Habitual Night Waking - Can't Break Cycle

[LCBO0912]

Hi,

My son Ben is turning 6mos next week.  Ben wakes up every single night at 2am and then at 4am (withonly a 15min variance).  I've been trying the sleep-to-wake solution with zero success.  All it's doing is making me wake up 4times a night instead of the 2 to respond to him!  I'm soooo tired and frustrated, I'm not sure what to do!

A bit of backgound... Ben has had serious reflux since he was 1mos.  He's experienced a lot of pain and vomiting (to the point where it negatively affected his weight gain for several months).  Since Christmas we've been able to get it under control; thanks to some tweaking with his diet and some appropriate medication, he barely vomits, has virtually no pain anymore and has been gaining weight like a champion this month.  We really started BW right around Christmas.  We've successfully gotten past having to do PU/PD anymore (unless he's overstimulated or overtired).  I just need to be over his crib, and often I need to pat him on the chest (he's a back sleeper) and shush him as needed.

Ben started these 2am/4am wake-us right before Christmas.  The problem at that time is he was still in the throes of his reflux and often vomiting during the night and/or having bouts of pain.  As such, I would ALWAYS go in to his room to make sure he was ok, deal with the problems, clean up the vomit, calm him down if he was upset because of the pain, etc.  Now, he expects me to come in and if I just let him be for a minute to see if he'll put himself back to sleep, he won't; his crying quickly escalates to catastrophe mode (oh, did I mention he's a Spirited Baby?).  I have to go in to his room, shush him back to sleep, often having my hand on his chest.  Fortunately I rarely have to do PU/PD anymore.

As mentioned, I've been trying the S2W solution: getting myself up at 1:10am and 3:10am, respectively, and going in to his room and rubbing his belly until he rouses (but doesn't wake up entirely), then giving him his pacifier, as described in the book.  But this technique hasn't helped at all.  I've been doing this for almost two weeks.  What also bothers me about the technique is giving him a paci.  I would actually like to wean him off entirely, but what do I do instead if I basically wake him up?

I also know I've become a prop for him thanks to the reflux, and I'm not sure how to fix this situation seeing as the S2W technique isn't going well for us.  Even if he could put himself back to sleep, he knows I'll come if he cries and so he doesn't even try at this point.  I don't want to let him CIO at night, but we can't keep going on like this.  His waking episodes seem to be getting longer, not shorter, and I'm afraid if we don't nip this in the bud soon, it's going to get out of hand. 

Any advice?  HELP!!!

[momofclaire]

Hi,
I am sorry you are sleep deprived, it is NO fun. 

Could you post your little guys daytime routine?  Is he on solids?  Is it at all possible that he could be hungry?

It sounds like you did pu/pd and then have gone backwards a bit.      Do you pat him to sleep? 

[cornishpixie]

aww you have my sympathies my little Ben is like that too he was a reflux baby and also had really bad colic til he was about 4mths and still gets it every now and then too.   

[LCBO0912]

Hi,

First, yes, I do pat him most of the time.  Sometimes I don't need to; he puts himself to sleep with me standing nearby.  I did use PU/PD but now mostly I don't need to do that unless he's really upset because he's overtired or something.

As for his daily routine, here it is.  It's been changing the last few days because I've been using some advice from the nap section that was given to me (he was only doing 45min naps).  The last two days he's been extending his naptimes.

E: 6:30 (breastmilk) and back to sleep
A:7:30am - up for day
   8am: solids
S: 9:30
E: 10:30am (breastmilk)
A: 10:45am
S: 1pm
E: 2:30pm - thickened bottle (breastmilk + cereal)
A: 2:45
S: 4pm
E: 5pm (breastmilk)
A: 5:15 solids
    5:45 playtime
S: None
E: 7:30 - thickened bottle (breastmilk + cereal)
A: Winddown: bathtime, massage, story
S: 8:15pm sleeping for night

I do a dream-feed (breastmilk) at 10:45pm

Now last night he slept through the night for the first time in god knows how long (it was beautiful to get uninterrupted sleep for once!).  I "roused" him up at 12:30pm because he had moved in to the corner of his crib and I just moved him down.  Perhaps that W2S was good enough for the night.   

[momofclaire]

That routine looks pretty good. I might try for a slightly earlier bed time but if it works again tonight stick with it.

