Hi Everyone,
Ive just this minute joined as Im having some issues with my daughter and her sleep at night and i dont know who else to ask - my friends and family have no more advice to give!
My daughter is 21 weeks tomorrow, weighs 16lb 10oz and has always woken up once sometimes twice for a feed at night, she is BF, although we have had a few nights of her sleeping through, which have been amazing! She will sleep through for maybe 2 or 3 nights at a time and then go back to waking up again? Sometimes 4 times a night.
Ive always breastfed her when she wakes and she has gone straight back off to sleep. Sometimes she goes back into the cot awake and takes herself back off, sometimes she falls asleep at the end of the feed.
Ive tried to instil a daytime routine with her, attempting to adopt the Eat, Play, Sleep idea which works, although she will only nap for 45 minutes and then is awake again - up until 12 weeks old she would regularly nap for 1.5 to 3 hours at a time, but now its 45 minutes and i could set my watch by it! Nothing i do will re settle her, once she is awake, she is awake, unless we are in the car and moving. I tried the Wake to Sleep idea, but that just woke her earlier and made her more upset. She has 3 to 4 naps a day and goes down easily for them, moaning a little sometimes but always falls asleep on her own.
Her daily routine changes all the time, no matter what i do to try and keep it the same. This is due to her feeding schedule. She goes through periods of feeding every 3-4 hours, but occasionally and recently has gone back to feeding every 2-2.5 hours, so this throws the routine off. She feeds from one breast at each feed and feeds for around 10-15 minutes. She comes off herself and always seems satisfied. I keep the Eat, Play, Sleep the same regardless. I cant extend the time between her feeds as she just screams and screams until i feed her. At the moment she wakes around 7.45am for the day and can only last 2 hours before she needs a nap and this is the same throughout the day. When she is awake she is a happy jolly baby, always smiling and laughing. We are active, playing, singing, going on outings, playtime at baby groups etc etc. She is very loved and cuddled and always with me.
When i take her for naps i always do the same things;
- carry her upstairs to her nursery and in a calm, quiet, sing songy voice say 'goodnight sunshine' slowly over and over as i pull down the blackout blind and close the curtains. I take her to her cot and say 'time to sleep now darling, mummy loves you' and i put her in the cot with a quiet, low 'ooooooh' sound. I zip up her sleeping bag whilst making the 'ooooooh' noise (by now she has found her thumb and is happily sucking it!) i give her the comfort toy she has for sleeping which she grabs with the other hand, i say 'goodnight darling' and leave the room while she is still awake. It probably takes her 5-10 minutes to go to sleep, sometimes without noise, sometimes chatting and thats it for 45 minutes! She always wakes up crying - not hard but like a moany cry (unless she is hungry then its a wail!) I go up, open the door and pull up the blackout blind saying 'morning sunshine!' in a happy, jolly sing songy voice - she smiles when i do this and sometimes giggles! I get her out and repeat this whole process at every nap.
Sometimes she needs feeding straight away, sometimes she can wait 20 minutes or so.
Her bedtime routine is also really solid, my husband does this and its the same every single night!
- last breastfeed at around 5pm - this is the only breastfeed that is consistent!
- bath at 5.45pm with calm gently play (she lies on a bath support so isnt upright and we dont use bath toys yet). she has a massage before she gets dressed which she loves and it doesnt stimulate her. We only talk in calm voices during this time.
- she comes downstairs and lies on the sofa while we sort out her formula (she has a formula feed at bedtime so that my husband can give it) we found that she likes to watch 'Waybuloo' it makes her really calm and sleepy.
- she has the formula at 6.15pm - the amount she takes varies from 4oz to the full 8oz - once she is done she definately wont take any more! im making dinner by now, so hubby brings her to the kitchen, i say goodnight and give her a kiss. He immediately takes her to the nursery and does the same as i do for naps. She will cry at this point, not hard but i can tell its a tired cry. She falls asleep usually within 5 minutes.
This is the routine we have always had and its always worked for us.
The problem
She has now taken to waking up 45 minutes after she has gone to bed in the last 2 to 3 weeks and really cries. My Health Visitor said that after bedtime my husband should be the one to go and settle her as she would expect me to breast feed her. Sometimes my husband can settle her and she goes back off fairly quickly but just recently its made her worse and ive had to go up. She calms at the sight of me and 50% of the time she will fall back asleep, but the other 50% she will cry and cry and root about until i feed her. This has no bearing on the amount of formula she has taken at bedtime by the way!
My Health Visitor suggested that my husband should give her formula at night when she really cant be settled any other way and reduce the amount that we give her to wean her off the night feeds. She told me not to feed her myself anymore at night.
She will also occasionally wake an hour after that first wake, and then will go through to around 3-4am and then around 5am. She wont be settled at these wakings any other way than to be fed. The longer we leave it till she is fed the more fretful and awake she gets. My lovely hubby dutifully goes in with formula which she takes happily and then falls asleep by herself when he puts her back in the cot. We dont talk to her, give her eye contact, put on the light etc - we never have. The only noise we make, if any is a 'Shush' noise as we have found that she finds this calming. She then gets up for the day at around 7.30-7.45am. She wakes chatting then and happy.
I know that she can sleep through the night, as we have had bouts of it on a few occasions - she slept 6.45pm to 8am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday last week and then has woken up since then, again. Why cant she do this more consistently? At the night feedings we limit the formula to 4oz, as recommended by the Health Visitor. I lowered this to 3oz (on her advice) last night, but she then woke 90 minutes later for more. I dont understand this at all? If i reduce it any more will she just wake more often?
Ive started to wean her thinking that she may be hungry, but this doesnt seem to have made any difference. She has baby porridge, pureed vegetables, pureed fruit and juicy finger foods to suck on. She likes the food and although she isnt 6 months i think its ok. I dont give her food religiously, just when it fits into the routine, usually an hour after a milk feed and not everyday.
I wonder whether she might be teething, but why then would she demand milk when she wakes? I gave her teeting powder, bonjela gel and bay ibuprofen today as she was a but fretful this afternoon and she has still woken the same after bedtime.
Ive kept a feed and sleep diary since the day she was born and there is ABSOLUTELY NO pattern to these wakings. She didnt wake up more during growth spurts and she hasnt been ill yet, so i dont know what thats like!?
Can anyone offer any advice? Im not expecting her to sleep for 13 hours consistenly, one night wake at 4-5am (like she used to do) would be great, the 7.30pm, 8.30pm, 3am and 5am feeds seem to be unnecessary and come out of no where. On the nights when she has slept through ive heard her wake up, have grumble and go back off by herself, so why cant she always do that??
I feel like im doing all the right things, putting her to bed awake, giving her a sleep toy, a solid routine, lots of opportunities to have daytime naps so where am i going wrong? 7 of my friends with babies of the same age only get up once if that in the night, my daughter is the worst one in the group!
Help!!!
Thank you, Natalie xx
