8m waking at night and trying to drop dreanfeed

[nandn]

Hi,

My youngest dd is 8 months old and has been waking at night for at least last 6 weeks. I thought she was a touchy baby but now I'm not sure anymore. I've gone dairy free for her which did seem to help her settle easier for bedtime, reduce her spilling and improve her sleeping somewhat. Again though I am not sure if the dairy is part of her issues? She used to sleep through from about 3 months (6pm till 7am with dreamfeed around 10pm). Admittedly we've had an unsettled last 4 months with moving about the place a bit (staying with family) and now back at home but DH still only home at weekends. DD was rooming in with me while away from home but since we're back at home she's in her own room.

She's breastfed (4 day feeds plus dreamfeed) and has solids 3-4 times a day.
Her daily routine is something like this:
7am wake up, (solids) breakfast with family, playtime, B/F, more play if not too tired, then down for nap usually around 8.30.
9.30 wake from nap, then playtime or errands or off to big sister activities
B/F, lunch and down for nap around 11.30 - 12pm
on a good day she'll have 1 1/2 hrs nap but quite often only 1hr.
B/F around 3pm maybe a snack if early up from nap
Depending on when she got up she'll have another 1hr nap sometime before 4.30ish (sometimes she has 4 x 1 hr naps throughout the day)
Dinner around 5pm, play, bath, B/F , quiet time, and bed around 6-6.30pm
She's never been a good napper and I've spend countless hours (since birth) doing shhh/pat, pu/pd, wake to sleep etc without much luck. As she is generally happy during the day and (was) sleeping through at night I accepted it was just her not needing more day sleep.

I've brought back her dreamfeed to just after 9pm.

She'll wake during the night anytime from 2ish. Sometimes she self settles, if not I do pu/pd. When I go in she is often wide awake and happy to see me as if it's playtime. It might take 1 1/2 hrs to get her to go back to sleep (by pu/pd) and most of the times I don't feed her. I know she can go throught the night without another feed. I have to admit I do use it at times (maybe once a week) when I don't have the energy to be up for several hours not having the luxury of anyone to share the load with.

I'm concerned about making the dreamfeed a habit and really want to drop it fairly soon (and have her sleeping through again) we didn't start solids till she was well and truly 6 months and then took ages to really get into it so i wasn't keen to drop the D/F untill solids were established.

I am not sure why she is waking at night, I don't think it's hunger. She could be teething (hasn't got any yet)but doesn't seem to be in pain at night. I try to keep her room warm enough and her dressed appropriately. or is it the food I eat? I've had days eating chocolate and weeks of not and she still wakes most nights.

Is the D/F interrupting her sleep and making her wake? Is she still adjusting to being back at home? Food? Teeth? Lack of sleep during the day?

I also have a toddler to run around after so is she waking to ahve more one on one time with me?

Anyway, any advice on how to go from here?

[becky1969]

There's a LOT of things that go on at 8 months to make sleep funky.  But I think your #1 problem is that your naps are too early.  you've got an UT baby, which is why her naps tend to be only an hour.  Then, because she hasn't had enough daytime sleep she's OT by bedtime and so has disrupted nights.

At this age she should be able to handle 3 (or even more) hours of A time.  You'll probably have to gradually push her out.  I've helped a few moms with kids this age do this very thing.  I think what happens that mixes moms up is around 6-7 months babies lose a lot of their sleepy signs, or else they show them out of habit at the usual time -- they get very engrained in their routine.  So, mama's continue to stay on same A time even tho baby is ready for more.  Then short naps start and night sleep troubles begin.  Sound familiar?   

The routine we're aiming for is:

7 am wake

10 am nap (sleep 2 hours)

12:00 pm wake

3:00 nap (sleep 2 hours)

5:00 pm wake

7:30 get ready for bed, in bed no later than 8

Make sense?

You can't go straight into this routine as she's only used to 1.5-2 hours A time right now it looks like.  So, you'll probably have to increase by about 15 minutes every couple of days.  It will NOT be an easy transition, and naps/nights are going to be whacked until you get her firmly established on the appropriate A time for her age.  But once you get there things should even out.

