Getting frustrated with night time (little long)

shocked77

Ugg---this may just be a vent, but I am getting frustrated with my LOs nightime. 

He has reflux and has never been a good sleeper.  I'll start with the positive.  In the last few weeks he has gotten dramatically easier to put to sleep and to put down.  When he starts to get sleepy he puts himself into this position over our shoulders, takes a paci and we walk around the house or rock and he is usually out in about 10 mins.  At night after he nurses he generally falls right back to sleep and i can put him down in the cradle and he stays asleep.  This is a big improvement.  Until 8 weeks it would take an hour of rocking, walking, bouncing to get him to sleep and then he'd wake up 20 mins after we put him down.  I sometimes do bed sharing after his 3:00 am feeding.  Because sometimes he won't stay in the cradle after that feeding.  So that is the good stuff.

Now our challenges.  He generally goes to bed around 8:30 after having a long nurse or my husband gives him a fairly large 5 oz breast milk bottle.  He usually sleeps till midnight or 1:00 then wakes up for a nurse.  He ALWAYS wakes up at 3:00 am.  On a good night he'll stay asleep until 6 am.  Lately he has been waking up at 4:30 to eat again, then again at 6:30 or 7.  This is with him bedsharing after 3am.

I've tried dream feeds and they don't seem to do a thing.  Which seems so odd.  It really seems like he has some sort of internal clock that wakes him up at the time regardless of when i fed him last.

Last night he went down for bed at 8:30 after a good nurse.  I did a dreamfeed when i went to bed at 10:30.  3oz of breastmilk in a bottle.  1:30 he woke up and ate like he was starving.  Then up again at 3:30, 4:30 and 6:30. God bless him he then slept from 7:00-10:30 am so i got a few extra hours.

I feed on demand and don't hold LO to a schedule.  He generally eats every 3 hours throughout the day and takes 3 good naps between 8 am and 7 pm.  Is this just the best I should be expecting from a baby that doesn't sleep well at this stage?  

Any ideas about why he wakes up so frequently after 3am?  It really is becoming a consistent pattern at this point.  I can live with it now because I am home, but once i go back to work in March being awake this much in the early morning will kill me.

Uiowachick01

He could be going through a growth spurt.  He is still so small and things can change from day to day.  Hang in there and it will get better:)

tarahnpaul

I've got a 6 month old who still sleeps like this.  I've changed my expectation about the night, it helps me to not get frustrated.  I also go to bed at 8 when she goes to bed.  

He's so little, it could be many things.  Have you tried a rock and play?  I've heard they're really good for reflux babies. 

lovekissedmama

So much can change between now and March. DD went through a phase around 5 weeks old that lasted about a month in which she woke up for the day at 4 am. That transitioned to her being merely restless from 3 am - 6 am. Then she woke up at 530 every morning. And now she wakes up between 6 and 7. Have hope that things will change, that is all the advice I have to give.

shocked77

Thanks ladies. Everyone is always so supportive on this board. I love my LO so much and sometimes actually enjoy when he smiles and coos at me at 3 am. 

 

You are right march is a long way away and whatever it is is what it will be.  . And  I will find a way. 

JoannaJes

It's probably the reflux.

Acid pumps in the stomach tend to shut down around 10 pm at night, and kick back up again around 2 or 3 in the morning. Some sort of evolutionary byproduct. He's acting like he is starving because he is trying to swallow the acid back down. Then the milk in his tummy kick starts the pumps again, which leads to the waking every hour in the early morning.

DD is my reflux baby and had the exact same pattern of sleeping before we got her reflux truly under control. And by that, I mean a proper amount of medication. 

There are several reflux groups over on Babycenter that have some serious reflux wizards in there. I would try posing your question there to see their input. Also, check out the website refluxrebels.com.  

emolm

tarahnpaul:

 I've changed my expectation about the night, it helps me to not get frustrated.

This this this this this.

 

It's so much harder for me to stay positive than I think it should be bc I'm around a lot of ppl who don't believe in letting the baby lead in the scheduling. 

bino63

My daughter had reflux and it never really cleared up until about 8 months. She always had to be held at an angle to get her to sleep and I used a crib wedge which seemed to help. She got really bad at 4 months old but then I started rice cereal right at 4 months. YES this is ok to do. This helped tremendously and she slept with less reflux and got up twice a night at the least, 4 times at the worst.

If you can when your LO is older do not feed at night when they wake. This is a very bad habit that we just broke at 15 months with a lot of crying. I wish I had stuck to my guns earlier on.

shocked77

JoannaJes -- thank you so much.  This makes a lot of sense.  He is on Zantac and his reflux seemed like it was under control but i just went to the Pedi monday because i thought it was getting bad again.  They upped his dose.  I will go check in with the reflux wizards

JoannaJes

shocked77:

JoannaJes -- thank you so much.  This makes a lot of sense.  He is on Zantac and his reflux seemed like it was under control but i just went to the Pedi monday because i thought it was getting bad again.  They upped his dose.  I will go check in with the reflux wizards

Good luck! Zantac never worked for us, but Prevacid did. Zantac is extremely weight dependent. The minute your LO grows, they will need their dosage adjusted. 

Never underestimate the power of the reflux. Every single time DD had some sort of sleep issue, I would search high and low for a reason ( too hot/too cold, needed a lovey, nightlight/no light, etc), it always turned out to be the reflux.  Hope your LO grows out of it, DD did (although she still doesn't STTN, ha ha).