16 week old waking all night for feeds

[AvocadoSoup]

Hi all, my baby is 16 weeks tomorrow and for the last couple of weeks his sleep has been way off. First of all he had a growth spurt (we think) and was waking for a couple of extra feeds a night. We thought this was the 4 month sleep regression and so enlisted a sleep consultant.

She informed us it was likely just a growth spurt. She gave us a new schedule though which we implemented. It was around this time we also transitioned him from being swaddled and having his arms free- this majorly disturbed his sleep for a few nights but then he seemed to get used to it.

Implementing the new schedule was painful as it involved "always up by X" rules. So if he was late to a nap (which he was at first as it was new to him) then he had a shorter nap thanks to having to be woken at certain times. He again seemed to get the hang of this and the day nap schedule in a few days.

At the same time though we've seen another downward spiral in his sleep. Is THIS the sleep regression or something else? Perhaps the new schedule or the arms being out or even another growth spurt?

He's not a HUGE baby but he's very long and about the 75th percentile. He's also very active and wriggly.

Before all of this his first stretch of sleep was anywhere between 3.5-5.5 hrs and he didn't need feeding at every wake up. Then during the worst nights of arms out and overtiredness when starting the new schedule, he was waking every hour some nights! Now things seem to have settled a bit but he wakes 2.5 hrs after putting him down and then the sleep cycles get shorter and shorter until morning (we start his day at 7am).

What is going on please?! I'm slightly concerned as he didn't used to need feeding every time and now he does and he feeds for quite a long time every time (he's breastfed). I'm worried he's getting all his calories at night so am offering lots of boob in the day too, but he's started being quite sick when I do that which he never used to. Indicating he is too full.

One more thing (sorry this is so long!)- we've tried introducing a bit of baby rice at the last feed before the bedtime feed and he's had it but it's hard to say if it's helped or not. Things seem to have levelled out regardless of the rice or no rice.

Hope this is okay and not too rambly and really hope someone out there can shed some light! I feel a bit stuck in this rut of feeding him every time he wakes (nothing else settles him) and then creating a cycle where he won't be hungry in the day and will then depend on those night wakings and feeds 🤔🙈

Not an expert an my LO is only 9 weeks but I've read lots, spoke to lots of people and have a maternity nanny at my disposal my thoughts:
Go back to sleep consultant. I'm a little skeptical of schedules and waking with. Baby this young but if you are doing this important to ensure you're doing exactly what they think will work and seeing it through.
Babies seek boob for several reasons including comfort. I suspect that your LO is feeling unsettled at nights so is over feeding as a way to feel safe and secure . My baby does this during day, I reckon it might be whilst they get used to all the changes (I. E schedule, arms out) I'd be inclined to be patient. I wouldn't worry about reduced day time feeding if you're feeding on demand. Good luck x

It's normal OP. Mine started sleeping awfully at the same time and is still not great months on. I did NCT and four of the other breastfeeding mums are in exactly the same boat.

The biggest thing you can do for your sanity is not worry too much about it. Sometimes my LO has acceptable nights (currently been asleep 5.5 hours - his longest since the regression began three months ago!!). However the few nights before that he was up every hour feeding and crying. There is no point obsessing. It's developmentally normal. I'm not sure sleep training will work at such a young age and the nap schedules are going to change a lot over the next few months so I'd ride it out and stop paying for a sleep consultant until they're a bit older and more pliable to being trained/developing less!!

The only thing we used the sleep consultant for was the schedule. It involved a dream feed at 1030- a joke honestly, as he never makes it to that time without waking up beforehand anyway!
I'm just really shattered from all the waking up at nights honestly and as he is breastfed it's all on me. I'm struggling to find time in the day or night to pump as well- his naps are all active ones which involve me (meaning I can't pump) and I can't do it when he goes to bed as you never know when he'll next wake up!
Then I have family telling me it's not normal or their experience and it's implied by everyone I have a bad sleeper on my hands, this makes me worry I'm doing something wrong.
If it's the 4 month sleep regression, will it just stop and get better on its own? Or do I need to try to teach him another way? Shorted night feeds? Leave him? (I'm not actually prepared to leave him, or to let him cry tbh).

Normal for a young baby to be hungry so would feed on demand, not on schedule.

I breastfed mine, one breast to one feed, no swapping. Keep getting told off for saying that on here, apparently its all wrong these days. But we was told, back then, that the foremilk is watery and the hindmilk thicker and that if you swap over during a feed, they dont get the thicker milk that fills them up

Mum of a terrible sleeper here who was up every hour as a baby!
It depends if you want to feed to sleep or not. There is obviously nothing wrong with doing so but they then can wake frequently or not depending on the baby. You do just get terrible sleepers who need support though it's nothing you have done wrong!