As for the DF, we usually drop it around 7-8 months old (once solids are firmly established) so I think dropping it now isn't a bad idea at all, esp. since you're going to be changing routine around quite a bit.  She shouldn't need it if you've got your solids going strong.

Make sense?

[nandn]

Thanks for your reply, some of it definitely sounds familiar like the tired signs at same time even though she may have only been up for an hour.

Ok so i'll try to push out her activity time but what about getting her to nap longer. Do I just leave her in her cot for the 2 hours even if she is just happily chatting? I've tried to do pu/pd with her the times she wakes up crying after only 45mins and it has never worked. I end up with an extremely unhappy baby, more so than what she was when she woke up.

I kept her up longer this morning but still only an hour nap. And again just now, was up for 2 1/2 hrs and again only a short nap.

I guess I could try wake to sleep, haven't tried that for a while. I do find it hard to co-ordinate things with my toddler around as well though.

And the DF do you suggest keep bringing back her feed time or should I try cold turkey?

[becky1969]

If she wakes early from nap, I'd just get her up.  The reason she's not sleeping is because she's UT -- nothing will help her sleep more.  And, since she's awake, A time has started.  So might as well let her get up and play etc.

I wouldn't try any other methods because we *know* the cause of the short naps -- it's being UT.  And then cumulatively OT, so that's causing NWs.  No other method is going to work.  W2S only works for habitual wakings -- ones that happen at exactly the same time every night out of habit (usually b/c they used to get a feed then). That's not what's going on here.  Patience and extending A time will work! It's just probably going to take about a week of slowly stretching her.  Stretch too fast and she'll be OT for those naps and they'll STILL be short! LOL! So we need to go slow and give her body time to adjust.

With the DF it depends on if she's been taking a big or small feed then.  What we do is slowly wean the feed and then they start to make the calories up during the day.  With a bottle you water down the formula.  With BF I believe you just decrease the time you allow her to eat.  I didn't BF, so I'm not sure what the rules are or anything.  You could pop oer to the BF board and ask or look in the FAQs to see.  I'll also try to hunt down something.  But I think if BF session takes 20 minutes say at DF, then 1st night decrease to 15 min, 2nd night 10, 3rd night 5 min and then you're done.  Over 3 days she'll probably increase her BF and solids intake during the day to make up for the short fall.

If she hasn't really been EATING at the DF, just kind of sucking sleepily, then I might cut it out altogether.  That means she hasn't really been hungry for it.

[nandn]

Hi there,

Well we're a bit further down the right track with better day naps and less waking at night. I've got her activity time up now (very long struggle) to 2 1/2 hrs and still trying to extend her to 3hrs. Her naps have improved where over the last 10 days she has consistently (minus a couple of off days) slept for 90 mins to 2hrs in the morning and 1 hr15 to 1hr30 hrs in afternoon. VEry occasionally i'll still give her a late catnap if she hasn't had much sleep during day but generally we're down to two decent naps.

Dream feed is out the window, no more feeds at night, i do have to admit to using a sipper cup of water at times to help settle but she is not reliant on it (well i don't think she is).

We still have 6 out of 7 nights of her waking up and using pu/pd to resettle. Usually she wakes between 1030 and midnight and can still take up to a couple of hrs to fall back asleep till morning. Is it still undertired / over tiredness causing this you think? Still no teeth, she doesn't seem to be in pain. She is on the move at last so is getting more physically tired.

The times she has slept thru all night has been after a late afternoon catnap and consequently a later bedtime. So do i still give her a late catnap and put her down later or keep extending her awake time and stick to 6pm bedtime? She is definitely tired at the 2 - 2 1/2 hr mark and only takes a couple of mins to fall asleep for her naps.

routine for now is

awake 7am
solids and BF and play
nap 9.30-11.30
lunch and BF and play
nap 1.30-3pm
snack
dinner 5pm
bath and BF
6pm bedtime