16 weeks, awake every hour at night

[WildFlowers246]

My just turned 16 week old LO has been waking up much more at night for around 4 weeks now. Last night it was every hour. He doesn't need feeding every time, just resettling. How long does this last?? I feel so intimidated by sleep training, but it's what I read lots do at this point. 😔 If we wait it out does it improve soon? Sounds like the regression maybe? Help 😔

He has 5 naps a day btw. First nap is around 30 - 45 mins. Second, third and fourth nap around 1hr - 1hr 30. Fifth nap 30 - 40 mins. EBF, feeds every 2 hours ish. Not sure if this context is any help! But thought I'd add it in case. Its my first, so not sure what I'm doing tbh!

All babies are different and I've been through this frequent waking at various points with all of my children. My children would all cry for prolonged periods of time if they weren't attended to in the way they needed so sleep training wasn't for us. I have found my childrens sleep to improve after rough patches without doing anything other than comforting them and riding it out.

Do they have a dummy? My DC1 and DC2 were much better sleepers than DC3 and I think that's due to dummy, as only DC3 wouldn't take one.

DC3 is 9mo and mostly breastfed. Still usually breastfeeds roughly 2hrly overnight and often wakes even more than that. I don't think feeding is related, my other two were also previously mostly breastfed and slept better than DC3.

The only other thing is that none of my children napped as much in the daytime as you're describing at that age. But then my kids just were awful nappers as tiny babies and as I say DC3 still didn't sleep at night even with that. So it might not be related and even if it is well you can't really force a tiny baby to stay awake if they're tired and upset! As they age they will naturally nap less in the daytime. Perhaps that will help their night time sleep...but perhaps not, sadly.

Sorry that it's not more helpful but hopefully reassuring to hear you don't need to sleep train (unless you want to) and that what your baby is doing is totally normal.

My first child did this, ebf. It's utter hell, i understand what you're going through. With ds it was the 4 month regression/development and too much day sleep i think. I used the Huckleberry app to help get into a better rhythm. Costs about £50 a year, but it was worth it for me. I also co-slept, so he could feed back to sleep. He's now two and generally sleeps through the night in his own bed, that only happened when i gave up breastfeeding with him at 18 months. I'm now waiting for child number 2s sleep patterns to change as we approach 4 months!

Some general tips you could try (if you're not already):

• Start the day at the same time each morning ~7am regardless of when they last fell asleep. Open the curtains, maybe put some music it on - make it really clear its daytime now and time to be awake.
• Track baby's naps for a couple of weeks and try and gently find a pattern you can work to they like. 3 naps would be more common than 5 at 16 weeks, with around 90mins awake in-between, but every baby is different! Finding a routine though might help you both.
• Start establishing some sleep associations. A dummy maybe, white noise, a particular nursery rhyme or phrase you use when you put them down.
• Put him down sleepy but awake. Start with maybe 90% asleep (or wherever you're at now) then slowly start working towards putting him down more alert. Soothe and comfort him in the cot rather than picking back up wherever possible and leave him to it if he's content.
• Have a nice relaxing bedtime routine of about 45mins. Maybe bath, feed, story etc. Use you sleep associations (I love white noise!).
• Overnight keep everything dimly light and unstimulating. Respond when you need to but aim to resettle with minimum fuss. It will be helpful that you're already not feeding to sleep each time.
• If/when you feel ready maybe start leaving it slightly longer to respond overnight. Babies are very noisy sleepers and mine certainly seemed to often be crying a bit because she'd woken up, not because she actually wanted me. If you give it 5-10mins, they might resettle on their own.

This obviously is the basics of gentle sleep training with then taking the 'wait to respond' phases as far as you feel comfortable. Some people find that committing to a week of slowly lengthening response times is a) effective (so long as you stick with it) and b) worth it for the better sleep for everyone. Others hate the idea of leaving their baby to cry even for a minute or two, which is also a totally reasonable and normal response! If you do want to gentle sleep train, there are some great books out there.

I personally would avoid moving to co-sleeping at this age in an attempt to fix sleep, as on average co-sleeping babies (and mums) get less sleep as baby gets older. But that's on average, so I know others would completely disagree. And if you're co-sleeping already that's a different matter.

Good luck! Whatever you choose to do, stay strong, you've got this :)

Thank you for your replies!
So no, he doesn't take a dummy. I've been working on it, but no success atm!
@Stopthatplease I've heard good things about Huckleberry. I've downloaded it and have a free 14 day trial, so we're giving it a go 😊 is there anything you recommend with using the app? We've been hitting the sweet spot naps so far today.

@ZippyKoala thank you so much for those tips. We do a few already, definitely want to be able to out baby down awake. But I just dont know how yet!
We've gone down to 4 naps today to see if that makes a difference.
We tried a bit of co sleeping, but it hasn't made a difference in the last week! So he might as well stay in his next to me and form good habits with his own bed.