12 week growth spurt? Will not settle.

[ampersandand]

DS is 12 weeks tomorrow.
At around 8 weeks he would be sleeping from around 8pm after waking once or twice and resettling. I was able to put him in his cot after a night time feed (breastfeed) around 3/4am and he would settle back to sleep without fuss until 6/7am

The last 3 nights he has woken earlier, 12/1am and been difficult to resettle.

He's never been good at sleeping in his cot during the day, his day time naps are spent generally on my chest if he is to have any sleep at all and it's usually feeding to sleep.

His nap in the morning the past couple days has been 20 minutes before he wakes up crying, wanting to feed then sleeping for another 20 minutes or so, then by around 3pm he has finally settled for 2 hours.

Tonight he has been extremely unsettled, started bed time routine at around 7pm and since then when put in his cot he has woken up hysterical. Fed after 45 minutes of soothing each time and fingers crossed has finally settled after almost 4 hours.

Does this sound like a growth spurt or is this more down to the fact that I'm feeding him to sleep and letting him sleep on me during the day?

Any advice would be appreciated so much. I would love to have him sleeping well in the day and not feeding to sleep but he works himself up so much I end up giving in.

First time mum also and feeling like I'm a bit rubbish.

Hi, you responded to my other thread and I found your post here.
Please don't feel rubbish! Babies sleep varies so much. I think some respond well to training and changes but for some it's just how they are, it's nothing you've done wrong. I tried everything with my first DS and nothing worked but he eventually got better at sleeping in his own time.
There is the so called 4 month sleep regression which can start early for some babies. Their sleep basically goes to pot during a developmental leap. This is when things started getting really bad for me but they've never got better. Most people find they just have a few bad weeks and then things settle down again so fingers crossed this is what will happen for you.
If it helps I've never been able to get either of my 2 boys back to sleep without feeding them and it just feels like the natural thing to do, especially if they won't take a dummy or anything.
At the moment for me things couldn't get any worse so hopefully the only way is up?! I really hope things improve for you soon!

Hi DS1 is 12 wks on Friday and I'm also facing a few of these issues. I just can't get him to nap more that 30 mins in the day even though he'll happily go into his crib and doze off quickly. A few weeks ago he'd do a 2 hour nap at lunchtime.....he's also gone from sleeping roughly 8pm/2am/5.30am to 8pm/12.30/3.30am which is killing me as I take a while to get to sleep and I found the 4+ hour gaps much easier to cope with! Hoping it's a phase.....

We managed to settle him quite easily last night at 8. He then woke at 1:30 and 4:45 then up at 6:30. He fed on both breasts both times which he has never done before at night. I have since noticed that he's been very interested in his feet when before he never noticed them and has been almost trying to sit himself forward in his bouncy chair by straining his head and shoulders forward. I'm guessing that it is the growth spurt and brain needing more food for the new developments. So hopefully once the growth spurt is over he will go back to waking up once in the night!