Help my 15wk old is waking every 2hrs through the night and has been for last 4 weeks

[Emma07]

My 15wk DD has been waking every 2hrs through the night, I am exhausted and reaching breaking point. She used to go 3-4 hrs between BFs, then at 11wks I just thought it was a growth spurt when she started waking more oftern, but its got worse and now I am up 10,12,2,4,6am every night and she only goes back to sleep by Breastfeedin. She refuses to take a bottle as we thought if we tried this I could get a break and dad could help out but no luck yet.... she will play with the bottle now but the minute it gets in her mouth she chokes. I need more than 1.5hrs of sleep in one go... any suggestions!!!

Do you think she is genuinely hungry, or does she need the help of being fed, to get back to sleep again if she wakes??

IMHO babies of that age shouldn't need to feed that regularly through the night, unless she's sleeping for a big block during the day, ie has got day and night the wrong way round. What does she do in the day time??

Somethimes I think she hungry but more oftern not, just using me to get back to sleep. She has never fed more than 10 minutes at a time since she was born apart from the odd 30minute feed. I tried in vain to feed her for longer but she just wiggles off my lap and refuses. She is putting on weight though bang on the 75th line. She can go upto 4 hrs throuh the day with out a feed so I know she can do it and at one point 7-10wks old she was going once 5 to 7hrs between feeds through the night, then every 3hrs after.
During the day she has about 3hours of naps in total and 12-13hrs at night in her cot, so I thought normal for a baby her age? She is sleeping longer in the morning now as she has been waking up so much through the night.

She could be hungry but she could be breaking in big molars or have ear infections. Is she drooly?

I would try the following:

Feed her every 3 hours minimum between 7 am and 10 pm, even if she doesn't ask for it. That way you know that she is getting enough calories through the day, with one or at the most 2 wake ups in the night. That may mean waking her at 7 am to start the day properly.

Don't let her sleep more than 1 1/2 - 2 hrs in a row during the day, otherwise she will sleep through a feed, and will need to make up the lost calories at night. Maybe try the Babywhisperer routine of EASY - Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. Go to the baby Whisperer site for more details, but put her on a 3 hr routine.

Try a dummy. If it's the sucking action she finds soothing, she might suck on a dummy instead of you. If she hasn't had one up until now, she may take a bit of time to get used to it though.

Or do a short of sleep training, ie the shush pat method - this is only suitable if you are sure she's not hungry, but if that's the case it will help her learn to settle herself and not rely on you. More details on the Baby Whisperer website again.

Good Luck

thanks for tips i am going to look at baby whispherer. I was trying to feed her every 3hrs during day she seems to want at least that. and I had been really good about a routine until this last week when SO tired i let it drift a bit. I worried about using a dummy as heard other mums wish they hadnt as they have to keep putting it back in at night? She happily sucks her fingers mostly at night to settle once been fed. i do wonder if its teething?

If she wants for feed more during the day, I would go with it. The idea is to get as much grub into her during the day, so she should be able to go longer at night.

Poor you - it sounds horrible! No sleep is a killer!

Have you ever tried teething tablets? I had never heard of them until my last one. OMG they are wonderful. They dissolve instantly and really seem to work. Ask your pharmacist for them.

I'm afraid this problem seems all too common at 3-4 months. Check out the sleep is for the weak thread which was started by mums in this situation! My dd (now 8 months) starting doing this at around this time and carried on until she was 6 months, at which point we did controlled crying out of desperation . Before that, though I started spacing her feeds as others have suggested. Didn't stop her waking but at least I wasn't feeding all night (I would cuddle her back to sleep in my bed). Sorry, this is all sounding a bit negative and I don't mean too. Perhaps it will get better soon and if not there are strategies. Do you co-sleep? I found this was the only way to get through it. Mine never took a bottle either so it was always me too. You do survive it!

I seem to be having a similar problem. The last 2 weeks have been completely up in the air he was feeding every 3-4 hours with a couple of naps during the day usually 2 1 1/2 hour naps and one late afternoon 40 mins. I didn't give him a dream feed at 10 as this made him wake up about 2am. So I gave him his last feed about 8:30pm and he would sleep through till 5/6am perfect !!!! Now he is waking between 2-3 am wanting a feed I have tried upping his day feeds but he just spits it out and the dream feed makes no difference. He is 14 weeks and his feeding and sleeping is really erratic is this normal for a 3/4 month old ??????

The first thing i'd do is buy a dummy. if that didn't improve things would you consider having your baby sleep in your bed? It works wonders as you can pat them if they stir without waking up either of you.

He has a dummy and we had one night this week when he was waking once the dummy had fallen out and I was having to keep popping it back in his mouth ! Not much sleep that night ....... but he does drift off to sleep really well with the dummy during the day and doesn't wake when it falls out makes no sense !

I also think he is teething as he is drooling a lot and chewing his hands this I think has made him go off his milk as well. If things don't improve over the next few days I might have to try putting him in my bed and see how that goes.

Thanks for the advice

This is all sounding really familiar. My 17wk ds had been sleeping really well, going for at least 6 hours before waking for a feed. He slept 8 hours for two nights in a row (apparently just to lull us into a false sense of security), but in the last two weeks since then he has been waking up after successively shorter periods of time. Last night it was only 3 hours. I'm hoping that he might be teething, as he is extremely drooly, but I can't see/feel any teeth coming through yet. I'm just really hoping that this is a short-term phase and he'll grow out of it soon. He has two or three naps during the day (usually only for 30-45 min each) and has a massive feed before he goes to sleep. I have been feeding him when he wakes at night (he's bf) but am now worried that he'll get used to the extra feeds. I've tried not feeding him and just stroking his tummy to calm him, but that doesn't work, and I don't want to pick him up for a cuddle in the middle of the night either, in case he starts waking for that. Once he's been fed, he can get himself back to sleep on his own, so he's not being fed to sleep. Do you think this is just a phase?

It's totally normal at least round here. It may be just a phase - lots of babies go through a big sleep bustup around 3-4 months and then go back more or less to what they were doing before. In our case I'm afraid we got stuck with waking to feed every 2 hours til we nightweaned him at 9 months... but you don't want to hear that now. Frankly it's pretty immaterial whether she needs the milk or not - the main thing is how can you get her & you back to sleep as fast as possible. I'd say go with the flow for another couple of weeks and hope it changes; perhaps in the mean time experiment with settling her in other ways eg sending partner in to rock, bounce, shh/pat. (Try it the first wake up maybe). Does she feed to sleep at bedtime? If you can eventually get her to sleep in another way it might help her go back to sleep again in the night - but it's pretty early to manage that. ANd yes it could be teething and it can take weeeeks of bothersomeness before you see any teeth. Good luck all.

LEATI: which teething powders did you try? I found three sorts in Boots this morning and went for the 'Ashton & Parsons' or something like that.

Also got Medised!!!!