Almost 5mo stopped sleeping through the night

[Lauren's Mom]

I don't know where else to turn, so I hope that someone has some tips I can try.

My LO will be 5 months old next week. About 3 weeks ago, she stopped sleeping through the night after over a month of consistently doing so. She also started waking up shortly after we laid her down. That weekend 3 weeks ago, we tried rice cereal for 2 days and then decided to wait, and I got the stomach flu. My milk supply (she's exclusively bf) has been a little lower since, but we've been working to build it back up.

Her days have gotten so much better. She's now eating about every 3 hours, where before she was eating every 2. Here's how a typical day goes lately:

4:30 wake up, try paci, feed when paci doesn't work & put straight back down
6:45 Eat - normal wake time, dress & take to daycare by 7:45
8:30-9:30 - Nap
9:30ish Eat
11-11:45 - Nap
11:45 Eat - I breastfeed her over my lunch hour
1:45-2:45 - Nap
2:45 - Eat
5:30 - Eat
6:30-7 - Sometimes takes a cat nap
8 - Eat, read story, sing lullabies, sleep by 8:30

It wouldn't be that bad if she would go straight back to sleep at 4:30, but she's been waking up 20 minutes after she goes to sleep crying. The only thing that gets her back to sleep is if I swaddle her with both arms in and give her a paci, neither of which she used to need. At night, we've had to pu/pd several times to get her to finally stay asleep. She has also started falling asleep at the breast before bed, when she didn't previously.

When we swaddle her arms in at night, she wakes up and fusses when she kicks out of it. Is she getting too used to the swaddle and paci to go to sleep?

That's all I can think of. Anyone have any tips? Thanks so much for reading this.

[Richelle]

I don't have alot of time right now but my 1st instict says she is WAY overtired.  Even if she does have a catnap of I am assuming 45minutes my 12 month old sleeps more than that in the daytime.  At this age she should be getting at least 3+ hours of daytime sleep.  Also I think her bedtime is too late, it should be around 7PM.  Maybe it would be easier for you to put her down at 7ish as she has already been up since 245.

HTH,
Richelle

[Jaime]

hi,

i agree, she sounds overtired at bedtime.  that 1:45 nap definitely needs to extend another hour, and i would pull bedtime back to no later than 8pm

it sounds like what happened was that she hit the 4 month crazy period and then never quite recovered.  it's very normal; 4 months is a time when there are lots of big developmental leaps (physically & mentally) and it frequently disturbs sleep.  if she didn't need a feed there before, i would be inclined to think she doesn't need one now, and it only eating out of habit. 

you could probably very easily use pu/pd to help extend the nap & eliminate the night waking.  here's a link to the board to help you with technique:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?board=31.0

[tiki_mama]

hi 

should you not also be trying to move her to the 4 hour EASY as she is now too old to be fed every 3 hours? i just moved my 4 month old onto 3.5hr  transition EASY (she was 3weeks early so we're a little behind moving to 4hr) and her night time waking is improving so brilliantly in just a week! 

[Lauren's Mom]

Thank you all for your suggestions. We'll try to push back her bedtime and see if that works. Her naps are actually an hour now instead of just 45 minutes, so we'll see if the earlier bedtime works to extend them even longer. Do I do a dream feed then before I go to bed at 10? She's not gaining weight very well (not losing, though), so I am scared to go longer between feedings just yet. Most days she doesn't even make it the 3 hours before getting hungry again.

[Lauren's Mom]

Thank you all for your help! Lauren now goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps straight through until 5:30 a.m.! My husband and I were both skeptics, but it has worked fabulously!

[Jaime]

woo hoo!! that's wonderful news!!!   

[Jenna's Mum]

Lauren's Mom,

I'm having a couple of similar issues to you so was wondering what you did to fix... are you still swaddling?  We had stopped swaddling a couple of weeks ago but night wakings were terrible so we went back to swaddling and it's getting better.  But now I'm also having to go back to using the swaddle at nap times too whereas before we were doing somewhat okay without it.  Are you still swaddling?  If so, for nights and naptimes?  Also, we had to make her dreamfeed later as my dd wasn't hungry at 10pm or 11pm, midnight is when she seems really hungry even though I know you're not supposed to dreamfeed after 11pm.  She's on typical 4-hour EASY straight from the book, except she's hardly ever hungry at 4 hours and could easily go 5 but there is no 5-hour EASY to follow and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about that!  Anyway, basically my questions are whether you are still dreamfeeding and what time?  And are you still swaddling?  When are they supposed to outgrow the swaddle?

Thanks!

[Lauren's Mom]

We just reintroduced the swaddle at night, and it's working well. They won't swaddle at daycare, though, so it's just bedtime only. We don't do a dream feed, as I never could get it right. Last night bedtime was 7:30, she woke at 2:30 and I reswaddled, replaced paci and pu/pd until she finally talked herself to sleep. She slept until 6:40, so about 11 hours!

I don't know when they outgrow the swaddle. We have to swaddle so she doesn't pull her paci out of her mouth and play with it.