Early Night Wakings

[Mummy to Julian]

Hi there, would appreciate your thoughts on this: my DS is 13 weeks and used to be a pretty good sleeper- sleeping around 6 hours straight at night and waking up for feed at around 5 or even 6am- his bedtime used to be between 930-1030- it varied depending on how quickly we could get him to sleep.

Lately these past 3 days he has been falling asleep as usual at 10 ish but has been waking up at 1.30 and then again at 5 and this is very strange as he never used to wake up so early at night not even when a really young baby. Any ideas on what could be the cause of this? He is breast and bottle fed and on a 3 hour Easy routine which normally works very well as he is an angel/textbook baby. any ideas?

thanks so much! x
Nikki

ps he does not take a pacifier, used mum's breast as pacifier if anything and lately has taken to trying REALLY hard to suck his hand/arm/thumb but cant manage well so when he wakes up he will still have his eyes closed but tries frantically to look for something to suck! I usually BF him and put him right back down to sleep which he does.

[empowered mama]

hi there and welcome

do you have an EASY routine you can post?  If we can take a look, it may help to clairfy.  Typically early night wakings can be a cause of OT (overtiredness) and they sleep more restlessly when this is at play.

But yes, post your routine if you could

[Mummy to Julian]

Hey,

He is on EASY basically feeds 7, 10, 1, 4, 7, 10 roughly...lasts about 1.5 hrs awake time and usually naps after each feed for 1.5 hours or 1 hour unless we go out and then his naps are not that good or that long.  Lately he seems to be extending time between feeds as doesnt seem hungry at the three hour mark so i think he is naturally moving to 4 hour EASY- am monitoring him to see when I should start this.

Basically the early night wakings have stopped- I suspect it was a growth spurt- however I do have another problem now :-)

Basically I have not yet managed to established an early bedtime and I am not even sure why not to be honest! I think it is because it always takes a long time to put him down especially in the evening possibly coz DH is home and more activity in the house. When he was younger we used to feed him late at 11 so that he would sleep until later but supposedly an early bedtime promotes better sleep- does this work in reality?

I have tried putting him to sleep for the night after 7 oclock feed and giving him 10 o clock dream feed but he woke up and it took him ages to settle down again to sleep- so I am unsure whether I should keep at the late bedtime system with last normal feed at 10 (he normally sleeps 5- 6hrs straight) or keep trying with the early bedtime and Dream feed- what do you think?

another problem- not sure if this is solvable! - lately takes ages to settle down to sleep although once he sleeps he sleeps well- ppl have told me he is very alert for his age and this might be the reason. I am suspecting that it is becoz he wants to suck to sleep and will not take a pacifier- I try not to give him the breast but sometimes I give in and give it to him and it seems most of the time to immediately calm him and induce sleep- any idea on how I can get him to take a pacifier? I will be going part time back to work in October and I need the person taking care of him to be able to put him to sleep easily. Thanks so much and sorry for the long post! xx

[empowered mama]

hmm....so are you asking if you should put him to bed at 10 or 7?  want to make sure I'm reading this correctly...

Regarding the pacifier:  some LOs simply will not take one - this was certainly the case for my DS (which I am not grateful to not have to wean it!).  If he is sucking to sleep, then it sounds like he is using you as a prop and you can use the shh/pat method or PU/PD (assuming he is the appropriate age of 4 months).  We did this to break the nursing-to-sleep habit, and it worked very effectively.  There is a lot of info on this on the PU/PD and Props boards.

[Mummy to Julian]

hehe sorry for my confusing post- basically my question is:

does moving bedtime earlier usually help babies sleep longer at night and wake up less to feed? why is early  bedtime considered better?  ie I am scared if I move his bedtime earlier he will end up waking to feed earlier for example at 1 am and then again at 5am whilst as we are he only wakes once at night. I Bf at night but not sure would have enough milk he woke up to feed more often then he currently does and don't want to give bottle in the middle of the night- all this considering that dream feed (which would be a bottle) instead of current 10 oclock feed didn't seem to work for me. Also in Malta where I live it is very hot and it is normal for ppl to go out in summer and kids to be up later than winter so it kind of happens naturally that we all including DS go to bed later. basically am trying to see the advantage of early bedtime as opposed to current routine.
Thanks!