[LCBO0912]

Hi, 
Thanks - good to know the routine is ok.  I tweaked it thanks to some advice from other boards!

I did W2S again at 12:30, and Ben slept through the night again.  YAY!  I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but hopefully this means we've solved the problem.  He's also on day 4 of longer naps. 

All the advice I've received from this site has really helped.  THANKS!

[momofclaire]

That is great!  I hope it continues.

[LCBO0912]

Well last night we had a nightmare of a night.  He woke up about every 1/2hr after going to bed until 4:30am.  He seemed to be bothered as opposed to just waking up (not just last night, but all day yesterday).  I thought he was maybe going to cut a tooth, but none came today.  I ended up feeding him at 4:30am because I thought maybe he was hungry.  Usually when he wakes up at that time, he's only up for a few minutes.  Last night PU/PD wouldn't work, and he sounded bothered, so I fed him.  Do you think that will start a pattern?  He is 6mos today, so it could really have been genuine hunger.  It just didn't sound like his hungry cry.  Bothered cry, but not a hungry cry so much.

[momofclaire]

It is possible that he is teething or maybe a growth spurt.  I would continue with the things that have worked and keep a close eye on him. Teeth really mess with sleep.  Does he have any signs of teething?  Drooling, chewing, redness, swelling?

[LCBO0912]

Hi, sorry it's been a while.  I just haven't had the time to be online lately!

I'm still having lots of problems with my LO and night wakings.  Things have changed though since our last exchange.  He seems to have dropped the 2am wake up (sometimes - I'll explain later on), he still wakes up at 4am.  What used to be a five or ten minute ordeal has turned in to an hour long catastrophe.  I typically have to do PU/PD two or three times, and then still shush-pat him to sleep.  As mentioned, it usually takes an hour.  It is so frustrating, and I'm exhausted!  I don't understand how why this is happening because we haven't been doing anything differently.

The second piece that has changed for the worse is that he seems to wake up almost every hour, if only for five minutes.  We put him to bed and he is sleeping by 8ish, and starting around 9:30pm, he wakes up constantly and needs to be shush-patted back to sleep.  What the heck is that all about?  So when combining with the 4am fiasco, you can see I am literally not getting even a full sleep cycle myself. 

I am at my wit's end and am starting to get really frustrated.  I thought the BW method was supposed to encourage independent sleep?  I feel like that is never going to happen with us.  We've been doing this for over two months now, and instead of getting better, Ben has clearly regressed. There is nothing I've done (that I'm aware of) that is different in terms of our routine; in fact, his naps are much better and in terms of getting him to sleep, he is so much easier.  But, whereas he used to sleep soundly, he doesn't sleep longer than an hour without waking.   

I really need some help and advice.  Maybe I am doing something wrong here but don't know what it is.

[momofclaire]

I am sorry to hear that you are having a tough time. 

Let's look at things closely and see if we can figure this out.
So, his routine is the same as above?  His first nap is one hour, second 1.5 hours and third one hour?  What are his wake and sleep times?  Are you still doing the df?  Is there anything developmental going on?  Teething, rolling etc...

It sounds like you have made some progress so don't give up.  BW is about encouraging independent sleep but it is more about learning to read your babies cues so that you can set up a rouine that meets both of your needs.
Post back and I will try to help out.

[LCBO0912]

Hi,

Thanks for helping me figure this out!  We had another every hour night last night and I'm soooo tired!

Yes, the routine is roughly the same.  He seems to have two 1.5hr to 2hr naps (morning and aft.) and one cat nap around 4:30ish.  Bedtime and the rest of the routine is the same.

Getting him to sleep - whether it be naps or night - is a breeze these days.  I "get" his cues and know exactly when to start winding down and put him down.  It literally takes about 2mins to get him to sleep.  It's really the constant waking that is the problem.

What does df mean again? Are you referring to what does he do during his wake times, or are you asking how long he's awake when he is awake?  I'll answer both.  Here's our current schedule:

E: 6:30 and back to sleep
A: 7:45am - wake up for day
  : 8:15am - solids and then playtime
S: 9:30am
E: 10:45 breastmilk
A: playtime
S: 12:15
E: 1:30 thickened formula + cereal
A: 1:40 - playtime
S: 3:45-4:30 - naptime
E: 4:45 breastmilk followed by solids
A: playtime
E: 7:15pm last feeding (thickened formula + cereal)
A: 7:30pm - Wind-down: bath, stories
S: 8:00pm
E: dreamfeed at 10:30/10:45pm

As far as development is concerned, it is entirely possible.  I've been thinking he's been teething on and off for quite sometime, but no teeth yet.  He has been sitting up for about a week and a half and is trying to move.  He's trying to "scoot" and we think he's trying to figure out how to crawl, even though he doesn't roll (well he does from front to back but not the other way yet).  I do notice in his crib, however, he seems to try to roll from back to front.  There are some things he's working on in terms of hand manipulation and dexterity, but as for major developmental steps like crawling, the above list is what we've noticed.

