9 MO and Predictable NWs

[Karinabeena]

Hi there,

My DS is 9 months old this week and he has three very predictable NWs every night. It doesnt matter if we have a great day of naps, or a terrible one, he always wakes up every 3-4 hours at night. He falls asleep independently for night and naps. He has slept through the night (as in 5 hours) maybe a handful of times in his life.

His bedtime is at 6:30pm, and we can usually bank on a NW at 9:30pm, 1:30am-ish, and 5:00am-ish. (It's usually pretty tough to get him back to sleep when he wakes at 5am too. Most days we can get him back to sleep, but sometimes he just wakes himself up in the process of my DH trying to resettle him.)

Our day looks like this, give or take (note: DS has always had low sleep needs)....

Wake - 6:30am
Nap - 9:30am - 10:40am (1h10m)
Nap - 2:00pm - 3:10pm (1h10m)
Bedtime - 6:30pm

When DS wakes in the night, my DH goes in first to try to resettle him. This works 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time, DS's crying will escalates, and so I will go in and breastfeed him. Once he gets a good letdown (this sometimes takes me 5-10mins when I'm really tired at night), he will settle back into his crib easily -- but if I try to put him back in his crib before his tummy is filled, he'll start crying really hard again.

My DH and I are not sure what to do. We don't like that we're being inconsistent -- ie. DH trying to resettle him first, but then having me breastfeed when that doesn't work -- as we don't want him to think that if he cries hard enough, he'll be nursed.
But I also don't think I should just be breastfeeding him everytime he wakes up.

Should we try to night wean him? I'm worried that it will be a long and grueling process, given his personality, and that he'll still continue to wake despite it. He has been such a tough baby, when it comes to sleep, and my tolerance for hearing him cry is low - especially at night.
Or should we try W2S??

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[becj86]

He may need an A time increase, not changing the amount of day sleep, just the configuration of it... that may help if its from UT.

The other things is that those wakings are pretty much on the sleep rhythms, by which I mean he seems to be having trouble getting through the transitional light sleep stage. Is he in any discomfort? cold, teething, reflux, sore throat?

Seeing as this had been going on his whole life (and with your LSN comment) and he only settles with an actual letdown, I'd be inclined to think reflux What do you think?

[Karinabeena]

Thanks! Funny you mention the A time increase. The past few days, he's refused to go down for his naps, so I tried getting him up and then putting him down 30 minutes later and he fell asleep all by himself...no crying...just babbled himself to sleep! So, I've increased his A time to about 3.75 hours and it seems to be working well. The only thing is that it's pushed his bedtime back a bit, but he's still waking at the same time in the morning (or sometimes earlier)...and he's not making up the lost sleep during the day....so I think we're slowly starting the awkward 2-1 nap transition.

Even with the increase in A time, he still sleeps 1 hour and 10 minutes on the dot for each nap. He's been doing that for about a month or two now...kinda strange! But he used to be such an unpredictable, short napper that I'm happy that he's surpasing an hour!!

Not sure what is going on with the NWs though. I don't think it's reflux. He used to have a dairy intolerance (when EBF), but he outgrew it entirely at 6 months. So I'm quite familiar with his behaviour when he is a hurting-baby (it took us two months to figure it out, and he was in a lot of pain at night during that time...very hard to see, poor baby), and so I'm pretty confident that he's not in pain. Could it be that he just wants that "full-belly feeling" to get back to sleep each sleep cycle?? That being said, we've had a couple longer stretched here and there since I wrote last. So, I don't know what to think!

How many NWs or night feeds are common (or considered a good amount) at this age?

Thanks!!!

[becj86]

Usually one NF at this age

Give him a few days at the new A time and see if his naps extend, it can take a few days
Naps shrinking and EW's often means UT but can lead to OT if the A times aren't increased.

What's your EASY now?

[Karinabeena]

Ok, we'll keep persisting. The last two nights have been awful, but he may have another tooth coming. Pain meds don't seem to be helping though, so it's hard to know what exactly is going on.

Our EASY is all over the place!! Different every day for the last few days. Today he refused to do go down earlier in the morning, and refused a second nap/catnap. He was so tired by the end of the day though, that I put him to bed early.

Wake - 6:30am
S - 11:15 - 12:45 (woke after 30 mins, but I resettled him)
Bedtime - 5:45pm

[Karinabeena]

Oh, I should have mentioned that up until today, our EASY looked more like this:

Wake - 6am
S - 9:45am-10:55am
S - 2:45pm - 3:55pm
Bedtime - 7pm

[becj86]

Wake - 6am
S - 9:45am-10:55am
S - 2:45pm - 3:55pm
Bedtime - 7pm

This looks pretty typical of a routine that works for a lot of LO's.

You could also push the A times a little and try for one long nap and a catnap:
wake - 6
S - 10/10:15-11:30/45
S - 3:30/45-4:00/15
Bedtime -7pm
It just takes a bit of tweaking to find the right A time to get the long nap in the morning.

[Karinabeena]

ok, thanks a lot!