3 1/2 Month Old Suddenly Waking Every 2 Hours Again

i know i'm in the minority here not thinking that Weisbluth is god but babies do not NEED to cry to fall asleep. Everybody seems to think that it's inevitable in order to have a "good sleeper." Do your research on what excessive crying does to an infants brain and psyche before you decide to ignore your baby. Reading weisbluth is not research even though some people believe it is. There is so much out there on sleep and most of it is BS. Babies are not wired to STTN as people think they are. Please do not give cereal at this age!!!! If a baby sleeps longer because of it it's because they can't digest it. Think of how well you sleep with food that doesn't digest in you. Let your baby sleep close to you and nurse when he needs. That's all you need to do to have a happy well adjusted baby. Don't ignore his cries! Babies don't cry without a reason.

my 3 mo. old does the same thing. she has been an EXTREMELY fussy baby since 5 1/2 weeks. she was sleeping 6 1/2 -7 1/2 hours at night for about a week, 2 weeks ago, then all of a sudden, she started waking 4 hours in, then 3 hours. then it was every 3 hours, and extremely difficult to get her to go back to sleep without holding her. i've tried letting her cry it out, but she just screams and screams and screams. she gets out of her swaddle, and even wiggled her way out of her sleep sack/gown thing!! don't know how she did it, but she was in just a diaper on the opposite side of the crib when i went in there.
this is my 3rd, and i feel like i have NO IDEA what i'm doing. my other 2 slept through at 6 weeks. 7-8 hours. 1st wasn't breastfed, 2nd was EBF, and my 3rd is EBF also.
i can't remember what i did for the other 2. i honestly think the other 2 just did it on their own. and i really think at 3 months, they aren't ready to "cry it out" or soothe themselves back to sleep. at least mine isn't. every baby is different. i definitely learned that this time around.
she started going every 3 hours during the day, now all of a sudden she's every 2! i do seem to remember my other 2 wanting to eat every 2 hrs. for what felt like FOREVER!! and my 1st was bottlefed!!
i just hate to hear about other ppls babies sleeping 8-9 hours, and nursing every 3-4 hours during the day, and taking these ridiculously long naps during the day.
THIS TOO SHALL PASS. GOD DOESN'T GIVE US MORE THAN WE CAN HANDLE. everyday that ends and we haven't lost our minds, is another day we've been blessed!! :)

M., your son definitely is not old enough to sleep through the night without eating. His little tummy is just too small to handle enough food to do that. The schedule you are describing sounds like my son at that age. Please try to be patient; I know it's hard, but sleeping through the night eventually will happen.

My son at this age slept with us in our bed. So whenever he needed to eat in the middle of the night, I could just open my nightgown and nurse him. Often, we both would fall back asleep while nursing (in the lying-down position). Of course, you will need to bed-share safely: no smokers in the bed; nobody who has taken sleeping pills, etc; no heavy bedding around the baby. If bed-sharing is not for you, it helps to have the crib in your bedroom, if it will fit. Then he knows you are there and feels safe.

I have 2 words for you....Growth Spurt. Three months is very common to need to eat more. He'll grow out of it soon.

Just make sure he's hungry before you feed him, so he doesn't expect to be fed every time you attend to him.

Hi M.,

I just posted about my 3.5 month old's frequent wakings. We're first time parents in our early 30's and are going insane. My baby also took the bottle for the first month of her life, but rejected it after that---I got lazy about pumping one week and never imagined it would result in bottle refusal when I went to try again and it did. It has been sooooo hard because I have not been able to leave her with anyone (including my husband). I was wondering if your baby ever ended up taking the bottle?
Thanks,
R....a very desperate, sleep-deprived, R.. ;)

Your child is having a "wonder week" period. Do a quick google search to see what I'm talking about.

Hang in there, it will pass. 3.5- 6 months is a really, really rough period.

Hi M.,

I was wondering if you consider to feed your baby rice cereal yet? My babies started when they were 2 months old. In the beginning, make the cereal soupy with breast milk or formula along with a little peaches or any type of fruit(baby food puree). My babies were always really hungary and breast milk was not enough for them, plus they slept through the night. Also, I feed the cereal once a day in the beginning and gradually did it three times a day along with breast feeding of course.

