Sleep experts any advice?

[TheSunWillComeOutTomoro]

My baby (aged 15 weeks, formula fed) was previously waking for a full night feed around 3-4am then sleeping until 7/8am ish. He has recently started waking up again at 5.30am on the dot - so often only 1.5hrs after being fed a full feed. At 5.30 he is restless and seems hungry but when I feed him he will only take a tiny amount (10ml) and is very squirmy, wriggly and stressed when attempting to feed. After having the tiny bit of milk he then immediately falls asleep in my arms. I put him back in his side sleeper cot and within a few minutes he's woken up inconsolable. He is then inconsolable until 7.30/8am at which point he will take a bottle.

Today I tried just patting him and comforting him at 5.30 instead of feeding, but he still became inconsolable for a couple of hours.

Do any sleep experts understand this pattern? Anything I can do differently here?

Bump

I would suggest that the reason for asking at 5.30am is just light sleep because his body is getting ready to get up for the day (ie has had enough sleep- or certainly nearly enough sleep).

The way to try and shift this wake up time is to try and maintain his deep sleep for longer into the early morning. So you want him to not wake up in the middle of the night - because that's disturbing him.

The way to tackle this is by playing around with a late evening feed. You don't mention if baby is already having a late evening (11pm ish) feed or if 3-4am is the only feed?

● If you currently have a bedtime (7-8pm) feed then noting until 3-4am, try waking baby up at 11-12pm and feeding then. Properly wake baby up, try doing a nappy change as well as a full feed and wind. The idea is to 'reset' the overnight sleep so that it then continues in a big block until morning (6-7am) without a middle of the night feed.

● If you currently have a bedtime feed, plus an 11pm-12 feed, plus a 3-4am feed - then the answer is to skip the 11-12 feed. Don't wake baby up for it or if baby does wake, resettle rather than feed. The idea is that you then get a night feed around 1am ish instead, do a fresh nappy at this point in the hope that baby gets back to a deep sleep through to morning.

● If you currently have feeds at 7-8pm, 11pm-12, 1-2am and also 3-4am - then you need to work on ways to resettle without giving a bottle.