Aaaargh

[gfw01]

Hi there...any advice welcome or stating anything obvious that I'm missing in my sleep deprived state gratefully received.

DS, 6 months old, has this routine now of waking at 3am. It's the same every night:

• he whimpers
• thrashes his head from side to side
• kicks his legs up in the air

I can hear him building himself up so I resettle by straightening out his sleeping bag, check nappy, reapplying dummy if needed. He'll settle for a minute or so and then this repeats. And repeats. And repeats.

He genuinely looks like he wants to get back to sleep but can't and his whimpers grow more and more frustrated.

And although he doesn't do a full on hunger cry, on the times every time I've eventually picked him up and fed him, he's had a good feed. He's not necessarily gone to sleep straight away but he's certainly less frantic.

This goes on for hours.

So last night, I resettled him three times and then fed him
Tonight I'm going to resettle 4 times before I pick him up and feed him and so on.

Am I missing anything? Is there anything you'd do differently?

Sorry for the long rambling post!
Thank you

I'd say he's hungry. Did he previously sleep through?

Is this the only time he wakes? Moving his head side to side sounds like a hunger cue
I would give him a good feed and back to sleep

And ask him to speak to ds who at the same age has been up hourly for the last 2 nights!

Yes - then he went through what I presume was a growth spurt and was feeding every 2 hours. That lasted for several weeks.

I just don't want to make this a habit. But then he's only 6 months old....

Dyslmimi - ok now I feel a little less sorry for myself! You poor thing.

I think I'm going to feed him. I couldn't decide whether it was a hungry cue or he was just uncomfortable.

Absolutely winging this parenting malarkey.

Thanks - I'm praying it's a very small blip and he can try and improve soon!!! He wasn't this bad before. Although I typically don't have sleepy children! I need to work on some sled settling not feeding to sleep all the time - but that's a whole new thread
Hopefully if your da has a good feed eventually you can push that feed later and later till it's a morning one? Good luck!

thrashes his head from side to side

My eldest used to do this (quite violently actually) as a tired sign. Having said that i do agree with the PP above, if 'dummy won't do' I would suggest a feed.

It's not unusual to see an increase in night feed around early weaning age. Try to make sure you don't replace milk feeds, keep solids in addition to milk (for now), not instead of.

My DD who's 4 months wakes between 3am-5am every night. She's on formula and doesn't feed during the night. She just seems to be going through a stage of not being able to settle herself once she wakes up. I spent a few nights of constantly soothing and replacing the dummy, but realised I was getting less sleep than when she used to feed in the night, so now I just put her in my bed (safely) when she wakes and she goes straight back to sleep until about 7am. I know that this sort of co sleeping isn't recommended, but it works for us.