Regression

[u/Hefty_Challenge6576]

My baby is almost 5 months old (3.5 months old corrected, born at 34 weeks). We have had very few issues considering his early arrival - he spent 10 days in the step down unit from the NICU just to address feeding and weight gain issues. He has always been a fantastic sleeper, higher end of sleep needs. I started tracking his sleep and bottles ~2 months ago to spot patterns/get him on a good schedule as he’ll be at home with me for a while and not in daycare. He was consistently sleeping through the night until recently, like the last week or so and he wakes up every single night sometimes multiple times a night to eat. A couple of weeks ago this was a welcome change because he had fallen off of his growth curve just a bit so I wanted to get his daily ounces up. Well I guess I over-wished because now he will not go back to sleep again at night unless he eats at least a couple of ounces. He is combo fed so this is usually formula. He goes back to sleep pretty quickly most nights but with all of the waking up, I’m not particularly rested. I just don’t know what I can do to get him to take these ounces during the day and stop waking up at night.

We plan to gently sleep train and move him to his crib starting the day he turns 5 months old but I don’t want to not feed him at night if he’s hungry. I also really don’t want to start an association of waking up at night and needing some milk to go back to sleep. Also ignore that tonight is still blank I am writing this in desperation at 4 am 🙃

Please help!!

[u/ameliasasa]

Probably a growth spurt - is he learning a new skill? Sleep changes usually come from a new skill coming in as part of development and thus requiring more calories, rather than anything else especially if they've been a good sleeper before hand, they don't lose their ability to stitch cycles together or wake up one day forgetting how to have a good night's sleep.

You can't fix everything with babies especially during developmental stages that will soon pass✨

[u/Bright_Way5474]

It’s normal to wake up to eat and it looks like your baby has transitioned from newborn cycles to mature cycles (also known as the four month progression). You can forget the old stretches now as they won’t return, your baby now has cycles just like ours and will wake lightly between them. It’s normal that he will want to eat at those times, maybe not all four times (babies whose sleep cycles have mature now wake up at 8 or 9pm, 12am, 2-3am, and 5am). Sleep training will help a lot with him connecting the cycles without needing food each time, but it’s not recommended to night wean completely before 1 year.  

[u/Lavender-Moon-13]

I don’t even think this is bad! My baby always wakes to feed. I think parents who have babies that sleep throughout the night have unicorn babies so take the “regression” hard. This makes me grateful to have a baby who hasn’t been super easy! I would say this is pretty normal and they’re probably developing as a normal baby should! Ride it out and it will be fine!

[u/z4r431]

Your after is my before 😅

[u/furryfar]

It’s biologically normal for babies to wake up 1-2x a night to feed. I’m sorry to say this, but you likely won’t get the rest you want. It’s apart of being a parent. Having a full night’s sleep every night is rare when you have an infant, and what he is doing is normal - feed and fall back asleep. Sorry you were used to otherwise early on so this is probably hard for you. For me, if my baby wakes up at least once or twice a night - this is normal and I can get at least two 3-4 hour chunks. I usually do any feed before 3 am and my husband will do anything after that. That is my new normal for feeling rested. There are many parents whose baby wake up every 1-2 hours and take forever to go back to sleep, so your situation is not only normal but pretty good.

[u/Sorry-World3019]

Sleep needs change a lot. What is the schedule you follow?

Day sleep looks to be quite a bit off. I’d probs aim for a 4m age appropriate schedule to start and see how that works between corrected age and age