My 6 month old daughter is a real sweetie by day, but turns into a totally different baby at night when she wakes up and wants to get back to sleep and I really struggle comforting / calming her, making the multiple wakings even harder to deal with.
This is roughly her daily routine at the moment:
Wake up time really depends on her night and her last waking, any time between 5am and 7am. I try to feed her when she wakes up so early and top it off after she wakes up again, if she does fall back to sleep.
Nap 1: she tends to do a longer nap that starts earlier if she had an early start and didn't go back to sleep, but on 'good' days she goes some time between 8.30 and 9.00. Tends to nap 1hr and 15 min usually but yesterday it was 2 hours when she was awake between 5am and 8am. All in all wakes up any time between 9.30 and 10.15.
Eat: usually just one breast around 10.30 and solids (fruit puree) around 11.30/12.00
Nap 2: between 12.00 / 12.30 for about 1hr 15 min (but also varies depending on what time she woke up from previous nap and how tired she was from a bad night)
Eat: usually 2 breasts around 2/2.30pm but only 1 when her brother is around as she is too nosy/distracted by him :-)
Nap 3: catnap any time between 4pm and 5pm for about 30/45 min
Eat: solids (veg puree) around 5pm, then a good feed around 5.30 (she is really hungry for this one usually thought today she didn't ask for it, so I skipped this one) and then top up before bedtime at 7pm.
I'm going to introduce porridge next week or the week thereafter.
For naps she can now settle her self (again). She was getting to dependent on the dummy so I decided to get rid of that this week through gradual withdrawal. She is now 2 days dummy-free.
Bedtime routine starts around 6.15pm and exists of kicking her legs lying naked on the floor, bath, dressing (she is often very upset so probably very tired) and nursing. She sometimes falls asleep on the breast but I wake her up gently so I put her down drowsy. That is working fine again for the last 3 days. (If she was too awake, she started crying for the dummy, but she hasn't done that for the past 4 or 5 days).
She is exclusively breastfed still, I don't express as just don't have the time with a toddler running around. I'm considering introducing formula for the day feeds as she can be so nosy, not eating much, and I can't always sit somewhere quiet. As solids have not established yet, she def needs a night feed and I've introduced a dream feed the last couple of days (at 10.30pm), as I thought that would mean I don't need to confuse her giving her the breast for one of her wakings (usually 2am) as she may want them for her other wakings then too. She is taking from both breasts without waking up too much and she goes down perfectly after this.
I'm losing count how much she's been waking the last few weeks, but it started to get worse the last couple of weeks (I think). The last two nights I've written it down: 1.30am, 3am, 4am last night and 1am, 2am and 5am the night before. When she wakes, she is now able to self settle after I've been with her, sometimes it doesn't take too long (maybe 10 - 15 min) but it can also take really long (up to 1 hr 45 min it was last night during her last waking) especially after a few wakings, closer to the morning). But it involves really loud screaming that just continues if I leave her there (I do initially give her the chance to settle herself when she doesn't seem too upset), but also gets worse when I pick her up (back arching), so I put her down again but then she gets more upset (even though you don't think that was possible), so I pick her up again. This repeats a few times until I really don't know what to do and put her down again. It's almost like she wants me initially to pick her up and help her back on track (I think she is expecting / hoping for a comfort feed), then getting more upset that I can't/won't calm her down before finally accepting and deciding 'ok, I will try it for myself then'. I do use a calming and confident voice telling her that it's ok, I know it's not easy but we can do it together, I'm here to help and I use the same words when putting her down again. As she takes a good feed at 11.30am I only tend to put her on the breast again after 4am in the morning but when I did that this morning she didn't take much at all, so I took her off again as I don't want my breast to replace what the dummy did for her.
Activity time for her is different on the days that I'm on my own with her: she plays on her own a bit (rotating in the playpen, high chair and on the floor) after she wakes up, then I play with her and usually we go out for a short walk in the push chair to the supermarket. Her final nap of the day is always in the push chair as we need to pick up her brother from nursery or this is on our way back home if her brother is at home as we tend to take him outside if the weather is nice enough. On the days that her brother is around, she tends to observe him a lot, when I read to him, they both sit on my lap, we have playdates with his toddler friends or music time which she enjoys too. Passive participation in a way. She is with me on my own 3 days a week.
She could be teething of course, but I don't see anything yet. I remember with her brother that he started teething months before anything popped out. I have noticed her chewing more this week but no change in her stools or saliva yet.
My main question is how can I comfort her better as I feel so sad for her that she is so upset, she is not very cuddly (compared to her brother at that age for example) and do you have any feedback based on the above on what I could do differently? Ideally I'd like her to sleep through but realise that may be a long way off (and that is fine by me), but if there's anything I could make the wakings less painful for her (and me), that would be so great! It may be part of her personality and not solvable but there was a period of sleeping through or only waking once for a feed and she also has been able to self-settle not needing help from me at all where she'd use a mantra cry. She also used her dummy for a bit but at some point forgot how to do it which is when we tried the dummy again (strangely enough she didn't want the dummy at first, but when her silent reflux (which she has outgrown by now) got worse she suddenly accepted it).
I hope all of the above give a clear picture, I'm so tired so realise it can all be a bit unclear!
Many thanks!
