1 and 5 am wakings for 9 mt old

[carolina_bug]

This is a new post for an ongoing NW issue.  My last post was b/c my 9 mt old was NW several times and then waking for the day at 4:30-5:00.  I ended up taking out her CN and moving her 7pm bedtime to 6pm.  This helped for a few days, and she no longer has the early NW between 9 and 12, but for the past week, she has been consistently waking at 1 am and then for the day at 5 am. 

Here is her EASY:

5 am   Wake
E        7:00 (Solids and 6 oz. bottle)
A        5:00-8:00
S        8:00-9:30

E        11:00-11:30(Solids and 6 oz. bottle)
A        9:30-12:30
S        12:30-2:00

E        3:00-3:30 (Solids and 6 oz. bottle)
A        2:00-5:30 then bath, book, and bottle (At this time she will drink an 8 oz. bottle for the night.)
S        6:00 (Wakes at 1:00am then for the day at 5:00am)


Over the past week, I have tried not giving her a bottle at her 1am waking, but the first two nights, we were up for 3 hrs before she went back down, then the next night an hour and then next 30 min.  After that, I just started giving her a bottle and she goes right back down until 5.  I know it's accidental parenting, but I didn't know what to do after being up for hours when all she wanted was a bottle.  She downs 6 oz. in a matter of minutes.

She's showing no signs of teething.  She has a small cough, but that doesn't seem to bother her at night.  I don't feed her at 5 when she wakes.  I still wait until 7 to feed her so her eating schedule stays the same.  I was hoping that not feeding her right when she woke up would help her to sleep a bit longer, but that hasn't been the case.

She's getting two great naps during the day, and goes right down without a fuss at night.  I may just have an early riser on my hands, but I would love any suggestions on ways to help her sleep a bit later.  Also, I know I shouldn't be feeding her when she wakes at 1, but this seems to be the only thing that will get her to sleep again.  I can't do a 3 hr wake period every night.

Thanks.

[anna*]

So the thing is, if she's taking two good naps and sleeping 11 hours at night, 5am really isn't that much of an EW. 11hrs is a LITTLE short of a night, but lots of bubs never get to 12hrs. It looks like what you need to do is just try to shift everything on by an hour. I'd start by pushing that first nap later. It's really the first thing to try for early mornings - push the first nap to 8.30 or even 9am, and see if that encourages her to sleep a little later in the morning. I must admit though, I don't quite get why you went back to giving her a bottle at 1am when the length of the NWs was down to 30 mins?

[zoeselina]

Hi there. I might not be the best one to post on this, since I'm dealing with a 9 month old early riser myself at the moment. But a couple of things I noticed are:

The A times might be a bit short. My LO was always a bit behind other babies when it came to A time, but even she is doing 3.5-4 hour stretches now. So that might be something to think about.

The other (and this may or may not be relevant) is that I see you are giving a bottle and solids at the same time. Have you tried spacing them out so that she gets her bottle when she first wakes from a nap/sleep and then her solids 1-1.5 hours later? Like I said, I have no idea if this will help, but maybe spacing out her food through the day will mean that she takes more food overall and doesn't wake up hungry.

HTH!
Hugs x

[carolina_bug]

Thanks ladies.  I'll try extending her A time and spacing the solids and formula out.  It makes sense, so I'll keep my fingers crossed, and keep you posted!

As for her 1 am NW, it never went to only 30 min.  What I meant by that was: after two nights of being up for 3 hours, I tried the bottle after only one hour, and then the next night, I tried the bottle after only 30 minutes.  The only reason the NW only lasted 30 min, was b/c I gave her a bottle.  If I had not given it to her, it would've been another long wake time.

I'll try spacing the food out, and hopefully the 1 am NW will stop.

Thanks!

[carolina_bug]

So, I extended her A time and separated the bottle and solids.  She did well the first two nights.  Still waking at around 3 for a bottle, but when right back to sleep after that, and getting up just after 6:00. 

Last night, however, she woke up at 3:30, and was wide awake until 5:30.  I didn't change her day time routine, so I'm not sure what happened.  She's wide awake for the first 30 minutes, then screams and cries because she's tired for the last hour and a half.  I tried a bottle, but she was already awake, so that didn't help.

I do the shhh/pat method because we had to lower her crib and I can't do PU/PD.  That never really worked for her anyway.  Since the shhh/pat wasn't working, I picked her up and tried to hold her.  That worked for a little bit, but then she was crying again b/c she's OT.

I'm really at a loss.

[anna*]

At 9 months old you really don't Pick Up in PUPD anyway, you will do all of the settling in her crib and only pick up for a moment if she is really frantic. Is she pulling up to stand? It's difficult to make a call on what is going on based on only one night - could be teething? I would wait to see if it happens again - it's great that she was doing better the previous two nights.