3 month old using me as a human dummy to get herself back to sleep at 5am!

[barefeete]

My 3 month old has been waking for a feed every morning between 4 and 5:30 am for weeks. She used to be able to go through to 6:30 but then started waking earlier and earlier. Now realised that she just wants to suck to get herself back to sleep as she dosn't feed for long. I think i need to let her cry it out a bit but I tend to feed her as i have a 21 month old and don't want her to wake him up at that time. Any suggestions? What about giving her water in a bottle? Read this somewhere but not sure i can be bothered to faff around with this at 5am! Also she isn't waking for the milk just the sucking so think this would be usless!

Give her a dummy. DD used one for a month from this age and the ditched it.

Gave her a dummy from 3 weeks and have now got rid of it as she can't soothe herself and sucks the dummy and then spits it out. This has been a real problem for me having to run upstairs all the time to put the dummy back in again and again and again. Also she would wake up in the night to get me to put in back for her. So I am now trying to get her to find her own method. Did this with DS but didn't seem to have so many issues with him. He was a great napper whilst she naps for 20 mins max!

Help her find her thumb then - thumbs don't get thrown on the floor

Thanks she does look like she is finding her fingers but standing there at 4:30 am putting her fingers into her mouth and then watch as she gets frustrated and crys is not an inspiring plan for me, i will do it but just wanted to see if anyone had any other support for me.

I know it's frustrating but you must remember from the first one that you have these few weeks and then suddenly everything changes - sometimes for the better - sometimes for the worse, but it's not forever (though it may feel that way).

I don't agree with so called controlled crying or leaving babies to cry so I can't help you with that. You could try water in a bottle, it's not much faff if you make some up the night before.

You have checked the obvious things - like round here it's light by 5am and that work DD up until we got blackout blinds? I'm just thinking if she was going till 6:30 till we changed the clocks, perhaps she hasn't actually changed at all?

I'm now depressed!

3mo is too young for cc anyway. I think you will have to ride this one out. Sorry. She may actually need the feed at that time - however small it may seem. Does she go back to sleep after that? I bet the restless night and inability to nap int he day are linked. Sleep begets sleep I have heard. incidentally my ds was just the same but woke frequently throughout the night just to comfort suck back to sleep until i did cc at 8mo. It was depressing being so tired and feeling helpless wiht regard to what to do but i don't know what you realistacally could do at this young an age. I sound really useless! sorry

Barefeete why not help her find her thumb during the daytime, and then she may find it herself at night?

She's still very very young and I would say categorically that the only and best thing you can do is to feed her, full stop.

IME the less you worry about it and the more you go with the flow the less it tires you out. Why don't you just bring her into bed with you when she wakes up in the early hours, then drift back to sleep while she's feeding?

It won't be forever.

emkana - hear hear!

emkana - thanks, that is what is happening. She normally will come in to bed with me around 4:30am for a feed and we will both go back to sleep together. But she is only feeding for a minute or 2. Lats night she fed at 3am, 5am and then 7:30am. The 3am was a big feed and then at 5am she just fed for literaly 1 min and then fell asleep and then had a normal feed again at 7:30am again.

Anyway cheers to all for your help, really appreciate it.

day time sleeps have got MUCH better in the last 48 hours - she is still sleepsin gnow after 1 hur and 10 mins! Longest ever sleep!!!!! Think a proper day time sleep routine will help night time. also she is starting to find fingers so hope that works .

Yes this is happening to me right now! My 14 wk DS1 wakes at 3am for a feed then at 4am for a comfort suck. Its really annoying arghhhhhhhh!!! Have tried feeding him and putting him back it works yes but I want to try get rid of that feed because he's not even sucking so NO he does not need to feed at that age etc etc.
Anyhow, last night he fussed but didn't even really want to be awake so I rode it out for 5 mins when he feel asleep he had another small fuss at 5am but went back to sleep till 7am Result! he was his usual happy self and didn't want his morning feed until the usual time (7.30am)
Its a body clock thing and if they don't get too upset I'd try waiting a bit each time to see how much they want it.
Sometimes I think they wake up because of the boobie not because they need it.
Cosleeping is alright if you like that sort of thing but its not for me and I'd rather get up and see to babs,so interested to see what will happen tonight.
Good Luck with yours!

I agree with Emkana wholeheartedly. My ds2 is 25 weeks almost and still feeds4-5imes a night. I've accepted this is how it is as he's been the same since birth. It won't last forever I also have a dd 5 and ds1 3. Ds2 feeds a lot during the day as well but is slowly cutting down. He sucks his thumb sometimes and it was funny the other night as he started rooting for me and so I got my boob out and rolled towards him and heard him start sucking. I realised that he wasn't sucking me but his thumb hehe, lasted about a minute before he spat it out as it wasn't producing any milk lol so I then fed him. We co-sleep too which makes a huge difference imo and ime.

I feed Dd at 5 am and am just happy that she goes back to sleep.