when your 6wo FF baby wakes in the night but is fully fed/clean bum....

[DangerMousey]

....what could it mean??

DS is formula fed so I know his little tummy is full, and his nappy is clean.

He has night bottles like a textbook baby (last night at 2330, 0345 and 0730), BUT he sleeps really badly in between them, waking up crying/grizzling/moaning every hour/90 mins or so throughout the night. It is not his hungry cry and he is not chewing his hands or making any of his other hungry cues so I am pretty sure he is not hungry.

The only bit of the night he sleeps really well through is the 8pm - 1130pm bit, which is really annoying. I wouldnt mind being awake then, but it's the constant up-down-out-of-bed at 0200 - 0600 which is killing me!

What could be wrong with him?? My dh reckons he has wind, and when we pumped his legs this morning in the wee small hours some farts did come out....

has anyone else had a DC who sleeps like this?? ie badly??

There's nothing wrong with him, he's 6 weeks old!!

He may just want comfort and company. Until 6 weeks ago, he was always inside you! Is he sleeping far from you?

At 6 weeks he might not if established what's night and day and be waking up to get up, can he see you from his cot / Moses basket? That might help

don't all babies sleep like that! mine did! And for a lot longer than 6 weeks dd has just begun sleeping through age 18 months

ah, ok, thanks for the reality check ladies!! I guess I am expecting too much from him, too young!

I guess I am looking for solutions/things I can 'fix' but if that's just what babies do then I guess I just need to live with it! I think i stupidly thought that if he had a nice full tummy, was warm but not hot, and had a clean bum, he might sleep for 2-3 hours uninterrupted.

(I guess those more experience mums out there will be pissing themselves reading this, at my PFB naivety!!).

Make sure daytime is noisy and bright, and nighttime is peaceful and dark, it takes babies a while to realise that nighttime is for sleeping, as they don't know! Sounds completely normal and familiar. It will get easier!

it's good he's settling well for that evening sleep, OP.

With all 3 of mine, it was that evening sleep that they first got sorted, then gradually longer stretches at night, and finally the wake-ups between the long stretches stopped happening (the 4am-ish one being the last to go).

Your DS is much more advanced than any of mine were - they didn't get down to that uninterrupted evening sleep until 8+months (but they were BF and cluster-fed in the evening).

I know how hard it is with all those middle-of-the-night wakings! You have my sympathy - it will stop eventually. You're doing a great job giving him the comfort he needs - that will eventually result in him sleepign soundly.

I co-slept with mine so as not to have to keep getting up, but that's not for everyone, I know (and if you decide to try it, make sure you read all the safety guidelines first).

OP just to reassure you I did exactly the same with my PFB and she was a terrible sleeper, yours sounds like he's doing all the right things and will get there.

They're all so different. By contrast DD2 at 3 weeks is a brilliant little sleeper and we've done nothing different. Sounds though that wind might be an issue so perhaps raising the head of the Moses basket mattress a little might help or looking at other methods of winding after a feed (not just back patting).