7mo with an EW every day...?

[lrj]

hi all!

i have a question about early wakes.

my LO is 7 mos old, and we just barely dropped the dream feed. since then, she's been waking up every day at 6am, even though i have been gradually moving her first feed back. most recently, she ate at 7:10, but still wakes up at 6. i'm not sure what to do with her when she wakes up since pu/pd seems to make her scream. if i just leave her, she's happy for about 15 minutes but then cries. usually, i get her up and let her play (i.e. distract her) until feeding time. i assumed that getting her used to a later feeding time would help her sleep longer, but she's woken up at 6 every day for a week. =(

here are her details (since the early wakes)...

wake up- 6
feed- 7
nap- 8-9:30 (with me in the bed. i'm usually begging her to fall asleep after the feed at 7 since i'm still exhausted, but she usually won't for like an hour)
wake- 9:30-1:30 (this is super long, but she seems happy?)
feed- 10 or so
feed- 1:30 (but not to sleep)
nap- 1:30-3:30 (or longer)
wake- 3:30-8
feed- 4:30 or so
feed- 8
bedtime- 8ish

our bedtime routine is a diaper change, feeding and song/story by dad. she has a lovie.
she breastfeeds, but also eats solids at lunch and dinner time, although BLW, so really variable. she used to only need five feeds a day (including the dream feed), but since we dropped the dream feed, she seems hungry all the time. it seems like she still needs five feeds, but it's unclear to me where the fifth one should go.

oh and for naps, i just sing her a song and put her down. she rarely cries on the way down, although it happens.

she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night at all anymore (wooooohooooo!!!), but i feel like sleeping from 8 or 8:30 to 6 really isn't long enough right? i'd also rather have her sleep at night than during the day for my sake. =)

thanks in advance for your help...

laura

[PaulsMom]

Hi Laura

Hugs on the ew's. 

Ok, it looks like there are a few things that could be going on. 

Wrt the df, is there a reason for dropping the df?  I know some babies will drop it around 7 months but not all.  Also did you drop it cold turkey or phase it out gradually?  If it was down abruptly then your Lo may be hungry if the calories from this feed were not added to other feeds.

Wrt the routine, most babies that are 7 mo old are usually awake for 2.75 hrs to 3 hrs or so.  Some of your A times are either shorter or much longer than this.  I would increase your first A a bit and then decrease you second and last A times so they are more in range with the average A for this age.  I would aim for a bt around 7 pm so that she's getting more  nt sleep. 

Babies do need a lot of sleep.  They will "process" things that they see or learn when they sleep so it is very important to allow them to sleep during the day and at night.  In addition if a baby is not allowed to sleep during the day, or get enough restorative sleep, they will become OT which can cause sleep disturbances at night. 

Here are some links for useful info
Average A times
Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!!

Typical amounts of day and night time sleep
Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep

[lrj]

thanks for your reply!

so, i guess i thought i had read somewhere that i should be able to drop the df at this age. i'm starting to think that might have been the wrong decision, at least for her. i phased it out gradually by moving it 30 minutes earlier every couple of days, but the 6am wakings didn't start until i totally dropped it.

although, one day we stayed out late and she woke up in transit back home, so i went ahead and nursed her at that point (1am). but she still woke up at 6 (much to my dismay...haha). but i guess at this point it could just be habit, right? also last night, her last feed was at 7pm and she woke up at 4, so i guess that also points to her not being able to go more than 10 hours. (which isn't bad at all, when i think back on the early days... )

as far as bedtime goes, it's pretty hard for us to get her in bed around 7 since we're usually eating dinner then (and she's eating with us). it seems logical that an 8pm-8am night would be fine, but that only works if she keeps sleeping until 8. we've been trying to put her down earlier for the last couple of nights (we've successfully hit 7:30). do you think it's possible for us to get a later night time sleeping schedule? how would we go about doing it without making her ot?

and i've been working on the A times. if she wakes up at 6, she's usually fussy and yawning uncontrollably by 8, which i guess is because she hasn't gotten a full night, right? should i still try to push her to stay awake if she's like that?

you're right that 3 hour wake times (as opposed to 4) seem better for her, although she sometimes seems okay with 4 and goes to sleep happily. but i guess i shouldn't assume that that means it's always okay. maybe just on days when something weird throws a wrench in our schedule.

thanks for your help!!

[lrj]

oh oops. forgot to say that unless you reply really quickly and tell me not too, i'll probably experiment with adding back the df tonight.

do you think it's okay to just do it before i go to bed instead of at a consistent time every night? or is it important to be consistent?

thanks again!

[*Kara*]

I would add the DF back in personally.  I would wait until she is taking in a good volume of solids during the day (some babies keep the DF until a year of age)...  a good indicator is that she will either not be bothered with taking much from the DF for a week or so... or, she will start dropping her daytime feeds (in terms of volume).

[lrj]

okay! I did the df and she woke up last night again at 4  but went back to sleep after about 40 minutes of pu/pd, which is better than the last few nights. so I guess she was waking up from hunger but now she's waking up from habit? then she woke up for the day at 6:45. so I'll stick with that for now and see if it continues to improve.

although I'm still wondering if its important to have a consistent time for the dream feed or not?

[PaulsMom]

When I did the DF with my son, I think I was fairly consistent (ie. between 10 and 10:30).  I didn't want to go later as I'd like to get to bed!  As far as I know, babies can't tell time :-) so I wouldn't stress over the precise time of the DF.  It might make more sense to do the DF, a set time (+/- 15 min or so) from when she falls asleep. 

glad the A time adjustments are working out.  My DD will also go 4 hrs without too many issues, but I know that OT can start to build up if I keep on pushing the last A too much. 

WRT to BT, I hear you with it's hard to get them down early.  I struggle with this as well (hence the long A before BT).  Some babies can do an 8-8 schedule.  You will have to minimize the "morning stimulation" which can wake babies early.  Do you have black-out blinds?  Are you using white noise which can drown out morning traffic, house-hold noise, birds singing, etc?  Since we all naturally sleep "lighter" in the morning, I would try to implement some strategies to minimize these things and she might start to sleep longer in the morning.