Help My 3 1/2 Month Old Son Has Had a Major Sleep Set Back

Its a growth spurt. Between 3-4 months is the LONGEST, can last up to a month. Pair that with learning a new skill, like rolling over and lifting his head up, he is bound to wake up!

One thing you can try is cluster feeding. Start about 4pm, feed him every hour-hour and 1/2 until bedtime. Then put him down as usual routine. Then, when he wakes the first time, send your husband in to comfort him. Just rub his belly and 'shhh' him. Of course if he starts screaming and gets really upset go to him and nurse him. But keep up this routine, soon your son will be comforted by dad alone ,and he'll start sleeping longer. It'll take a couple days, and remember that this is just a phase that will pass. He'll hit another one when he starts sitting up, and then pulling up/walking.

K., my son whos now 9months old did that exact same thing he was sleeping through the night and then just one day out of the blue he was up every two or three hours. At that point we started a little rice cerial at night and he was back to sleeping again. I know all the Dr's and professionals say not to do that but listen when most of us were that age our parents were doing it and we're all still here and fine. But it worked for us. However keep in mind that babys sleep schedules are never routine! Our son changes his schedule a lot but always gets a full 12 hours. Its hard but you'll persivere. Good Luck!

My 3 yr old slept through the night at 2 months and continued to do so... BUT my 10 month old has just started to sleep through the night... I tried to find different things to help him sleep and my only conclusion is that all babies are different and I finally stopped fighting it and tried to adjust things in my schedule so I wasn't exhausted. Some of which was consuming more than 1 caffienated beverage, some times i took naps (not very often). Just an encouragement: it goes by a lot faster than I ever thought it would, even when I was thinking he was going to wake up in the night until he was 10!!!! I did start working about the same time (3 1/2 months old) I changed from watching kids to serving it was the best thing for our family (for now) 'cause you make great $$$ and spend less time away from the little bundles!!! I can't think of anything else right now but if you want to chat let me know. K.

I'm sure you are going to get lots of advice on how to get your son to sleep longer. My youngest son was never much of a sleeper either. We co-slept until he was about 9 months so it wasn't hard to pat his back or give him some milk if he didn't settle down right away. But I'm not suggesting you should do the family bed if you don't want to. I was never able to let him "cry it out" either. And the one time I tried, he ended up throwing up all over everything. So, instead of spending 20 minutes feeding him and getting him back to sleep, I spent an hour cleaning up him, his crib, and getting him settled down again. But that is a personal decision and I don't think either way is better. Just remember no matter what you decide to do, you can't MAKE a baby sleep. Some do, some don't. You can create an environment most conducive to sleeping, but that's about it.

I want to give you a little advice independent of how to get him to sleep. First, your son will reach a point where he will sleep through the night consistently. It may be in a few months, or even a year, but he will do it. How many parents have you heard asking how to get their 3 year old to sleep through the night? But, even if you get your son to sleep through the night again soon, chances are he will have more periods where he can't sleep... be it from a cold, teething, growth pains, whatever. Whatever happens, whether he sleeps or not is not any indicator of how good a parent you are.

So my advice (something I didn't follow with my first son but an so glad I did with the second) is simply do not keep a running tally of how much sleep you have had. It doesn't matter. You will sleep plenty once your son is older. But for right now, it only creates more stress because instead of thinking, "I'm so tired", you're thinking, "I only had 2.5 hours of sleep last night." Either way, you're tired. Do not keep a running comparison of your sleep versus your husband's either. Again... not worth it. You are going to be under a lot of sleep-deprived stress, don't add to it. It only leads to anger and resentment. You can be tired, or you can be tired and angry, either way...you're tired, so choose not to be angry.

Good luck. Hang in there. It will get better.

K.,

Are you nursing and recently start to try and lose the baby weight? This only happened to me with baby #4 and I didn't put it together until I talked to my pediatrician and she said that she had seen this 5 times already that week.

Even though some women take the weight off quickly with no problem, others can lower their milk's fat % by trying to diet. Your baby gets plenty of milk, but the milk is "skim" and they play catch up at night. I really wanted to lose the weight and was disappointed by the news, but within a week of increasing my fat intake of meat, dairy, nuts and olive oil, my baby started sleeping throught the night again after more that a month of frustrating sleepless nights.

This isn't the answer you probably want to hear, but my experience has been with my daughter who is now 11 months, and also started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks, is that we have had several periods of setbacks, but they are all phases and all pass. When it's gotten really bad we've gone through letting her cry it out. But in general, none of her phases have lasted longer than a month or so. I personally don't think there's a lot you can do. Babies do all sorts of goofy things for no reason and I've done a lot better by just accepting this and not trying to fix it. I know being sleepless is tough but I do think it will pass and if you are really hurting it my do everyone better to let her cry. It has helped the moral of our entire household when things got so bad no one was sleeping.

Maybe he's teething and it hurts. My daughter was like that and got her first tooth at 4-5 months. She woke every 3-4 hours until she was 7-8 months old. My youngest started sleeping through the night at 9-10 months old. I ignored her cry outs since she didn't have to nurse. A lot of times when they nurse to sleep and wake they expect to have the boo boo right there and it's not. You could give a dose of infant concentrate tylenol as an option and/or some oral numbing ointment. You can try letting him cry back to sleep too.

Like Melissa said- you could try a little rice cereal (it worked when I was little) to settle him down. Its also possible he's just starting to teethe, so trying some infant acetaminophen wouldn't be a bad idea one night.

If none of those things work, it could be a phase like Anna mentioned. I heard something about "wonder weeks" when your baby is either on the edge of or just learned some major developmental skill. During this wonder week (which usually last longer than a week) the baby has a harder time sleeping because their brain is so pre-occupied with the new skill.

The good news is, he should go back to his regular streak at some point soon, and possibly go even longer after this phase.