5 months old talking and giggling at night

[LaraMom]

Hello dear BW mums,

I have a lovely 5 months old DD who is on a - apparently perfect - 4 hours schedule with 2x2hour naps (I often have to wake her after 2 hours) and a catnap in the baby carrier. So days are great and she is doing good falling asleep with shh/pat (unfortunately not without but thats another issue)
BUT
her usual one night waking is causing real trouble because she is not falling asleep afterwards but is up 1-2 hours talking, turning and giggling...this happens not every night but it happens so often that I need to do something against it!
This night I dropped the DF because I was so exhausted and she woke at 3 am talking, I don't think she was hungry but I tried to feed her to sleep (she happily took the feed but was wide awake afterwards), after 1,5 hours talking and giggling she started crying and I gave her another little feed then she fell asleep.

Do you think I need to cut the daytime sleep? Should I cut the catnap? Increase the wake time (its actually age appropriate with 2 hours)?

I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD READING YOUR IDEAS!!! TIA!!!

[deb]

What time is she waking? Is it soon after bedtime, or middle of the night?

You might try Wake To Sleep if it's a predictable time.

It sounds like the rest of your EASY is pretty predictable? Can you post your basic schedule? Easier to tweak if we can see a bigger picture.

[LaraMom]

Thanks for your reply!
She is waking in the middle of the night, no pattern recognizable.

I just changed our EASY because i assume the nicht wakings are due to too much daytime sleep.

This is our new schedule (I just started experimenting with 2,5 h wake time but it seems good!):
DWT and nursing 7
Sleep 9-11 (I often have to wake her)
Nursing 11
Sleep 1:30-3 (I often have to wake her)
Nursing 3
Catnap in baby carrier 5-5:30 (often she wakes after 20 minutes!!)
Nursing 5:30
Nursing 7
Bedtime Routine and bed by 7:30/8

The last days I tried not to DF at 10:30 and it seems better. She is still waking once - I could shh/pat her tonight at 2am and get her to sleep but she cried a lot :-( woke at 7am so that was a very good night.

[deb]

Yes, I think a longer A time might be a good idea. By this age 2 naps is where they'll be headed soon enough (varies for everyone, of course). If you can stretch out the day so the last catnap goes away, that might work better. Worth a try, anyway, and you can always shift back.

Scroll down this post to see an EASY sample for 5  months: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164029.0

[LaraMom]

Thank you, I will try out different versions...its not that easy anymore to do EASY ans fit in enough feedings. Is this common?

[deb]

Feedings will get longer and bigger so they won't need to feed as often.

And soon enough solids will join the mix!