Have just sleep trained 10 month old, now have ew

[SallyDom]

Hi girls,

I wondered if you could help me with Zac's early wakings? Basically our background is that Zac (11 months next week) has always been a terrible sleeper and fights it day and night. At the moment he falls asleep in the pram, car or whilst breast feeding during the day and was being bf to sleep on a night but he was starting to wake more and more and it was getting to the point that I couldn't put him back into his cot without him waking and screaming.

2 weeks ago we started to sleep train him and it has worked brilliantly until about 5am. We have done a sort of wi/wo type technique, leaving him about 45 secs - 1 min each time before going back in and from the first night we tried it we've never had to go back in more than twice. We were so shocked, after 10 months of ap, for wi/wo to work so quickly it's like it's what he's always needed.

Anyway as I said within 4 days he was sleeping from bedtime until 5am ish but from then on he doesn't really settle and we walk in a couple of times he'll go quiet for maybe 5 mins then cry again. We leave him a minute or so to see if he'll settle himself, then we go back again etc.

He was having so many nightfeeds I decided to stop all nightfeeds between bedtime and 6am, so from 5am I'm basically waiting until 6am to get up and feed him. I really don't want to start my day before 6am. When 6am comes I get him up (obviously when he's woken up again, I wouldn't go in and wake him just because it's 6am), and say a cheery good morning, take him downstairs, lights on etc. to show him it's getting up time but to be honest he's still tired and falls asleep feeding anyway.

Zac's daytime sleep is pretty rubbish, just about always 45 min naps, and sometimes fights and fights sleep even when I know he's exhausted. I have a 2 and a half yr old as well and we are often out and about at different play groups so I figured we could carry on ap'ing during the day and just work on the night sleep for now. Zac's daytime sleep usually doesn't total more than about an hour and a half all day, and he goes to bed at 7pm ish.   

Zac's A time is around 3 and a half hours, but can vary if we go out in the car (will fall asleep quicker) but if we stay in he will fight sleep to the bitter end.

I guess I am writing to ask if you had any advice as to why Zac is waking from 5am, do you think it is ot'ness from the day before, and what we should do. If we carry on with the wi/wo will he get used to it and start to sleep longer? One day last week he slept until 5.30am and then next day it was 6am so I was delighted but then it hasn't happened since.

If Zac was awake at 5am and happy I'd think it was just his wake up time but the fact he falls back to sleep when feeding makes me think he must still be tired.

Thanks in advance (sorry for going on, it's been a long 10 months!)

Sal
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[claires mum]

Hey Sal.  I'm sorry that we missed this post...must have been close to when the servers shut down.  Let me say a big well done on the sleep training...you must be pinching yourself! 

Ok...now for the EWs.  Can you post a typical routine for me?  Zac is probably starting the 2-1 nap transition at the moment + 45 min day naps = a bit of a problem.  But that's OK, there are worse stories on the boards and we seem to make progress most of the time!

[SallyDom]

Thanks for getting back to me girls, must admit I was feeling a bit forgotten!

Things have got a bit worse since the clocks went back, Zac is now waking from 4am ish and I've started getting up at 5ish because he's waking my other little boy up every morning. I figure I'd rather get up early with one then end up with 2 screaming baby's early in the morning.

I feel really annoyed with the situation that for 4 weeks I was so strict on no more nf's and not getting up before 6am so to be getting up at 5am feels like I'm giving in and a step backwards.

Now you've said it it does make sense about the 2-1 nap switch. I remember it being a difficult time with Dominic and it's starting all over again! Some days he does only have 1 nap and he will nap for a bit longer maybe an hour and a bit. Our daytime routine is a bit all over, some days Zac will be back asleep about 3.5 hours from waking, other times he'll last 6 hours plus. It totally depends on what we're doing that day. I spoke to the hv about it and she said if he is consistently sleeping 7pm-5am (which he was) then he might be a 10 hour baby so try putting him down at 8pm for a 6am wake up. I was doubtful of this but tried it 1 night and Zac still woke at 4am.