We used the stay and support method if I know he had just been fed less then 2-3 hours then my DH would do the settling with susshing and patting if he got too upset then cuddles and rocking. If it was around the 3 hour mark then I would feed.
Teaching the sign for milk also helps a lot (will take practise but means they can say when they want milk or not).
As said comfort is another reason for feeding we found introducing a comforter (this can be a small square of muslin btw) that we had worn against us during the day helped as smelt of us.

I do completely understand OP and didn't mean to come across as dismissive. It is soul destroying at times. I also breastfeed and all his naps were contact naps until 5 months.

Re the regression - they're all different so for some babies the sleep regression might last for two weeks. For others (like mine and my NCT friends) it's still going strong months and months later.

It is bloody hard and emotionally and physically exhausting, but it's all normal.

You will always get people who say their babies slept through the night and never had a regression - that's also normal, but not helpful to hear

One of my colleagues smugly told me that having a baby was easy and his first two slept through the night from four months. He had a third who is a total nightmare sleeper and he didn't do anything differently. It is just down to the baby.

What I'm trying to say is that it's largely out of our control and you just have to go with the (awful, uphill) flow.

I'm sorry that you wasted money on a sleep consultant, who fooled you into thinking you can, in any way, influence the sleep of a 4 month old baby. You can't. Their needs are ver y basic and yes at sometimes completely exhausting but you ARE NOT creating any bad habits, etc, just be there for your baby and trust that everything's a phase and you will make it through. Do you have a partner to help you?

Oh it's so tough isn't it. My second had a tricky 4 month regression. It is exhausting. I would say though, that some of that exhaustion comes from expectations and pressure. If you can let go and go with the flow, it is easier. I found life harder with my first, who was a much better sleeper than my second, due to my mindset. I was still bloody exhausted though!

The 4 month regression is named poorly, as it is actually a permanent change in baby sleep cycles. So they have to figure things out again for independent sleep. People vary in how they do that, and how much they try to 'teach' them. 4 months is very little though, and you may have to ride it out a bit longer.

I would also query the baby rice. My understanding was the absolute earliest you should wean is 17 weeks, and ideally closer to 6 months. Nutritionally milk has more calories anyway. I think it's a bit of a myth it makes them sleep better, although I'm sure it can in some cases. If it's not making any difference, it might be worth pausing that, or switching to offering formula then.

Fingers crossed for some more sleep soon!

Thank you. Coffee and gritted teeth it is! 🙏🏻

Thank you- this is my main worry, that I'll be giving him all his food at night and then create a vicious cycle where he then needs to wake at night to eat as he won't be hungry during the day. If that's not going to be a problem then I can relax a bit about it.
I do have a partner, he sleeps in the other room and comes in at 7am- he takes our dog and the baby out on a walk at 9 in the sling and handles the first nap of the day, getting me at 930-10 when our son is then ready for a feed. This helps me catch up on sleep I've missed in the night and I do really appreciate it!
I'd like to try giving our baby a bottle of expressed milk as he would get more in faster, so might wake less or at least be awake for less time, but doing that would mean me pumping while my partner does it and I just can't ask him to wake up that much because he has a very demanding job 🤷🏼‍♀️☹️

I'd bin the baby rice. It's pointless and he's too young. I'd also stop paying for a sleep consultant. Baby sleep is not linear. Just because they did X one week doesn't mean that they will/should continue to do it. There are lots of ups and downs based on developmental needs, growth spurts, just random baby things. The key is to maximise the sleep you can get during the hard bits while waiting for whatever phase you're in to pass.

Four months is a common time for sleep to change as babies leave the 'newborn' phase and start learning how to sleep like an older child.

It can be shit but I found that accepting that's just the way it is for now and not constantly trying to find solutions or reasons made life easier, and then they move to another phase and everything shifts again.

Thanks, my hunch was actually that I wanted to avoid it as I wasn't ready to let go of exclusively breastfeeding yet, but he just seemed so ravenous in the night I was prepared to try anything. I tried it one night and he had a better night, so the second night I skipped it, thinking that would show me, if it was a bad night, that the rice helped. We had a bad night. So I then gave him rice again the 3rd and 4th nights but the nights didn't seem any different so I skipped it again last night and honestly I didn't notice a difference so I think I'm going to leave it again to come back to when we are ready to properly wean, which won't be for a while yet and he is sitting up etc.
I don't want to offer formula (we're vegan) so am just going to have to really try to find time to pump, but it feels quite impossible to do that mostly at the mo!

