What next?? She's stretching out her sleep at night..

[mommahnatuk]

So, we just extended the easy to a 3.5 or 4 hr easy because DD was not eating at feeds and waking more I the night. Which we have pretty much fixed both things by extending the easy!! Yay! This past week, she has been getting up at 4, 4:30 and now 5:30 am for her feed ( hasn't eaten since dreamfeed at 10:00) which I expect, but if the feed is over at 6:00 am, do I put her back to bed and hope she falls back asleep?? And then when do I feed her next?? The 4 am feed was good because she got hungry enough for 7 am wake up, 4:30 she wasn't too hungry, and didn't take a full feed, so now with a 5:30 feed..... She's never going to eat at 7. Do I put her back to bed and try feeding at 7 for wakeup? OR put her back to bed (to show her that night time isnt over yet) and feed again at 9 - 9:30? OR just get up and start the day, and the routine for that day starts at 5:30 and hope that soon he will sleep for longer and naturally keep pushing that first wakeup???

It's now 6:30 and she's put herself back to sleep, but I'm unsure as to what to do next.... Wake her at 7 and try to feed??? I think I'll start there, and see how that goes....
Any suggestions??

[KathrynK]

Can't remember how old she is, remind me?

We are having this problem too at the moment.
What worked for us is to feed ds at 5/ 5.30ish then put him back down and let him sleep till 8am instead of 7. Then he has a top up feed at 8, and we follow a 3.5hr easy for that day, with feeds at 11.30, 3 and 6.30/7. He goes to bed at the usual time of 7pm.
That feed at 8am is usually about half what he usually has (say 4oz instead of 7/8) but is enough to tide him over to his next feed- it feels like cluster feeding in the morning instead of the evening!

If he wakes for the night feed after 6am, I treat it like he has gone all night, and start the day then. It means he has a slightly early bedtime that night as everything is moved forward, but then we can get back on track the next day.

It needs a bit of juggling- he went 3 nights lasting all night till 7am, then 2 nights where he fed at 4am again, then this weekend we have all had a stomach bug and he's been sick and off his bottles so it's all gone out the window 

[charmie]

Mind if I chime in?

When this happened to us, I used to feed her and put her back to sleep.  Personally I used to wake her again at 7 to start the day and feed her again then.  I did that because that was my desired wake up so kept insisting on it.  However, I like Kathryn's idea of waking at 8 even better  .  The only thing I would differently is to do an 8-8 routine instead, in order to keep to a 12hr day and 12hr night.


xxx
charm

[KathrynK]

However, I like Kathryn's idea of waking at 8 even better 

Actually, it was Natasha's idea, I can't take any credit!

See, that's how Pay It Forward should work 

[mommahnatuk]

Thanks, she is 14 weeks. Well, actually this morning I was going to wake up at 7, but shut off my alarm and got up at 8 when she woke up, she took a half feed and then a full feed at her next feed. That makes bedtime at 8 tonight. So, I guess we will work with that for now. Just when you think you have her bedtime down, she starts something new and throws the whole thing in another direction. I'm okay with that, it just means more sleep for me!!!

[KathrynK]

Make the most of the lie ins while you can- in another week or so I bet she will start going till 6.30am without a feed and then you have to start your day early  !!
(even when Alex wakes at 8am I still have Sophie getting me up before 7  )

[charmie]

 


xxx
charm