I know this is tough but after a few days your baby will sleep through the night. Let him cry and sooth himself to sleep. Yes its hard to do but it can be done and will help you and him sleep. He only eats cause you feed him and can go through the night without eating. GOOD LUCK

I breastfed 3...none of them slept through the night til 9-10mo. Sounds like maybe a growh spurt! Just remember that you only do this for their first year of life..it goes so fast. I tried to learn to love those moments, alone and quiet, cuddling, made it more bearable when I was completely exhausted

Hi M..
My son is 5 months, also EBF and I posted almost the same thing about a month and a half ago. Your post request sounds exactly like mine! Here is what we did...
After alot of research, thought and talking with our ped, we decided at 4 and a half months to let our son cry. I would nurse him to sleep, but him down and he would be up about 2 hours later. We let him cry for about 5 minutes and then went in. the first night we popped the paci in his mouth (he was swaddled) and left the room. We repeated the same thing at 7 minutes, then 9 and then he had stopped crying. We put him down at about 7:30, and I still feed him around 2ish.
After the advice of some great mamasource moms, we decided to stop putting the paci in his mouth because then he would always need it. The second night we did the same thing, but didn't go in until 7 minutes, then 9 and we were going to go to 11, but he was asleep. The third night we were going to wait 10 minutes, but he was asleep in 8. He has been sleeping great ever since.
As for the swaddle, we decided to "wean" him from it and the first night he was out, he didn't cry at all, so that may be something you want to try.
Our son was also a good sleeper right before he did this. At first I think it was a growth spurt, but then it continued for about a month, so I think he just liked one of us being in there.
I know sleep training is a pretty heated topic on this site, but i think it is a choice you and your husband need to make together. For our family, it is the best thing we could have done. I feel like I am a "better" mom now because I am not exhausted. Of course, there have been a few "bumps". He just popped his first tooth, so he has been up a bit more, but overall, he is an awesome sleeper.
We got alot of good tips for the Weisbluth book, so you may want to read that. Whatever you choose to do, good luck to you, your husband and your baby. E-mail me if you have any more questions. Good luck!

There are literally 1,000,000 suggestions on getting a newborn to sleep but here are a couple of thoughts. The number one thing to remember when sleep training is that babies set and then reset their patterns all the time. He really will not be in a solid cycle until he's at least 6 months old. But even then his naps will get shorter and then in a few more months, he'll go to 1 nap/day. It's a constant thing so please don't get so frustrated because this will most likely happen again. I know this is easier said than done, I've definitely been there but you can get him on a good schedule again. Personally, I am a fan of the cry-it-out method but you have to have a solid plan in place to make it effective. Speak with his ped to get some helpful advice.

Also, have you tried swinging or rocking? Some babies rely on things like sleeping in a bassinet. My oldest slept in the swing a lot and my youngest was in the bassinet until he was 4 months old. I would swaddle them really tightly so they couldn't wiggle out and rock/swing them with really loud white noise. Worked like a charm. That Happiest Baby On the Block book is great and I'm sure you can find some info online about it so you can get instant info rather than investing the time into reading another book. Which I'm sure you don't have! >: )

But that book talks about the 5 S's. Look that up. I'm certain this will help the situation.

Hi M.,
I had the same problem with my now 4 month old. He used to eat at 6:30, go to bed around 7pm, wake up around midnight/1am to eat, then around 6am and then up for good at 9am. A few weeks ago he went to a 4 hour schedule with waking up to at 11, 3 and 6. I couldn't figure out what to do. I tried to give him his paci, but he would just spit it out and cry. Well, it turns out that I was feeding him too often during the day and not enough at a time. I was on the 3 hour schedule at first, then once I started back at work and wanted to fit in more feedings in the evening, I fed him every two hours. He started snacking and continued to do so at night. Once I moved to a 4 hour schedule (with the first "big" feeding from a bottle), he only wakes up once at night.
As for the bottle, are you using the right size nipples? A friend's baby would not take a bottle so she brought him over and I fed him with a Playtex drop-in bottle while squeezing the liner so that the milk would come out faster. Turns out that her milk flow was super fast and the size 1 nipple was just too slow and the baby couldn't get any out.
Hope this helps!

M.
Infants go through many growth spurts and need to be feed more often. I would try to feed the baby every 2 hours during the day so he will be nice and full to be able to go a longer stretch at night. I have done this and it worked the best for me. I have 5 kids Good Luck!
J.