How do I get my 3 month old to sleep through?

[scampadoodle]

I know this won't seem like much of a problem to some of you out there, but it's driving me mad anyway!
DS2 is on the whole a lovely, fairly 'easy' baby - much better than DS1. But he is showing absolutely no signs of sleeping through the night, despite getting more than enough food during the day, up to about 10pm (at least 30oz -he's bottle-fed, so I know exactly how much he gets). To cut a long story short, even if he has a huge feed at 10-11pm, he still wakes up at 2ish & then at around 5. The other night he wasn't hungry at 2 & went back to sleep fairly easily & woke again at 6, when I fed him. Last night was back to normal & despite having had 7oz barely 3 hours before, he woke at 1.30 screaming for food. I tried to stave him off - giving him the dummy, water, pats & strokes but finally gave in & gave him just 2oz at 3am. He then went back to sleep quite happily, but only until 5.45. He wasn't hungry then but moaned enough to keep me awake until, as usual, I took him into bed with me in his room (DH is too restless a sleeper for the baby to sleep with us). This happens every night, I'm not getting more than 2hrs sleep at a time & I'm exhausted, especially with a VERY demanding toddler. I should add, having fed in the night, he's then not bothered about breakfast. After his 2oz at 3am he then didn't feed til nearly 9 which suggests to me he doesn't need that early hours feed. I'm so desperate, I'm thinking of hiring a maternity nurse for a few nights to sleep train him as I'm too tired to have the resolve. What do people think?

I feel your exhaustion. DS didn't sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night until he was 8 months old. We tried everything! He was simply a hungry baby is all i can figure. Anyway, it was only 10 or 15 minutes and he would drop right off again. Still, getting up that often took its toll. DH and I began to alternate getting up with him and occasionally one of us would sleep in the guest room to recharge. Amazing what just one night of unbroken sleep will do for you.

Twiglett: My mum, my gran, 3 of my friends, my cousin, 1 colleague from work, Tracy Hoggs, Dr Ferber, Clare Byam-Cook (+ many other care books), a lot of mums from mumsnet and yes, GF amongst others.

Yes, but Celou, your baby hasn't read any of those books. Believe me, lots and lots and lots of babies really aren't ready/don't sleep all night at three months. And IME you can drive yourself mad by thinking something is wrong if your baby doesn't conform to a completely artificial timetable. My son certainly didn't conform, he didn't sleep through until much later, and has slept wonderfully ever since. These people aren't gods and they have never met your special, particular, individual baby.

Woodstock: I now just feed him when he wakes - saves me grief if he's genuinely hungry. & like your baby, he zonks out again straight after so it is only 15 minutes. I'm just hoping he'll grow out of it soon. Last night he went to bed at 7.15 & didn't wake again til 2.30! (But I hadn't gone to bed til 11) Although we were at the seaside so it was probably all that lovely ozone...:)

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I hope that's helping you get some rest. It is so awful to be living like a zombie on no sleep for weeks and months. A friend of mine said that she started watering down the milk progressively over time and weaned her dd off of the night feeds that way. I tried it for a while and didn't see any difference with ds and for some reason dh thought it was an appalling thing to do so I stopped.

DD was losing interest in the 5.00am feed, but still waking up for it, so little by little I introduced a bit of cooled boiled water before the feed, and she has now dropped it all together (provided she has a good feed at 11.00pm.). She can go 7/8 hours through the night now.
I felt a bit cruel giving her water to start with, as I felt I was "short changing" her. However my health visitor advised me to give her water to loosen her stools, so I thought "why not give it to her at 5.00am?". And it worked.
A lot of people seem to be against it, but there's nothing wrong with guiding your baby towards eating more during the day and sleeping more during the night. In fact it's more like doing him a favour as he will have to do that sooner or later anyway, so why not sooner rather that later?

So he’s 17 now, does he sleep through the night? 😆

He's 3 months not 3 years. The vast majority don't sleep through, and if they do it's awesome luck (whilst it lasts). Just a case of grin and bear it. We've all been there, and most of us for a long time.

It's kind of what babies do, I don't think it's fair to try to train them out of it, especially when barely out of the womb.

Lol, zombie...