15 weeks old- sleep regression? Teething? Arghhh

[AubreyBeardsley]

A few weeks ago my baby was having his last feed at about 9pm and sleeping through 4/5/6 hours, feeding again and going back down until about 6.30. In the last few weeks he's been waking up more and more, he's now getting maybe one stretch of 3 hours then up every hour, chewing furiously on his hands usually.

He feeds some of his wake ups and doesn't at others, I don't offer boob every time because I know he's not hungry after 45 minutes. He spits his dummy out, thrashes about, farts, slams his legs up and down, gurgles, grizzles. He seems wide awake whereas he used to just drowsily half wake up for his feed. He's got reflux and is on ranitidine. He's also been dribbling non stop in the day so wondering if he's teething? Or having a growth spurt and is hungry a lot? He feeds every 2 hours during the day.

He sleeps in a next to me crib so I reach over and cuddle him, white noise, put dummy back in etc but it doesn't stop him waking up again an hour later.

Not sure if there's something obvious I should be doing differently but I'm so tired I'm not really with it 🤷🏻‍♀️

My LO is now 6 months, she now sleeps through 7.30-7 ebf. But the 4 month sleep regression was hard and she went through a period of being up 6-10 times a night. I did a few things - anbasol liquid, do you have some? If not go to the pharmacy and get some, works wonders for teething. I also moved my LO into her own room at this age in her cot, took away her dummy as that’s what was waking her when it fell out, cluster fed in the afternoon and bf before her bath, then around 7.20 bf and put her down in her cot, I then dreamfed around 10-10.30 and even on day one of that she only woke once I the night, it got better every day and she was sleeping right through within a very short space so now I have had several weeks of a full night sleep I can actually function.

I think babies are just unpredictable and change their sleep habits whenever they feel like it for at least the first year ! There is a well documented 4 month sleep regression if you like reading about those kinds of things , by baby three I made the decision to stop trying to find a reason , accept it was going to be changeable and just ride it out as I drove myself mad searching for the magic cure. It's so so hard but it does get better.

Mine did this around 16-17 weeks. It lasted about a week then improved again. On the worst night he woke 2 hours after I put him to bed, then roughly every hour after that. A week later we were back to waking 1-2x per night.

This happened to my DS around the same age....that was 2 months ago and it’s still going on. In fact it got worse - he used to have that longer sleep to start the night (maybe 2.5-3 hours), but now it’s from the get go, every hour or less. He’s coming up to 5 months old and two teeth have already come through - but i don’t think it’s that. I think it’s the 4 month sleep regression with my son. I have been driving myself mad looking for answers. Some suggest riding it out, others sleep training.

So far something will work once and then not again. One thing though - I’ve had a lot of people suggest I start weaning early because he’s a big boy and that’ll help - it’s not the answer and the world health organisation does not recommend weaning until around 6 months. I found being told he’s hungry all the time quite stressful.

Thank you all, I'll defo try the teething stuff and maybe see if he wants to feed more in the afternoons. Seems like I may just have to ride some of it out and hope it's just a short lived stage! Feel like I got lulled into a false sense of security after the exhausting newborn days and now it's like he's 2 weeks old again.

@Chester1980 do you breastfeed or bottle feed? Mine is quite chunky too, was small when born but doubled his birth weight within 12 weeks. I was debating adding some formula in to see if it will fill him up more, plus make his dad do the feeding to let me get more sleep as all night wake ups are done by me at the moment 😩

My DD is the same. See the Wonder Weeks and kellymom-babies go through this regression because there is just so much happening developmentally, they need more food/energy and are quite stimulated so wake more. Adding formula/baby cereal at this point will likely only contribute to more wake ups and possibly tummy issues. It’s not that they’re not getting enough to eat really it’s just that they need your more developmentally now.