4 months old screaming at night with eyes closed????

[Monika1978]

Hi

My lo is screaming very loudly at night (can be anytime between 2 and 5am) without having her eyes open (still asleep???) and will only settle if I bottle feed her (dummy doesn't do the job). She is not taking much formula - maybe 2-3oz/60-90ml and then is not really hungry in the morning 7-8am feed.

One night I wanted to see if it really was from hunger, as sometimes she sleeps through the night (until 5am), and gave her some water (approx 10ml) and that settled her ok. I'm so confused!!!! Is she or isn't she hungry? I don't want to starve my own daughter!

She was never fully waking up at night, just crying a bit and once fed would carry on sleeping. We've always considered that she must be hungry if waking and were therefore always feeding her, but now I'm thinking that maybe she is just coming to a lighter sleep and is not able to drift off without drinking first??? Should I gradually wean her of drinking at night?

I've only recently introduced a proper EASY routine and extended her day time feeds from 2 to 3h (still takes the same amounts at most feeds approx 120ml, sometimes 150ml) and am hoping to start working on her short naps of 45min. She usually stays awake for 1.5h before being tired (this is extended from 1h A time ).

Any ideas?

[baba]

just wantedto say good luch and hugs.sorry i dont have any advice for you.

[Bryony]

Usually this means your LO is overtired - if you post your routine for us I will see if I can spot any clues as to why

Bryony

[Monika1978]

Hi Bryony

Sorry for not writing sooner, but with the xmas fast approaching and recent lack of sleep...she is waking even more frequently now and sometimes will settle with dummy or water, and sometimes just want go back to sleep without milk - her eyes are always closed  .

As I said in my post I have only just introduced formal EASY and made some changes to my lo's routine - changed feed from 2h to 3h, extended activity time from 1h to 1.5/2h. Because she doesn't nap for longer than 40-60min during the day it throws the EASY schedule a bit. Our days look more or less like this:

7am - wake up
E       7:00-7:30 feed (sometimes she is not interested and will not eat till 9am)
A       7:00-8:00 (in the morning she gets tired quickly)
S       8:00-9:00 (sometimes only sleeps 45min)
Y       

A      9:00
E      10:00
A     
S      11:30 more or less 45min
Y

A     12:15
E     13:00
A     
S     14:00 more or less 45min
Y

A    14:45
E    16:00
A
S    17:00 more or less 45min - sometimes she doesn't sleep late afternoon and stays awake until bed time.
Y

A    17:45
E    18:00 cluster but not always interested in a feed
A    around 19:00 bath time, massage, feed, in bed by 19:30
S    asleep by 19:30 or 20:00
Y

E    dream feed at 23:00

Night -she wakes up several times at around 2am, 4am, 5am.

It would make sense that she is overtired as she is not sleeping well during the day. But then, she was cat napping (30min every 1.5h) before and wasn't waking up until 5am.

I started working on her daytime naps, usually put her down before she gets OT so she plays a bit in her cot, then cries a bit and drops off to sleep (today she actually slept 2h in the afternoon, maybe because I tucked her in tightly???). I'm reading up on the different techniques aimed at helping los settle back to sleep w2s, pick up/put down, but am not sure which I should use as when she wakes up after 30 or 45min she is happy and when I try to soother in her cot she starts laughing at me.

thanks

[Bryony]

Hi there

Yes, I think those 45 min naps may be the problem. They are a real pain, I know - my LO was a 45 min napper from the age of about 7 weeks - and still is, if I don't get the A time just right ....    There is a great short nap support thread in the Naps section which you might want to have a look at, if you haven't already. It kept me sane many times!!  You say that her naps are sometimes 30 mins, is that right?  30 min naps are usually considered to be a sign of OT and/or overstimulation, so if you get 30 minuters then you might want to look at your wind-down routine and/or put her down a bit earlier in future. 45-ers are usually considered to mean undertired - but in my experience they can also be caused by OT and are sometimes just one of those things - so these are harder to manage. I used to find that by experimenting with A times I could sometimes hit the magic number for longer naps....

I would also say that she really needs that last catnap to avoid being OT by bedtime.  Can you take her for a walk in the buggy or something if she won't fall asleep in her cot? 

I would also make bedtime earlier - if she's getting up at 7am I would get her in bed by 7pm so that you have a 12 hr day and a 12 hr night. As you say, there are various techniques to try and extend naps, but if you can't extend then the goal is to avoid OT at bedtime. I always found a late catnap and an earlyish bedtime were they key things.

HTH!

Bryony

[cwg418]

I wanted to share that my LO, now 5 months did the same thing around 3-4 months. He was doing this after 45 minutes of nap though.  I simply listened as the cries were sometimes his settling wails. About 1/3 of the time he would go back to sleep after 10 minutes and the rest of the time he did not. I would do my version of shhh/pat which sometimes worked too, after the 10 minutes.  At night I also fed him, but tried to keep it small amounts. Hitting 4.5 months and moving the dreamfeed to 11 made big differences for us.  good luck!