Mum at breaking point...

[Mummy081212]

Hello and thanks for reading. I am a mum to a six-year-old boy and also a 12 week old boy. My six-year-old boy has always been an exceptional sleeper and I knew I was very lucky that he slept through from eight weeks old and even now we rarely have problems with him sleeping. My 12 week old is a completely different kettle of fish! He did manage to get himself into a nice routine of sleeping 9:30 PM to 4:30 AM waking for a feed and then going back down till around 6:30 AM. However, the past few nights he’s been going down at 9:30 PM as usual but waking continually from around 12:20 AM until it’s time to get up in the morning. He has a dummy and is also on ranitidine for silent reflux. His mattress is propped up and we always going into him when he cries. He is in his own room. Does anyone have any experience of this or have any ideas that I could try to try and get my good little sleeper back?

It's possibly a growth spurt at 12 weeks. Possibly if you always go in to him when he wakes he's now used to that. Does he settle easily? Can you just rub his yummy to get him back to sleep? Is he taking more feeds? Do you swaddle him?

Does his ranitidine need reassessing? If he has grown the dose may need to be increased. If it's too low it won't be as effective as before.

Could be 4-month sleep regression kicking in a bit early, where sleep goes entirely to hell to a few weeks.

I would try loud white noise and swaddling (or removing swaddle if he already is). Also would try doing what you need to maximise your own sleep, including moving him back in your room so you don’t have to be moving between rooms every time he wakes.

Thanks both for your replies. I am concerned about the dummy thing. He settles with his dummy but I don’t want him relying on that which he currently is. I am offering him feeds when he won’t settle but he doesn’t take much. We don’t swaddle him but he does thrash his arms around a lot when he is waking.

I upped his ranitidine only yesterday as I spoke to a Midwofe whose daughter is also on it and her weight is slightly less that my son and she’s on more. He’s now on 0.5ml 3 x a day.

It’s so frustrating as literally a few nights ago we were celebrating such a fantastic little routine. I sobbed and sobbed at 4am this morning - finding it all so hard x

Thank you 53rdway - I may try a swaddle. White noise hasn’t worked so far but I suppose anything is worth a try. I did consider moving him back but was worried it’s create more problems putting him in his room again?

If he's experiencing reflux discomfort and the dummy soothes him I wouldn't overthink that. Nature sounds may help( waves or thunderstorms). Maybe you could check with your gp that he's prescribed the maximum dose for his weight. Reflux does disturb sleep, even though at this age it's normal to expect some wakings and some difficult nights. Have you explored milk protein allergy as a possible cause of the reflux?

I have two DS’s the same ages, congratulations.

DS1 had silent reflux and was prescribed both ranitidine and infant gaviscone, this seemed to help him, maybe worth discussing with your hv or gp?

DS1 wasn’t the best sleeper and DS2 seems to be following that same trend 🙄

Hope you get it resolved x

UPDATE: 14 weeks on Tuesday and no better. We’re on the maximum dose of ranitidine and have a referral to a Peadiatrian re: possible allergies. Been advised that with babies like this l, weaning early is an option.

He’s 14 weeks old. My 2 year old still sleeps like this. Reflux or not, I think your unusual sleeper in number 1 may have given you false expectations of what normal infant sleep is actually like.

Mines like this and we still have bad nights of virtually no sleep at 18 months (sorry not what you want to hear). Mines got cmpa, had reflux, I just take the easier option for the most sleep. I think some babies just aren’t good sleepers no matter what you do, I wasn’t as a baby but my brother was.
Once ds got to 7 months I started co sleeping and that helped. He gets his dummy whenever he wants.
I do run through a list of possibilities for no sleep frequently: is he cold, teething, ill, hungry. As they get older fresh air, exercise, spacing feeds out (post 6 months ) so they get used to longer periods between feeds and therefore sleep longer. Managing nap times carefully.

Why is he in his own room? Surely he should
Be in with you at that age to protect against SIDS. His behaviour is normal for his age, and accepting it rather than rallying against it I suspect will help you a great deal. Sorry

Why is he in his own room at 12 weeks? He should be in with you to guard against SIDS.

Sleep isint linear and as pp says you’ll just have to ride it out. My five month old twins were great sleepers until three weeks ago and now my boy twin is awake every hour from midnight. It’s really really hard, but we just have to believe that it won’t last forever.