5 month old wakes at 4am babbling - NW

[newbie_momsie]

This past week DD likes to wake up around 4am and babbles. Almost every day she wakes at about 5am but puts herself back to sleep by 6am and wake at 7am to start the day. But when she wakes at 4am...she settles by 5am and wakes again at 6am which we then start her day. we helped her learn to fall asleep since 6 weeks old and she is usually very good at being an independent sleeper. We swaddle and use white noise (her sleep cues).

This is what our EASY usually looks like:

500am EW
600am DD goes back to sleep
700am first Eat
2-2hr 15 min Activity
900am or 915am Sleep
1100am Eat
2-2 hr 15 min Activity
100pm or 115pm Sleep
300pm Eat
1 hr 45 min - 2 hr Activity
445pm cat nap
530pm Activity
7:00pm Eat
8pm Bedtime (DD consistently needs 2.5 hr A time before bed to be tired enough to fall asleep.
 If we put her down earlier she will lie in bed and babble for a long time). Also, her naps range fromn1 hr 15 min to 2 hr so I adjust EASY when she wakes before next feed by doing some A time.

This week 3 times she woke at about 4am. I usually go in and reswaddle her or change her diaper and leave her alone to fall back to sleep. Not sure why my 5 month old is suddenly waking early. Doesnt look like teething yet.

She also rolled over for the first time while being swaddled in the crib! Scared me! Also wondering if this means I have to wean her off swaddling but she sleeps so well with it?

Thanks!

[trimbler]

You probably won't like this, but if she's rolling in her swaddle, you're going to have to wean it  I was terrified of swaddling weaning but our DD was outgrowing it so we had to, actually at a similar age, and it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, although I'll be honest, sleep did get worse over a period of time before improving again. So this actually would be the first thing to work on, it will probably mess up your routine for a while anyway so you may have different issues once you're out the other side, but I did wonder whether you may need to increase A times a bit during the day. However, it wasn't quite clear to me what her A times actually are, if her naps vary from 1h 15, since you've reported your A times starting from the feed, rather than from when she woke? When you've started the day at 6am, have you just shifted the whole day an hour and done BT at 7pm?

[newbie_momsie]

Thx for the reply!

Yes...if she wakes at 6am then we shift everything up so bedtime is ariund 730pm. This is also true if her naps are less than 2 hrs meaning we just start the A time earlier until the next feeding (every 4 hrs she eats usually).

I read many parents swaddle their babies until 8 months. Surely their child can roll by then so isnt it posdible to continue swaddling my little one?

Any suggestions on how to fix her 4am night wakings?

[Martini~]

Some don't roll for months:) but! some sleep books recommends swaddling even till 12-15mo. What is a solution is a SafeT Sleep - have you heard about it? It prevents rolling to tummy when asleep and is a great solution for children who cannot roll back.

[trimbler]

Actually not all kids have learnt to roll back to front by 8mo, and of those who have, not all would be able to do it in a swaddle. I'm no expert, but everything I've read says that once they can roll in the swaddle, it's no longer safe, I'm afraid.

So you always keep the A times 2h - 2h 15, regardless of nap length? Apart from the one before the CN, of course? Tbh some early morning babbling is quite common at this age, it may be developmental or a sign that you need to start stretching A times during the day, gently. If the day's shifted completely then it's pretty much what she was doing before then, ie the night length hasn't changed significantly, so what you want to do is gently shift the whole day? It's good that she's going back to sleep afterwards herself Of course there's also the possibility of some OT which can also lead to EWs, but I'd probably expect some BT battles or early NWs and general crankiness during the day - do you get any of this?

I'm afraid though that I really do think you need to wean that swaddle now, so you'd expect things to get a bit wonky when you do that anyway, you may need to come back to this routine stuff once you've been through weaning and just do the best you can to keep OT at bay in the process Do you have sleeping bags you can use? These are a great transition, actually just great for most LOs regardless of whether they were swaddled. I'm not actually sure whether it's safe to wean one arm at a time when they're already rolling  the props board may be better for that or someone else may pop on here... At this age we actually weaned more cold turkey - the swaddle we used allows you to swaddle with both arms out so that's what we did, then transitioned to a sleeping bag. It really wasn't as messy as we'd feared, yes she needed more help to settle at first but I think it's much easier at this age than when they're younger