Oh I always feed on demand, don't worry. That's the problem at night 😂 During the day too, but also I've been offering it a bit more during the day to be sure he's nice and full for bedtime. Makes no difference, he's a bottomless pit 😂
I have also heard that about the hind milk, I have had midwives and health visitors tell me conflicting things on that very subject!
I try to offer one side per feed in the night but often he wakes again 10 mins later so he ends up having both sides if I can tell he's hungry for it.
Some of the feeds in the night can be 40 mins. It is very hard to keep my eyes open!

Thank you, this is helpful. I have had a little comforter in the crib with him for the last couple of weeks and it smells like his lavender spray that the rest of the crib smells like. He pays it zero attention right now but I'm hoping it will become a comfort as he gets bigger.
We also use a dummy.
In the night, I tend to feed because I know it works and it avoids screaming. Whenever I try other methods first, the cries just escalate and I end up having to feed anyway so I feel like just skipping the tears! But I don't know, I could be creating an issue doing that, I just can't bear seeing or hearing him upset! Shushing and patting etc doesn't work. Walking him around the room and rocking him sometimes does but it seems to wake him right up and we can be awake for over an hour- then he really feels it the next day (imagine doing this several times a night and he's suddenly missing out on a lot of sleep, as are we!)

He's far too young for food, and baby rice has absolutely no nutritional value. From 26 weeks start solids and give normal porridge then, not baby rice.

It's completely normal for him to wake/feed often at night at this age. He's too young to go messing with how often he feeds etc.

Consider them both gone 🙈😂
Thank you for this. It does sound like it's a case of grit my teeth and get on with it.
Do you all want to come and tell my partner and our families that this is all totally normal sleep please? I feel like I'm always having to defend our baby and his sleep patterns 😂

Very normal. You'll get thru it I felt like a zombie at this stage with my babe but it gets better, truly x

Thank you 🙏🏻

Also sorry if this thread is confusing to read to anyone, I'm new and I thought replying would be clearer but I can see it is better to "quote" 😊

Absolutely normal in my experience. Also the experience of practically all our friends. I’d also bin the baby rice, and the sleep consultant. Pumping also didn’t work for us, because as you say it’s far too time consuming when you’re tired already.
It is indeed another phase and it does get better - lots of solidarity in the meantime. Expecting number 2 so about to do it again shortly!

Exactly this!

My son is like a freakin unicorn, at 5 ish months he was sleeping 12 hours without a wake or feed but he's 10 months now and he's been waking in the night for a few months now, it's up and down but I promise responding to your babies needs wound screw them up. DD was absolutely shit but that's just her, DS was treated basically the same way in is ten thousand times easier.

Check the schedule out. Feed on demand and baby will settle back into a new routine after this growth spurt.

it's the 4 month sleep regression, will it just stop and get better on its own? Or do I need to try to teach him another way? Shorted night feeds? Leave him? (I'm not actually prepared to leave him, or to let him cry tbh).

In my opinion, you don't and can't "teach" him anything, he's still a tiny baby and baby's wake up in the night and their sleep isn't linear. Every time you think they've got into a routine and are sleeping "better" they will change again. Waking up at night for feeds is normal, they will go through periods of waking up every hour and they will go through periods of waking once all night. There isn't necessarily a reason for it or anything you can do.

I say this as a mum who was similar to you and I ended up really uptight about naps and schedules and wake windows and it still made no difference because I eventually realised she's just a baby and it's what they do and like I said, as soon as they start waking up X amount of times and napping for X amount, it'll change again with a few weeks

Thank you and congratulations!

Thanks. I have lots of brothers of varying ages and my mum is always saying they are living proof that you can do the same thing for all, it won't necessarily work for all! I think it might just be how my baby is. I can handle it as long as I know it's normal and I'm not 'ruining' him or making it harder for him to learn how to settle etc. I just worry as a first time mum that I'm doing everything as I should be!

Also as others have said, stop the baby rice, he's far far too young for food his tummy won't be able to digest it and it has no nutritional value.

I just read that you're breastfeeding, my DD is too and your baby is still small but soon he will get more efficient at feeding and feeds won't take so long, my DD now feeds for a minute or two at night before falling back to sleep. Some of these feeds might be feeds for comfort for him as well rather than hunger