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17wks old and his sleep has gone to pot - help!

7 replies

Holymoly321 · 15/01/2006 11:19

DS is 17 weeks and was sleeping from 7pm through to at least 5am without waking ~(very lucky I know!) but the past couple of weeks he's been waking up religiously between 2and 3am, wide awake, talking and singing to himself and then gradually getting more and more agitated until we give him his dummy again. He'll then wake up evey half hour or so when his dummy falls out. It then gets to 5/ 5.30am and we have to bring him into our bed just so that we all can get some sleep. He's quite a big baby for his age, must be around 18lbs now. He takes 8oz bottles at 7-7.30am, 11am, 2pm and 6pm wih perhaps around 3oz at 4pm if he's fretful. When he wakes during the night he's not crying for food. A friend has suggested we go back to giving him another feed at 11pm (which we'd stopped when he started to sleep through from 7pm). I'm not sure whether we should or not. Others have suggested we start to wean him, but I think I should wait unitl he's 6 monhts. Sorry to babble on, but this is driving us mad. What do others think? Should we go back to giving him a bottle at 11pm in the hope that he'll go back to sleeping through?

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
franch · 15/01/2006 12:11

Could try that smiling. IME sleep does go to pot around this age - hope you enjoyed the honeymoon period! DD2 is 18 weeks and no longer a champion sleeper - I'm just going with it for now, feeding her lying down and we both go back to sleep - I've noticed she's grown a lot too lately so reckon it is hunger, even tho up to 3 months she used to be able to sleep 8h straight. How do you know for sure your DS isn't hungry? Weaning unlikely to help IMO.
Sorry not to have a miracle cure but these things don't last long. Experiment, try not to obsess, do what makes life easy for you and throw away any books in the house that have the words Baby, Little, Book and Contented on the cover ...

Holymoly321 · 15/01/2006 14:00

THanks franch - I'll give feeding him at 11 again a go and see what happens. Fingers crossed!

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Berrie · 15/01/2006 14:50

My 15 week old is waking now every 2 to 3 hours and has been for a month. She used to sleep through and we were so pleased but its all gane wrong. So I can't help but feel better to know it's not just us!

MuddlingThru · 15/01/2006 20:54

Not unusual for sleep to take a backwards step at this age. I would re-introduce the dreamfeed just so that when he wakes in the night you can be confident that it is not due to hunger and focus your efforts on re-settling him back to sleep. If he starts messing about with his morning feed you can always cut the dream feed back or cut it out again.

Holymoly321 · 16/01/2006 11:27

We thought about feeding him again at 11pm but then the past two nights he's gone back to sleeping through until 5am, so will hold off on it again until he decides that he's going to start waking up at all hours again! Thanks everyone for your advice. I guess it's true what they say, 'everything is a phase!'

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vivie · 16/01/2006 20:43

Is he waking beause he wants his dummy - does he always fall asleep with it in his mouth? If so this may be your problem and cold turkey may be the solution. Could be stressful in the short term though.

Holymoly321 · 16/01/2006 22:37

when he wakes it sometimes is because he wants his dummy. Not sure we're ready to go cold turkey yet though!

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