Increased night waking

[tealandteal]

DS is 4 months old, nearly 5. He is bf and had been in the habit of waking once or twice a night for a feed. He then went a few days of feeding 4/5 times in the night but I thought fine, growth spurt or whatever. However the last two nights he has woken once for a feed but 2/3 times just to cry. Some of the time he doesn't even seem to be awake and seems he is crying in his sleep! Is this the 4 month sleep regression, or something else? Is there anything I can do?

Where is he sleeping? Does he want a take a feed if offered? Personally I'd just latch him on lying down, keep everything dark and quiet and try to get everyone back to sleep as quickly as possible.

Dd (6 months) goes through phases where this happens. From memory she had 3 days of waking up every 50 minutes at 4 months, crying but not hungry or anything. It could be the regression, might be teething (at this point i stopped trying to diagnose tbh). I just settled her with a dummy and she went back to sleep. It stopped as suddenly as it started.

He sleeps in his cot, but he won't take a feed at all. Hoping for a better night tonight!

Yeah my DS did this at about the same time. It's hard but it does get better. Just keep it dark, quiet, offer reassurance as pp have said. And if you think it's teething then some gel and Calpol will help.

There's this assumption that baby's only wake in the night you feed. That may be true in the first couple of months, but past 3 months and it's reasonable to assume you should be able to get baby back to sleep without feeding.

Do you have a way to get baby to sleep without feeding?

I used to put dummy in baby's mouth and snuggle close (in sidecar cot). A good 80% of the time baby would be back to sleep doing this within 10 mins - quicker than a feed and no extra effort. If not back to sleep with a 10 min dummy snuggle, then I'd feed.

"...There's this assumption that babies only wake in the night to feed..."

Fate - I wouldn't agree with that for breastfed babies as it is digested very quickly.

Quickly copied from sarah okwell Smith's site:

Many sleep experts claim that infants no longer require night feeds after six months of age. This is an incredibly naive belief. Nobody knows when a child is capable for sleeping long stretches of time without milk apart from the child itself. In addition this belief assumes that the night feed is providing nothing more than nutrition. The reality however is that night feeding allows a complex mix of emotional and physical needs to be met. The actual reality of night weaning readiness occurs at some point between six months and four years of age.

OP - for us everything went to pot at 4 months for a while in the sleep regression. We have had a couple of strange events in the last year where my daughter has been inconsolable, doesn't seem awake and won't feed (which usually always calms her). I put it down to a night terror or something, it's only happened about 4 times but very different to normal wakings. I can't remember if it happened that young though.

Could be teething, perhaps try some calpol tonight to see if it helps.

But other than that, it's probably one of those things that you need to ride out.

Sorry Fate - reread and see that you're saying that feeding is not the only reason they wake. But that they still might need feeding. I agree with that - many reasons they might wake. Feeding would be my quick go to solution and when that didn't work I was stumped!

BergamotMouse - Sarah OS is by no means The Oracle. Remember her website is a commercial business to sell her books.

But anyway - as you pointed out. I'm advocating settling without feeding first. Not to not feed at all, just to see if baby can be settled without a feed. That is how night weaning works, after all.

Feeding would be my quick go to solution

And dummy would be mine

('cos I'm a massive advocate of independant sleeping)

We tried the calpol, but no different last night. He woke a couple of times just needing to be picked up, settled and put back once calm. He only feeds to sleep on the feed at 9, otherwise I do shush/pat or rock him if that fails. However these night wakings go from 0-100 in a few seconds so shush pat doesn't do anything. I know he can do a longer period which I think makes it worse somehow.

I do try to settle him before offering a feed but I've never tried him with a dummy.