I've also learned that Ben likes to be wrapped/swaddled again.  This was a something I've discovered as I've been trying to put him back to sleep at these incessant night wakings so I know this is a tool in the solution category and not a cause.

I think that answers all your questions.  Let me know if I can provide any other info.

Thanks for your help.  I don't mean to take this out on the BW method - it really has helped me imensely in so many ways - I'm just so clueless as to what has happened with his night sleeping.  He used to sleep the whole night and then now he's doing this craziness.

Looking forward to your advice!

[momofclaire]

df= dream feed

It doesn't look like he has a whole 2 hours of A time in the morning or after his first nap.  Can he handle 2 hours? Most babies at his age can handle at least 2 hours.  Could it be that he isn't getting enough wake time during the day.  Sometimes it seems that if you struggle with short naps it could be that the baby isn't tired enough. 

I wonder if he had a little more A time he would take better naps and then not need the cat nap. Most babies drop it by 7.5 months. 
It also seems that the df tends to disrupt sleep as the baby gets older.  Does he wake for it or do you give it to him in his sleep.

[LCBO0912]

Hi,

As for the morning activity/naps, the schedule I posted isn't necessarily "the" schedule; I have been trying to extend activity time to 2.25hrs (as you suggested), and was quite successful with it for a while.  It just seems that lately with all these wakings in the night, he's reverted back to smaller activity times.  Sometimes he won't have a morning nap until around 11am (after that second feed) instead of the 9:30am time I have listed above, but lately I think he's so tired from not sleeping well through the night that he is super tired earlier.  I do try to keep him up for 2.25 hrs.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  He also doesn't always have the catnap, but he sure is grumpy from that last feed at 4:45/5pm until his last meal and bedtime routine (which is fine).  On the days where he naps after 2.25hrs of activity he does tend to have longer naps (maybe about an 1.5hr), but like I said, it is sometimes difficult to extend the activity time - especially in the morning.  Maybe if he slept better at night.  Last night it was the same thing - every hour up for 10-20mins.  He ended up sleeping this morning until 8:45am.  I tried getting him up earlier to start the day, but there was no point.  He was SUPER sleepy and grumpy, and wanted nothing to do with me or anything, so I let him go back to sleep.

As for the dreamfeed, it does seem to interrupt his sleep, I've noticed the last few days.  It seems he's in a deep sleep at that time, and while he doesn't wake up per se, he does "rouse".  Should I try letting that one go and see what happens?  Will he get hungry in the middle of the night?  It will be hard to tell seeing as he always gets up anyway, and there's at least one "episode" between 3 and 4am where he's up for over a half hour crying and fussing (as described). 

Just as a side note, the days he has longer activity times and longer naps don't necessarily make any difference to the fiasco I now call our night time sleeping.  I think in the last twelve days the longest period of time he's slept at night (regardless of what's happened in the daytime) is 4hrs.  This can't be normal: a full-night sleeper reverting first two two habitual night wakings, and then reverting to every hour wakings.  I've certainly never heard of such a thing.  Does this happen to other babies?  Does it ever get better?  What can I do? 

Should I just keep him up for 2.25hrs as activity time regardless?  And what if he wakes up early from his naptime (lets say an hour before his next feed), does that time count too in the 2.25hrs?

Thanks for your continued support and help!  I feel like I'm walking around in a sleepy fog these days.

[momofclaire]

Yes, I would stop the df and see what happens.  At his age he shouldn't need a night feed.  How much does he take at the df usually? 
I wouldn't advise forcing him to stay up. Reading his cues is the best thing to do.  I would however try my hardest not to skip naps.  I wouldn't let his A time go over 2.25 hours because then he will certainly fight sleep and get OT.

What does he do when he wakes? Does he cry right away?  Do you go in too soon?