4mo baby waking every 3 hours overnight for milk

[wanderingwillows]

4 months in and still here we are feeding every 3 hours at night. I switched to formula thinking it would improve things and occasionally it seems to (he dream feeds at 10.30 and sometimes won’t wake til 3 or occasionally 4) but vast majority of the time baby is up at 2, 5 then 7 for the day. Sometimes more frequently.

I’m so fed up and exhausted. I feel like he shouldn’t be still going every 3 hours in the night. He’s sleeping as badly as he did the day he was born!! In the day he drinks between 800ml and 900ml total. I do what I can to give him as much as possible in the day but he only takes what he’ll take. In the night he at least has 180ml at his dream feed plus at least 200ml before 7am. I try not to give him loads so as to shift his hungriness into the day but, again, he’s a baby and does what he wants…

Urgh :(

We were discussing exactly this in group therapy. Sleeping through is subjective, it probably looks different for everyone. Some it will be 10 to 5. My eldest did 6pm to 7am with a dream feed, but still woke at 5 during his regressions. Actually one of our friends baby first slept through when they stopped jumping in at the first sign of him stirring.

It’s normal. You need to rearrange your life around it. Does he wake at the same times?
This is when you need to tag team with DH. For instance mine used to do the late night feed 11pm/12, and put DD to bed, and I would go to bed after 9pm. DD would then sleep until 3am ish. Meaning I’d had 5/6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and would get a few more after. DH would often take her then at 6am and I would be getting a lot of sleep with only one interruption. DH would get minimum 6 hours too.

My baby slept longer by this point but then regressed significantly at five months and hasn’t improved since. He’s eleven months now. It’s hard!

If he’s falling asleep on the bottle,
could you try stroking or patting him to sleep in his cot? It might make his sleeping environment more familiar when he wakes, and make him more likely to resettle when he stirs. We try to resettle for a few minutes before feeding if it’s been a short stretch.

Just to add to this... parents 100% lie about their babies sleep. I didn't think they did and up until today I was always honest about my baby not sleeping great when anyone asked.

But today at a baby group, I just cba with the fake sympathy and unwanted advice so I just said 'Oh yeah, he's pretty good at night'.

I think in reality, most of us are exhausted and hanging on by a thread 😂😂