

I had a marginally better night last night, but we keep on cocking up DS's daytime naps and so I cannot expect him to be perfect. Today, for example, he passed out in the car after swimming (having been awake for 2.5 hours). So what do I do...whack his leg on a table when I carried him in the car seat in to the house. Grrrr, having only been asleep for 10 mins, he then wouldn't go off again for another hour. Sum total of 90 mins nap time today, over two naps.

Last night he went down at 6:40 (lack of naps so early to bed!), up at 8pm, 10pm, 2:30am...and then 7:45am!!! Yup. I was of course awake at 6:30 when DH got up and paranoid something dreadful had happened. Never in his life has he done such a big sleep on the backend of the night.

After his 10:30am dreamfeed, DH and I have a rule that he resettles if DS wakes before 4am. This has wavered somewhat over the last couple of weeks. But now his croaky voice has gone and I know he's not ill, we're back on it. Sometimes works, sometimes (like last night) he just seems hungry.

I'm loathe to wean him full stop. He seems like a complete and utter pain in the arreee-arse, so will hold off as long as possible. And having read so much on here, it seems to cause more problems than solutions for many.

Bed again at 6:30pm. He's just woken up. But having passed out on the boob after about 4 mins...not surprised he was hungry so given him more milk. We've been giving him a bottle of formula at the dreamfeed, but makes little difference TBH. Just trying all options, really.