3mo waking every 2 hours at night but NOT hungry

[DangerMousey]

Gah - what is going ok? DS, formula fed, wa doing really well an sleeping pretty much through from 10pm - 7pm. But last night he woke at 1am, 3am, 5am and then up for the day at 7am. Am knackered!

He is not hungry when he wakes in the night - and he doesn't really get going with the crying...it's more like low level grizzling and last even some cooing/chattering away to himself. Which is cute at 7am...not so much when it's 5am.

I spend the whole night hopping in and out of bed to put his dummy in (which usually does soothe him back off to sleep for a couple of hours).

What can I do about this? DH is keen that we should just ignore him (as long as he doesn't progress to full on crying of course) so he can learn to settle himself back down again. But I am worried he will just get worked up without his dummy, and then harder and harder to settle.

How can I encourage him to sleep for longer periods? Anyone else overcome this?

How do you know he isn't hungry?

I know he's not hungry because:

• this has been going on for over a week now and at several points in the night I have offered him a bottle and he is not interested.

• When i give him his dummy he does settle back off to sleep. If he was hungry he would spit his dummy out across the room and step the crying up another notch (classic hungry behaviour from my DS!).

• When he wakes up for the day at around 7am he is not interested in a bottle nor does he display any signs of hunger (no crying) until at least 8am. So if he's not hungry at 7am he is sure as hell not hungry at 5!

• his cries are different: when he is hungry he really yells. This is more of a bored grizzle. Like he wants some company.

Might be the dummy. Falls out, baby wakes, baby panics, can't find dummy, waaaah. Repeat every 2 hours. If you can take dummy away he may learn to self-settle but he is still v little.

Was he cold? My DS wakes a lot if he is chilly x

Possibly he is hitting the dreaded 4 month sleep regression a bit early. Dd slept beautifully up until 3.5 months...sigh...

Hmmm, thanks narmada I think you;re right, there is deffo an element of dummy loss in there! I think we may have to go cold turkey on the dummy at some point. Not sure I feel brave enough yet though!

Not sure he's cold battery - he always feels nice and toasty warm when I get him out of his grobag in the morning. But not too hot.

Gah hearmeroar, what is this dreaded regression all about then? Is it food related?? Ie do they usually start feeding at night again? Or do they just get unsettled?? And how long does it last??

If he is only grizzling then i personally wouldnt pick him up. leave him and see if he eventually will settle himself. unless of course he gets upset. my ds is six months and this has worked well with him. at first i may have rubbed his belly for a bit of comfort but then putting his monitor music on settles him too. But he is very good at settling himself now and he doesnt have a dummy

My twins are 22 weeks now and both went through this stage at about 3 months. Waking and wanting their dummies put back in. I remember counting that I got up 17 times in one night! To be honest, after a couple of weeks of this, they went back to their good sleeping pattern. DT2 now sucks her thumb so can self settle, I was so pleased when she learned that new trick! With DT1 we slowly stopped offering the dummy. Firstly, stopped offering outside the bedroom then only in the cot, now we give it to her and she spits it out and is quite happy without it. Maybe you could try that.

Oh, and the 4 month sleep regression, we didn't have that!