Waking but not needing feeding?

The last few night Seb has managed a 6 hour stretch without feeding when he first goes down (usually 10pm til 4am), which is great apart from he's waking up two or three times in that 6 hours and all he does is grumble, mutter and eventually once I wake up and put the dummy back in he goes straight over to sleep. The problem is that I'm not getting more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time (if I'm lucky!) and its killing me.

Does anyone elses baby do this? Is there anything I can do to stop the waking?

We first had this over Christmas and again now - for us it was teeth coming through. All Izzy needed was a cuddle - she wouldn't even wake - so to save our sanity (it was every 10 mins 10pm-1am, then every 30-45mins until morning) we bought a bed guard and now bring her in with us at the first cry.

Dr Doo.Little:

The last few night Seb has managed a 6 hour stretch without feeding when he first goes down (usually 10pm til 4am), which is great apart from he's waking up two or three times in that 6 hours and all he does is grumble, mutter and eventually once I wake up and put the dummy back in he goes straight over to sleep. The problem is that I'm not getting more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time (if I'm lucky!) and its killing me.

Does anyone elses baby do this? Is there anything I can do to stop the waking?

Yes... and I don't know! I am shattered. You have my sympathies - I think I am destined to be sleep deprived forever x

Yes same here, every hour or 2. He drops back off again almost immediately so not too disruptive.

The feeding every 3 hours on the other hand...

F does this too - im hoping he will soon realise that there is no need to wake!  

Yes, and to be honest ours got worse before it got better. 

When Imogen hit 5 months she decided that she would wake up every time the dummy would fall out. Some nights she was waking every 20 to 40 minutes. But we came close to taking dummy away altogether and she turned a corner. She learnt to put it in by herself!! 

So now at 7 months she sleeps most of night without it. Wakes up once for a feed which I have nearly got rid of!! Am I secretly hoping once feed goes I may get a full nights sleep. 

 

I think the decision is ride it out or take dummy away! 

looneytune:

 

I think the decision is ride it out or take dummy away! 

 

The thing is he doesn't actually go down for his first sleep with the dummy in, he falls asleep feeding and I transfer him to the basket. He needs it to go back to sleep during the night once he wakes though.

Maybe I do need to wean him slowly off the dummy

But he is still going to sleep sucking, so when he stirs he wants to suck again but not hungry enough to wake properly!! 

Ethan goes through this - it was often caused by losing the dummy, but also the room being chilly & teething.  We now have a warm room, with extra layers in the cot (grobag & blanket), and have ditched the dummy.  Seen a huge improvement

Sn-itchit - when did you get rid of the dummy? Did you do cold turkey?

I remember the issue you had with it, and your posts. I was going through the same with Imogen!! 

Thanks LT. Tonight I'll try to put him down awake and see if that makes any difference.

sn-itchit:

Ethan goes through this - it was often caused by losing the dummy, but also the room being chilly & teething.  We now have a warm room, with extra layers in the cot (grobag & blanket), and have ditched the dummy.  Seen a huge improvement

It definitely isn't chilly in the room, in fact we have to try and stop it getting too hot!

I read a book saying that the way they go to sleep sets the scene for the rest of the night, ie feeding or sucking a dummy means when they wake they want the same to settle. Think it was NCSS book. 

We went through a stage of sitting by her cot and gently pulling out dummy as she was going to sleep so she wasn't falling asleep on it. We did notice a change in her wakings, but didn't solve the problem!! H and I got sick of being up half the night sat by her cot!! 

How old is he now?

We found that waking and not needing feeding was usually either a comfort issue (too cold/hot, blankets screwed up etc), pain (teeth or ears usually), or developmental (when they were gearing up to crawl, and the babbling stage in particular)

Is he swaddled still? If not, its worth a try. We had stopped swaddling Sebastian at 8-9 weeks but reintroduced it at about 5-6 months when he hit a bad patch with sleep and it did the trick. He was then swaddled until 8.5/9m IIRC!

 

Oh yes, Louie does this but 9 times out of 10 it's because he's pulled the dummy out himself but doesn't know how to put it back in and usually ends up stabbing himself in the eye. We've even had to buy glow in the dark dummies so we can find them in the dark!

LooneyTune - we got rid at new year (bad decision) when Ethan was nearly 6 months.  We had to do cold turkey, but found noise helped him.  We played a lullaby on the baby monitor which is very repetitive, and he now goes off after about 5 minutes.  I also gave him a little teddy, which he often sucks the tummy of

It has caused a few new issues - he won't sleep in my arms any more which is awkward), but on the whole he sleeps a LOT better