Zac is bf to sleep quite often during the day but he isn't bothered about the milk, in that if he's distracted he doesn't want to feed, it's purely a comfort thing. I've been thinking about maybe cutting out the daytime bf, and just doing morning and night but tbh I wouldn't know how to get him to sleep without bf if we were in (inside, without the aid of a pram or car!).

Do you think I should just go for early bedtimes for a while to try and help him catch up a bit. I'm stuck at the minute as what to try. I'm knackered for 4am wake ups!

Thanks in advance
Sal
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[claires mum]

Hmmm...I would *try* to get a consistent routine going for him and then see what we're left with to resolve.  So your routine might look a little like this, assuming we want to stick to 2 naps per day for a little while:

wake 5.00am, BF at 6.00 and solids 1 hour later
A  3 hours (we're going to keep this A time short so we can fit 2 naps into a 13 hour day)  5-8
S  1 hour min nap (wake him at 1 hour..don't let it go over this)  8-9

E  10 BF, 12 lunch
A  3.5 hours 9-12.30
S  1.5 hours if possible...12.30 - 2

E  BF 2
A  4 hours 2-6
E  solids at 5, BF before bed
S  6.00

You will need to put some effort into getting this routine to stick for 5 days.  If there is no improvement, then we shave another 15 mins off the am nap...and so on.

What do you think?
Thanks for the compliment Jay3!  I agree that we need to tackle AP too...

[SallyDom]

Thanks for the routine Lou, gives me something to work towards. I feel like I don't have a clue where we should be at rotuine wise.
One thing which I picked up is that you said if he wakes at 5am, not to feed him until 6am. At the moment when I get up I go downstairs, make a cuppa (vital if I am to survive the early morning!) and then feed him straight away. I had been wondering if I was reinforcing his ew by feeding him straight away. What if he wakes earlier than 5am? Since the clocks went back he's been waking any time from 4am, it was half 3 yesterday morning. He is full of cold, teething and has just started to walk so I guess he's got a lot going on right now. If I want to not feed him until 6am shall I just stick to that no matter what time he wakes and hope he's gets the idea that he isn't going to get fed so may as well stay asleep?
Having a nap 8-9 sounds good as that is before we would normally go out anywhere (preschool etc.).
Thanks again
Sal
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[claires mum]

I would always try not to feed before 6.00am, regardless of the EW as it can reinforce EWs.  Basically, the body wakes 45 mins prior to a feed .. in anticipation of that feed.  If he's waking anytime before 5.00am, then you should try hard to get him back to sleep.  I wouldn't get Claire up with an EW before 5.00am.  I found that if I brought her into bed with me for the last hour, it would be OK....but only if there was no chance of her going back to sleep in her cot. 

You're right..there is a lot going on at the moment.  Poor baby!

[kcamelia]

Hi, I have a nine month old with a similar problem (we sleep trained and now have EW's), so I am going to try this routine and see how it goes.  I also was feeding upon the early waking, so I won't do that again.  Sal, can you tell me how this is going for you?

[SallyDom]

Hi Kcamelia nice to meet you.

Well tbh I haven't tried not feeding him upon waking yet, my husband is an event organiser and we've got a 2 week festival going on at the moment which means we've been out loads for the last week and a half (festival ends on Friday). I've not been getting to bed until after midnight so when Zac's getting up at 5am I'm just too tired to face an hour of not feeding him. As I said it ends on Friday night so from Sunday morning I'm going to be strong and try and sort these ew out. I did try putting Zac in his cot for his first nap yesterday (instead of feeding him to sleep) and I was amazed, he settled within a couple of minutes and slept for an hour. I haven't had chance all week to try and not AP him to sleep but from next week I will so try harder!

Let me know how you get on aswell

Sally
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