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Is this sleep regression?

3 replies

Hellmouth · 09/12/2016 04:39

i am wondering if this is actually sleep regression, just the natural order of things, or if he might need more milk during the day.

DS is 5 months old, and has been sleeping 7-8 hours straight through the night since he was about 3 months old.

This week, it is taking us slightly longer to get him to bed for his night sleep, even after his night time feed, and he has woken up at 3-4am every single morning for a feed. In the past, if he did wake up, which wasn't often, I would cuddle him for a minute, then put him down and he would go back to sleep. When he wakes up now, I try that a couple of times, he relaxes for a minute then starts crying until i pick him up again. Once he's had a bottle, he then goes back to sleep.

His day time naps are still ok, except he has taken a liking to sleeping on our couch instead of his cot bed (he's now too big for his moses basket).

He is a big baby (verging on 91st percentile), and weighs around 9kg. The formula we have doesn't have an appropriate guide for his weight and age (it stops at 7.6kg for 5-6 months), so I have been going by NHS guidelines for formula (150 - 200 ml for each kg). This means he should have 1,350 ml - 1,800 ml per day. He usually has 5-6 bottles of 240 ml per day. I try to feed him every 3 hours, but sometimes he refuses a bottle, so it seems that he is getting enough.

At the moment, we don't have a napping and feeding schedule, I kind of just roll with it and look for his feeding and sleeping cues.

He is also teething at the moment, so could this be related?

Sorry if this is quite long!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
FATEdestiny · 09/12/2016 08:27

Sounds like he's hungry to me. For the first 6 months at least, a feed should be the go-to answer for any night wake. I'd spend maybe 5 minutes trying to settle baby without a feed and if that doesn't work then stop faffibg and just feed so baby gets back to sleep as quickly and easily as possible.

Feeding is not an exact science. Over-feeding is a non-issue up until you start weaning. Pre-6-months just follow your baby a needs.

At 5 months i was making my youngest (also 91st centil big baby) seven or eight 8oz bottles per day. She wasn't draining them all, so was having probably about 45-50oz a day. She was fed 2 to 2.5 hourly through the daytime, plus a dream feed when I went to bed.

Sometimes she'd have 7 bottles through the day plus one at 11pm ish. Sometimes (if she had more 2 1/2 h gaps between feeds) she'd have 6 bottles plus an 11pm feed.

DuggeeSchmuggee · 09/12/2016 08:32

Sounds like a sleep regression to me, my DS did something similar, going from sleeping about 7 hours straight to only sleeping from 10-5 overnight with two wakes for feeds.

Hellmouth · 09/12/2016 09:12

Thanks for the comments.

I have tried giving him more during the day, and will keep persisting.

For example, yesterday and the day before.

He had his final bottle around 10pm, but then it took over an hour before he was ready to sleep.

Then he had bottles at the following times

3am
8am

Then he slept through until about half 11. I tried to give him one at midday but he refused to take it.

Then 2pm
6pm (tried at 5, but he refused)
9pm

He wouldn't sleep, then he started making sucking motions around quarter to 11, so I gave him a bottle, which he had half of.

Then he was up at half 3 this morning! And then again at 8. At least I can see some kind of pattern.

I think I have been spoilt because he was sleeping from 11pm - 7 / 8 am every day until recently :D

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