HELP! 17 week old wakening

[K235]

Hi there! I’m looking for some help! My baby is 17 weeks old and 19lbs. We used to have a good sleep routine, pop him down around 21:30 following last feed of the day. He goes down awake and within 5 mins is usually asleep until 04:00 ish. Has a feed and goes back to sleep until 08:00ish.

For the past few weeks he is going down fine but wakening 01:00, 02:00. Not showing signs of hunger so I’ve been holding out until at least 03:00 to feed him as I read about sleep regression/issues with feeding each time baby wakens. He goes back down fine following 03:00 feed then is wakening around 06:00, not crying just making noise, sleeps for short spells until I feed him around 07:30/08:00. This has been going on for around 4 weeks now. Any ideas on how to remedy this?

I have tried feeding him every 4 hours in the daytime but he is taking less formula if I do this he feeds better every 4.5/5hours. He usually takes 35-38oz in 24hrs, I’m aware this is less than recommended however he turns head away from bottle/gets fussy etc if I try anymore and no issues with weight etc feeding at this volume.

Thanks for reading! Any suggestions would be appreciated!

No suggestions, but it sounds tough!

He's still quite little though, and with my limited experience I don't think sleep routines settle until they're much older unfortunately.

If you're worried it's medical, maybe speak to your HV?

Thank you. I will call HV next week if no improvements!

Sounds like 4 month sleep "regression", completely normal but so so hard! My DD is over a year now but that was the toughest time sleep-wise, we got to the point where she was waking every 40 minutes for a feed. She is breastfed so I just went with it and fed her and moved on to co-sleeping to get through it, it slowly got better over a few months.

Does he have a dummy that he could use for comfort to kind of keep him going until it's time for a feed?

Thanks Edith! I do agree and think it is the 4 month sleep “regression”, hoping we turn a corner soon! He does take a dummy, sometimes he will fall back off to sleep with it other times not. Roughly how many month did it take for things to settle with your LO?

So for us it started at 3.5mo and slowly got worse over the course of a month, the 40 minute wakings lasted about a week then I think we were on about 1-2 hourly wakings for a month then started getting longer stretches by 6 months, still only 3 hours though
😬At that point one way that helped me cope was to go to bed immediately once DD was asleep a few times a week in case we had a bad night. From 9 months we started having 6 hours at the start of the night and then would go back down for the rest of the night, it was blissful! More recently she's back up to 2 or 3 feeds a night but just knowing she has done longer and will no doubt get back to that is helpful.

Also, you don't say if you do but for heaven's sake don't track his sleep!! It only makes it worse seeing it there in black and white how often they wake!

Excuse the dodgy formatting, I put the emoji in and then it wouldn't let me put paragraphs where I wanted them.

Oh my, that’s a long haul! Well done for getting through that. Anything longer sleep wise is good progress though! 6 hours at the start of the night sounds wonderful!

I had considering tracking the sleep but I think you are right, we don’t need to see that noted down!

Thanks for your help!

When we were in it it definitely felt like the longest time ever and like I was never going to not be tired again but looking back now it went so quickly and the memory of how tiring it was has faded already. Hope you get some rest soon!