Numerous Night Wakings---not sure overtired or undertired

[sxdo333]

Hi..my ds is 19 weeks old.  He's a hefty boy at 16+ lbs.  He's never been a good night sleeper (SSTN only a handful of time since birth).  He wakes up 2-4 times at night and have early waking. 

I'm not sure if I'm putting him to sleep overtired or undertired.  He gets decent naps in (first two naps are usually 1.5-2 hours long andd third nap is 30 to 45 minutes long).  For his nap, I'm currently transitioning him from the swing to his crib.  He sleeps in the swing motionless right now.  After his naptime routine, I would place him in the swing and leave the room without turning it on.  He would fall asleep within minutes.  For his third nap, I would turrn the swing on. 

Typical bedtime is anywhere between 6pm - 7pm.  Depending on when he wakes up.  He falls to sleep independently during bedtime with no probs.  Our bedtiime routine consist of a bath, massage, bf, book, pjs, sleep sack, a quick lullabye once I turn off the nights and turn on the white noise and down to bed.  It ususally takes him 5-10 minutes to fall asleep and sometimes only a few minutes.

He's been waking up after being alseep for about 2-3 hours.  He won't settle back to sleep until about an hour to an hour and a half after he wakes up.  He usually  just whine, fall asleep for a couple of minutes and then wakes up whining again and this would continue on and on.  If he cries escalates, I wouldd go in and check on him, pick him up until he calms down and lay him back down.  I try to give him a dream feed at 10pm but this usually falls around the same time he's waking up.  He would wake up again around 1am, 3am and 5am.  When he wakes up during these time, he's whining again, falls asleep and that wakes again.  I would feed him after 10 minutes of whining.  Once I feed him, it sometimes takes him abou 30 minutes before he falls back to sleep.  That's why I'm not sure if he's sleeping too much during the day and is not tired enough at night.  But I also read that if a baby is overtired, he would wake up a lot also.  He moves a lot in his sleep (unswaddled).  I guess when he's going through his sleep cycle, he would rub his face, suck his fingers, pull his ears, etc.  Sometimes he would make it through the cycle and sometimes he wakes up crying from it. 

He's on a 3.5-4 hour EASY.


His typical day is as follow:

6am Wakes up (usually wakes up somewhere between 4:30 - 5am and babble and fall back to sleep after about 30 minutes or so)
E 6:00 (EBF)
A 6:00 - 8:00
S 8:00 - 10:00
E 10:00
A 10:00 - 11:50/12:00 (sometimes he can't handle 2hours of A)
S 12:00 - 1:30/2:00 (sometimes sleeps for 1.5 hours or 2 hours)
E 1:30 or 2:00 (depending on when he wakes up)
A 3:45 (can't seem to handle 2 hours A)
S 3:45 - 4:15 or 4:30
E 5:30
A 6:00 Starts bedtime routine
E 6:15 tops off
S 6:30 in bed asleep
 8:30-9:30 - he would wake up anywhere between these times and won't resettle back to sleep until after an hour of so
E 10::00 I try to give him a dream feed but he's usually awake at this time -
1:00 wakes up whining and sometimes escalates to a cry - I would feed him (usually 5 minutes and he usually doses to sleep but wakes up when I place him in the crib)  - some nights it would take him up to 30 minutes to fall back to sleep
3:00 - 4:00 - same as above
5:00 - 6:00 - wakes up, many times I don't know exactly what time he wakes up because he doesn't make any noises, I would check the monitor and see that he's awake

Please provide me some advice on how to tweak my schedule.  Is he not tired and that's what causing his night wakings or I'm I putting him to bed too late.  Tonight I put him to bed at 6:00 (1.5 hours after his last nap to see if it made a difference).  His third nap was less than 30 minutes.  He fell asleep within 10 minutes of being laid down.  Woke up at 8:00.  Fussed, fell back to sleep, woke up again, fell back to sleep, etc and is still going on.  I really don't know what's causing it.  It can't be hunger since he goes for 4 hours during the day.  I was planning to dreamfeed him at 9:30 tonight because his last feed was at 5:30 (didn't get to top off), but don't want to feed him until he falls back to sleep.

any advice is greatly appreciated.  I would like to have a good night sleep soon.  I never went through this with my dd.  I held her to sleep for naps and bed for her first three months of life and then I discovered BW.  I started patting/shushing her to sleep and by 3.5 months, she extended her naps and slept from 7pm - 8am.  And I never had any problems with her night sleep, even when she was teething, crawling, walking, sick, etc.  She slept through everything, even til this day (with an occasional bumps when we were potty training her).  She's 3 now.  I guess it's true when they said every child is different. 

