3 mnth old not sleeping, pls help

[sleepyhope]

My 3 month old son is not sleeping at night, he generally wakes 2 to 3 times for feeding, but last night it was every two hours. I just feed him and he goes back off, do you think he needs food? Comfort? Don't know really what to do, v.tired!
He is a big boy at 13 weeks (14lb), so not sure if he really does need feeding. Should I introduce a bottle??
Any ideas?
Thanks
xx

Is it too early to wean him a little? - Four months is the start isn't it? Maybe introducing a bottle as his last feed at night, if not to give you a break, but to help fill him up? Plenty of people breast feed and bottle feed at the same time so it might work for you. Good luck

Ems,plenty find that it makes no difference whatsoever,and messes up their breastfeeding totally,so be verey careful Sleepy.

Weaning early is a waste of time too-far more calories in breastmilk than in baby rice.

He may be going through a growth spurt?? The constant feeding is a way of boosting your supply and it should calm down soon.

Can you rest in the day some more?

If he sleeps a lot in the day,try waking to squeeze in some extra feeds.

How about expressing? HAVE YOU TRIED THAT SO you could go to bed earl occasionally and have an interrupted snooze with someone else taking over.

I sympathise.I had an amazing non sleeping baby too.

How does he fall off to sleep? Do you put him down awake for him to fall asleep himself? If not he could just be rousing every 2 hours or so and need a suck to get back off to sleep.
My 3.5 month old girl now sleeps for 12 hours without a feed, she's average size and is totally bottle fed. Does he feed lots in the day too? As you're doing so well breastfeeding I wouldn't introduce a bottle, express to get some rest, it's probably more of a comfort thing than actually needing food. Can you leave him to cry a bit after you know he's had a decent feed?

Well, he does feed every two hours or so during the day, and I'm fine with that, no probs. Last night he fed at 19.30, then again at 22.00, so when he woke again at 12.15 I got my husband to try to give him some formula and comfort him to sleep. My baby was having none of this,(not crying though) so at 1am I took him back, gave him the booby, which he fed off for about 10 mins and then fell asleep all warm and happy. So not sure if it is comfort or not, he did wake again at 2 and then at 6 for feeding.
Its very hard as I really want to just breastfeed him, but then again my need for some sleep is great, as you know that sleep deprivation makes everything seem 10 times worse.

My 3.5 month old girl is the same she could drink 6oz before bedtime and will still wake up 2 or 3 times during the night, sometimes a soother is enough to get her off but more often than not she wants a feed, i've tried to give her water but she was having none of it. I think maybe she's not getting enough food during the day but really doesn't seem interested, she hardly ever cries for food so I really have to guess when she's hungry and then sometimes she only has 2 or 3 oz's. I feel like i've tried everything and just have to wait for her to start sleeping through the night herself!

I had the same thing with my son. I introduced a formula feed at night which filled him up and he slept for 8 hours! It was bliss!

When he did wake up in the night he would often think he is hungary when really he is not and he just wanted to suck on something, we found a dummy that works really well - its an orthadonic one, he only had it when he is tired as it was just the sucking that he wanted rather than the food.

Give this a try and see what happens, you need your sleep or everything seems rubbish!

Don't worry - it's just a phase he's going through...I promise! Yes, introducing a bottle is good as it just removes potential problems in the future of him rejecting the bottle. Teach when they're too young to object!

So: my son was very similar - waking at 12am, 3am, 4.30am and 7am - stupidly i kept feeding him as pullling out the boob is so simple! BUT it's also a bit silly especially when you know he was only feed a couple of hours earlier (and a healthy boy at 14lb!!)

This is what I did:

1. Fed him 6 oz of formula at the 7pm feed then offer him to boob.
2. Give him the dummy at 12am and invest 10 minutes getting him back to sleep. If he wouldn't settle, then I'd give him the boob.
3. Don't give him any more boob until at least 5am as he's not hungry - just looking for some comfort and IT'S SO EASY TO BREAK THIS HABIT! HOW? JUST DON'T FEED HIM! A few nights later my son stopped waking for the comfort suck!

He's now 5 months, and he sleeps from 7pm til 4am, he drinks 5 oz of formula and starts his day at 7am. Not perfect but I'm ok with it and he's pushing that 4am feed back each week.

Good luck. Remember: it's a short term problem! We're all fortunate enough to have these little munchkins!

we had the same - husband used to pick her up to comfort and this sometimes worked. however he works 12-14 hr days so only really helped at w/e. then all of a sudden it stopped! we used a dummy in the evenings and occ at night. she didn't really need feeding but i agree it's a lot easier to just get a boob out as you know you can just get back to sleep. it was a fairly sudden change with our dd - i never believed anyone when they said this to me! hth (she's now the magic 12 weeks....)