What Can I Do to Help My Baby Get BACK to Sleeping Through the Night?

He may not be getting what he needs, but at 9 weeks, I would't worry as much about amount of sleep. Wait until he gets 4/5 years old.

Please, please do not allow a young baby to "cry it out". Babies have no language, so their only way of communicating needs to you is by crying. You might find it annoying, but it is the way babies "talk" to you and he's only letting you know he is hungry or wet or hurting. And please be thankful that he sleeps five hours, allowing you five hours to sleep nonstop! My firstborn slept through the night for nine hours straight the first week of her life, and then she went into a more normal sleep pattern for young babies -- five asleep, one up, two to three asleep, then up for three hours, etc. At 3:30, change him, feed him, put him back down and go back to sleep yourself for two or three more hours and thank God above that he's not up all night long. Welcome to motherhood. By the way, it's worth it.

If he is hungry maybe you can try giving him a little rice cereal with his last feeding. Maybe that will hold him until the morning.

That is his way of telling you that he needs more. Breastfeeding is the best nourishment but it is also about the bonding and comfort that he gets from it. He will have differing sleep patterns for at least the first year. His little tummy isn't ready for solids yet, not til at least 4 months. Try to tough it out and know that if you can make it through this little spell, within a few weeks he can be introduced to some cereal and that may help with the sleeping but from my experience a breastfeeding baby will wake in the middle of the night at some point most of the time. I might also suggest that you keep him in your bed/bedroom that way you won't have to go so far and if he gets cozy with you he may sleep a little longer, after all he just spent the better part of nine months as a part of you. Just keep some extra pillows in the bed to prop you up or try to master the art of breastfeeding while lying down. I haven't gotten that down yet but I do have extra pillows in my bed and what we call a bed chair, a pillow with little side arms that you could pick up at WalMart or Bed, Bath and Beyond, to help support your back more while breastfeeding in bed. Hope this helps, it is hard to go without the regular amount of sleep but you will adjust over time and just take any advantage of time you can to get a nap in here and there. I also agree with the other moms to NOT do the cry it out thing. It is the worst thing you could do to an infant at this age and, in my opinion, ever because crying is the only communication that your little one has with you to verbalize everything from hunger to being too warm. Keep up the breastfeeding, you and your little boy will be happy that you did.

The medical definition of sleeping through the night is 5-6 hours, so your baby is doing great. It is normal for them to need to wake up to eat at this age, especially if they are breastfed. Breast milk is digested much more quickly and easily than formula. Please don't him cry. He needs to eat.

Eeek! Please don't feed him rice cereal, as one poster suggested, or any other solids until around 6 months. It isn't good for them.

The kellymom website says:
"Probably one of the main reasons that babies who don't sleep through the night are such a big issue is that parents don't have realistic expectations of the sleep patterns of babies. Babies were designed to wake up often at night to feed and cuddle, and keep in mind that many adults wake during the night, too. If our expectations for babies were not so different from our babies' expectations for themselves, much of this "problem" might disappear." from:
http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html

The first year or two (or three) of life, the sleep patterns vary greatly. If you had a period at 9 weeks where he slept for 7 hour stetches at a time, you were pretty lucky - that's not typical. Most infants can't go that long without getting hungry, and it sounds like he's starting to wake up again.

Here's more reassuring information on infants and sleep.
http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleep.html
http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/4mo-sleep.html

my daughter did the same thing. i was trying to spoon feed her cereal but she wasn't really eating it. she had been going to sleep fine and then for the month of march she kept waking up, i finally gave up on the spoon feeding and started putting cereal in her bottle and now she is sleeping again. i really just think she was hungry plus she is teething so if she seems excessivly cranky before i put her down i put a little oral gel on her gums about 15 minutes then with her gums not hurting her her belly full she is all content. she sleeps from 8pm till around 6am
I didn't realize how young, i wouldn't give the baby cereal until around 6m, just try to do an extra feeding at around bedtime

Oh goodness yes, their sleep patterns change ALL the time! It's amazing that yours was even doing that at the beginning. When they are hungry, they will certainly wake up. For me, I never look for a schedule until about 6 months old.