3 Month FF baby suddenly waking every 2 hours at night

[Tateypops]

Hello,

My 14 week year old son who is formula fed (we did try to breastfeed but after 5 days my milk had not come through and he was severely dehydrated) was in a habit of taking big feeds every 4 hours through the day and night. All of a sudden after his 6pm feed he has started getting hungry every 2 hours all the way through till 6-8am in the morning. I can’t think why he would suddenly go from 4 hour intervals to two and he isn’t able to settle without the feed... he is just inconsolable. During his awake time in the day however he is perfectly happy and content. Any thoughts?

Sleep regression unfortunately, just ride it out..... it will get better until the next one hits!

Is he taking his usual amount of milk? It's difficult because they do go through growth spurts and take more milk then then. My two didn't go through sleep regressions, or if they did they were short lived enough for me to not notice.

You can try a few things. Try a dummy if he doesn't already have one. He might want comfort rather than food. Have you increased the amount of milk in each feed? Increased the teet size of his bottles so he can get more out at once?

I fed my two on demand, but my eldest had reflux and was like this. He screamed every two hours, I thought it was to feed, but he just wanted to comfort suck. The more I fed him, the worse his reflux was and it was this horrible cycle. The dummy was the best thing for him. I'd offer a dummy before a feed if was only a couple of hours since his last feed. Sometimes he did want milk, so dummy got spat out and I offered him a feed then. But usually he just wanted the comfort.

Google the 4 month sleep regression. It is horrible sorry. Mine was like it from 4 to 6 months. Something to do with baby sleep cycles maturing but still not being able to settle themselves between cycles.

Thanks guys... I thought he may be too young for sleep regression - he is 14 weeks now but he was born at 37 weeks so I wasn’t sure it was that. He takes 210ml bottles now. Sometimes he drains them and other times he eats 120+ to be fair though in the last two days since the change happened he hasn’t drained a bottle. He does have a dummy and that helps during the day but during these evening and night feeds it’s like nothing will settle him other than food.

@Fatted oh and yes we increased to a variety flow teat a few weeks back and he was clearly ready for it because he immediately started eating more and his feeds went from 30-40 minutes to like 10 minutes

Try to move the 2h feeding to the daytime, so that less milk is needed at night.

Good idea to feed 2 hourly between 7am - 11pm. That was far fewer calories are needed between 11pm-7am and you can both get more sleep.

How does he get to sleep at night, does he feed to sleep with the bottle, or get drowsy while feeding and then go down to sleep immediately after ? If so it sounds like sleep regression to me (which isn't really a regression but a permanent change to sleep cycles). He may now be waking in between each sleep cycle and wanting a bottle to transition from one sleep cycle to the next, since that's how he got to sleep at the start of the night.

Although a growth spurt is definitely possible and of course babies are hungrier at some times than others it wouldn't be this drastic to suddenly need bottles every two hours throughout the night.

A dummy is worth trying (although you may need to reinsert it through the night until he can work out how to do it himself). Or you could just wait it out...I know some babies seem to go through this stage and come out the other side after a few weeks or so.

He doesn’t go to sleep feeding... he has his dummy and he’s eating 100ml+ every time he wakes up for these feeds - which are smaller than day feeds but not massively. I’m reluctant to feed him every 2 hours during the day as he has a bad habit of snack feeding if you let him, he’ll eat 40ml every hour and then never fills his stomach up so never sleeps and gets over tired and it’s a tiresome circle

I wouldn't suggest feeding every hour. But due to the limiting factor of baby's stomach volume, it's often the case you can get more in if you feed every 2h. Or every 3h.

For example:

180ml every 4h
7am 11am 3pm 7pm = 720ml

150ml every 3h
7am 10am 1pm 4pm 7pm = 750ml

120ml every 2h
7am 9am 11am 1pm 3pm 5pm 7pm = 840ml

Update!

Thanks for all your suggestions! I decided to feed him in shorter intervals throughout the day... not every 2 hours but sort of when he seemed to want them which ranged from 2.5-4.5hours. Then instead of leaving him downstairs I took him upstairs at 8pm and bathed him, got him changed and read him a story. Told him it was time to go to sleep and switched out all the lights and played him a Moshi bed time story. He grumbled a few times in the first hour and half but I just went back in and gave him a dummy and he settled back down. He didn’t wake up when I went to bed and my boyfriend dream fed him at 10pm and 2am and he didn’t stir till 4am and we got up at 4:45am to feed. If he does the same tonight I might try taking him back to bed after that feed too.

How many night feeds were your 3 month olds having?

I'd say that's still a lot of feeds to have overnight for a formula fed baby. It is a case that baby will have an amount of milk he needs over 24 hours and if he isn't getting all of that in the daytime then he will need it at night. So no suggestion to stop the night feeds if you cannot get baby taking more milk in the daytime, because baby needs the milk.

At 3 months old with my formula fed child (DC3 was FF, whereas DC1, DC2 and DC4 were breastfed so I cannot compare) was having 100% of milk between 7am and 7pm - I fed a full milk feed every 2 hours through the day - 7 bottles a day. Then any wake ups at night were dealt with by resettling with dummy rather than feeding.

It might be that your DS could be resettled in the night without feeding. Maybe he won't but it's certainly worth a try. Some babies, who won't take enough milk through the daytime, might need 1 night feed, 2 at a push. I'd consider that 4.45 feed a nightfeed too, so your baby is having 3 (full?) feeds at night. That must be a large proportion of the total milk drank over 24h. The idea is to aim to having all calorie intake during the day so that none is needed at night.

Worth making sure you don't feed to sleep at bedtime or naptime, so that you don't develop an association where baby needs feeding to go back to sleep, even when the feed isn't needed.