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Help needed! The 3am / 4am game!

5 replies

AnnieDelores · 15/11/2011 08:57

My 14 week old little poppet is consistently waking at 3 or 4ish and is wide awake and shouting for attention. He dream feeds well at 11pm and has a good 7ozs.

When he wakes at 3 or 4, he's not interested in food (unless he refuses to settle for about an hour and finally gets hungry). All he wants to do is sit on my shoulder and look around him at his night lamp or the pictures on the walls. If I try to settle him back down he protests enough to wake up the entire street. He spits out his dummy and screeches if I try to cradle him back to sleep. He doesn't want to look at his mobile either.

Ideally, I'd like to pop him in his cot and ignore him until he settles himself since he doesn't want feeding but I'm aware of disturbing sleeping DH and that he's not old enough to cry it out (although he's not really crying, just shouting in an annoyed "come and cuddle me" voice.

Any tips? Do I indulge him and cuddle him for an hour or do I leave him to shout it out? Am I teaching him that if he shouts mummy will always come or is he too young for that?

The other problem is that if he does feed at 4 or 5 am after being awake for an hour he doesn't want his breakfast. Its now 9am and he's still not interested in his bottle which is a bugger when I'm trying to get him into some sort of routine.

Please help!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Shmumty · 15/11/2011 12:53

If I were you I would go to him and pick him up if needed, but leave his room completely dark. So the message is "if you cry we won't ignore you, but it will be boring as hell and no way that mummy is going to play games with you".

nethunsreject · 15/11/2011 12:55

He's tiny. He is looking for his Mummy for reassurance. Keep it boring, yes, but cuddle him up with you and go back to sleep. Babies sleep is lighter at that part of the night, so they sometimes need your presence to reassure them.

cbawden · 15/11/2011 15:40

Is he actually asleep during his dream feed? If so, try waking him and letting him have a little awake time at that point. Or perhaps drop the dream feed altogether and that way if he wakes in the night you might just be able to feed him back to sleep.

AnnieDelores · 15/11/2011 16:33

i had thought about dropping the dream feed to see what happens..........but i was hoping he would eventually sleep through till 6am!

OP posts:
beckieperk · 15/11/2011 18:51

I'd try dropping the dream feed too. If it doesn't work tonight start it again tomorrow. Nothing lost. I tried a dream feed with mine...but he still woke for his late feed at his 'usual' time at 12 o'clock. So was just an extra feed. My ds is up half the night anyway at the moment......so maybe don't listen to my advice!! Ha. Grin The joys of motherhood. GrinGrin

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