What do you make of this?

[Sharon P]

Hi there,

I have recently muddled my way through dropping the catnap and fell like we have gotten onto a winning formular to suit DS. However, I would love an oppinion on what went wrong last night.

Just to give some backgroun. I have just adjusted DS schedule to 2.5 hrs awake time before first nap, 3 hrs before 2nd nap and then 3.5-4 hrs before bed. This has helped a lot, we have been getting longer day naps, he has gone down easily at night and have not had to resettle between bedtime and df for the last 3 nights. YAY!

However, he has been waking around 2-3am for feeds and taking heaps at that time. This was really impacting on his 7am feed and morning solids, so I wanted to try to get him through the night to getting him taking more calories during the day time again. 2-3 weeks ago he stopped night feeds for 10 days so I know he can do it, it is just a matter of getting him to take enough during the day. Therefore I decide to offer a formular feed at df and see if that helped him get through the night better. The first time was two nights ago and he slept to 5.45am and I feed him at 6.10am. Very good start I thought. But last night was different. I will give you yesterdays routine, as I don't think the wake ups were due to overtiredness or the formular so I am not sure what to make of it.

5.45am Wake
6.10 BF
7.45 solids (only ate small amount)
8.15 sleep
9.45wake
10.10 BF
12.00 solids (ate fairly well)
12.40 sleep
2.55 wake and BF
5.15 solids (ate fairly well)
5.30 bath
6.20 BF
7.00 bed
10.00 df (150mls formular - couldn't rouse him to take anymore, doesn't often sleep so heavily during df)
12.30am wake and bf
3.00am wake and bf
5.45am wake and bf

So what do you make of the night wakings. Is this a routine problem, a formular problem, just a bad night?

Would greatly appreciate your insight,

Thanks Sharon.

[Sharon P]

Oh, I forgot to mention. DS ate well ate all feeds, including 5.45am and his morning solids.

[Colin Macs Mom]

12.30am wake and bf
3.00am wake and bf
5.45am wake and bf

       Why did you feed so often - was he genuinely hungry?

[Sharon P]

In part because I was too lazy to do anything else. In part because it caught me by surprise as I haven't been dealing with so many wakings for a while so I didn't have a plan of action in place. In part because it is sweltering here and I was concerned he may be thirsty. In part because he only took 150ml at the df so at 12.30 I thought perhaps he was hungry and then at 3am I was just too tired to do anything else. At 5.45am I thought I might as well just get up and start the day, as I usually go with anything from 6am onwards.


As far as genuinely hungry, he was sucking well and whenever I tried to get him off he protested loudly. I kept persisting and would say I probably feed for 10 mins one side only at 12.30 and 3am and then offered both at 5.45am (probaly took 15 mins of milk). I have a good supply and he has a very strong suck, so he would have had a fair bit.

As an update our day went as follows

5.45am wake and bf (good feed)
7.30 solids (ate well)
8.15 sleep (2.5 hrs - very unusual)
10.45 I woke him - BF - (ok feed but a bit distractable)
12 solids (ate well)
1.45 wind-down
1.50 sleep (50 mins - not usual but given the mroning I decided not to resettle)
2.40 wake bf
4.30 solids (ate very well)
5pm bath
6.30 bf (distractable, possibly overtired, possibly not hungry, possibly just too hot weatherwise)
7pm sleep

Currently, between bedtime and df. No wake ups yet.

Other things I have wondered - could it be food related. He has a small red rash around his anus. Also, possibly teething, nothing obvious though in other symptoms.

If you have any thoughts please let me know. I know I may need to launch back into sleep trainer mode, I just like to work out the cause and see if I can fix that first as he is very hard to settle, a real fighter and settling can take hours.

Thanks,

Sharon.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Sharon, I know it's hard when you're sooo tired but if you keep feeding when he wakes you'll create a suck(or feed)-to-sleep association and you'll have much worse problems than you do now. Stick with resettling and PU/PD if necessary.

[Sharon P]

I appreciate that and will work on things shortly, just need to get through a couple things in our life first.

However, I am still interested in why he would have woken 3 time in one night. Last night was only once, at 4.30am, so I am still curious.

I wondered if having a long afternoon nap of 2.25 hrs may ahve effected the night sleep? In total he had 3.75hr of day naps. That was prior to the 3 night wakings. Then yesterday he had a long morning nap but a short afternoon nap. In total he had 3.25 hrs day sleeps the bulk of which was in the morning.

How many hours of sleep during the day do you think is optimun for his age?

Sharon.

[Colin Macs Mom]

LOs sure are funny things. Maybe he had some gas, maybe the room was a little too warm or cold... who knows. The long nap could be the culprit too.

Here's a link to a sticky about average hours of sleep for each age range... Just remember that your LO might deviate in either direction which is fine.

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=46.0

[Sharon P]

Thanks heaps. I will check the link out.

I so wish DS's sleep wasn't so precarious. Almost anything can knock him off the rails. SO I am always trying to manage the variables.

I think the amount of sleep was possibly a factor, so I will watch that and see over the next few days.

Also the heat factor. It is awfully hot in our house at the moment so I left the fan on for DS that night, on a timer so it went off at 3am. For all I know the fan going off could have been the reason he woke. So last night I left the window open but turned the fan off when I went to bed. He had a better night, so where possible I will try to do that.

Oh the guessing game.

He can self settle at times oevr the night, but it seems the if there is any level of hunger involved he will just scream the house down till he gets what he wants. I know I over fed the other night, so last night I told DH I would not be feeding DS until after 2.30am (ie. not before 4hrs). I said I would be sticking the settling out but thought if he was prepared to do it, it may work faster. He agreed to do it. Of course, DS then didn't wake till 4.30am so I just feed and we had to wake him at 7.30am.

Thanks for your help,

Sharon.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Let me know how it goes!