[lilac83]

Hi ~

The only suggestion I can make for his routine is to put him down a bit earlier for bed after his catnap. Since he does 2 hours of A time after a good nap, he'll likely need a bit less after the catnap. Do you wake him from his catnap or does he wake on his own? If you put him down at 3:45pm and let him sleep until 4:45pm he should then be fine with a 6:30pm bedtime. Otherwise you could try pushing the catnap to 4pm and let him sleep until 4:45pm then try bedtime for 6:30pm. I would be a bit surprised though if this was the main cause of the NW.

The other possibility here is that he is getting too much day sleep and he's ready for an A time increase. When he's awake for the hour shortly after going to bed, what is he doing? Do you need to go in by him to assist? Also, it is usually recommended for the LO to nap in the same place he sleeps at night, so once he's transitioned from the swing to his crib for naps, he may work this out on his own.

[sxdo333]

Thanks Lilac83 for your response.

When he wakes up a couple/few hours after falling asleep, he usually tries to self-soothe himself.  I see him sucking his fingers, moving his head side to side, rubbing his face.  After about 30 minutes or so of this, he would then start whining and sometimes starts crying. When I go in to check up on him, it gets hiim more upset.  So I just let him be unless his crying is really hysterical.  After about an hour or so, he would fall back to sleep.

For his cat nap, he wakes up by himself.  For this nap, I seem to have to put him down after about 1h45min of "A"  time.  However the last two days, he doesn't show any signs of sleepiness until it's a little over 2 hours.  Yesterday his "cat nap" was almost 1.5 hr but that was probably because both of his first two naps were about 1h20min.  Today his cat nap was 45 minutes and I was able to shush him back to sleep for another 20 minutes (4:30 wakeup).  I put him down around 6:15pm tonight and it didn't take him long to fall to sleep (dosing off during our last feed)

As for increasing "A" time, I'm not sure if he's ready.  For the first nap, it's not hard for him to make 2 hours  of "A".  However for his 2nd nap, he starts yawning and rubbing his eyes about 1.5h after he wakes so I usually put him down at 1h45min.  I did that today and he woke up 40 minutes laterr and I was able to shush him back to sleep for another hour.  I guess that meant that I put him down too late.

Typically if they are overtired when we put them down for a nap, is it easier to resettle them versus if they were undertired?  I usually can resettle him back to sleep by shushing.  I would liike to stay on a 4-hour EASY because he doesn't seem to eat much when I do 3.5hour.  However, lately his first two naps have been around 1.5 hour or less and I'm not sure whether II should feed him after he wakes up or keep the 4hour schedule.

I'm trying to wean him from his night feeding because when he wakes up for the day, he doesn't eat much for the first feeding.  Lately I've been feeding  him for a few minutes when he wakes up around 5 (even though he  was fed around 2-3 am).  He seems to fall back to sleep if I did that versus letting him whine until 6am to get him.  Really do not want to start my day at 5am.  However, when he wakes up around 6am or a little later, he won't eat.  For his 4-month checkup, his pedi told me to stop feeding him at night because at his age/size, he can go for 6-8 hours without eating again at night.  I'm trying to wean him by feeding him less each time he wakes up and hopefully he will transfer that into daytime eating.  Once I'm complete with the gradual weaning, I'm not going to feed him at night unless he goes from 10pm to 3 or 4am.  I really think  that when he wakes up at night, he's not hungry because he never cry, just whine and lay there for a long time and fall to sleep for a few minutes and then wakes up again and repeat it untill I go in and feed him.  It will still take him 10 or more mintues after I feed himm for him to fall back to sleep butt I guess I prefer that versus him being awake for more than 30 minutes or so fussing or doing his mantra cry.

[lilac83]

Normally if they wake from a UT nap it will be near impossible to resettle them because they aren't tired anymore.

If he eats better on a 4 hour routine, I would keep him with that. It's fine if he has a little A before his E, the main point is so he's not feeding to sleep. So as long as he has a bit more A after the E before the next S, he'll be fine.

Weaning his night feeds will probably help a lot with the NW. The may be becoming a bit of a prop for him at night. Has he been taking naps in his crib yet or still in the swing? Like I said before, I think transferring him will help with the wakings as well.

[sxdo333]

I transferred him to the crib yesterday.  In the previous night, he woke up a little before the dreamfeed and I went in and fed him.  He didn't wake up again until 3am (which is an improvement).  I gave him a four minute feed and he went back to sleep after I laid him down.  He woke up a little after 5 and fuss/whine for about 30 minutes and then fell back to sleep until 6:30am.


I put him in the crib after about 2 hours of "a" time.  He fell asleep in a few minutes without any fussing.  He slept for only 1h10minutes.  I wonder if he can handle more "a" time for this nap.  In the past, he would sleep for 2 hours for his first nap, although it's in the swing but motionless.  For his second nap, he was asleep exactly 1h45min after he last woke up (followed his sleeping cues).  He woke up a little after an hour but put himself back to sleep a few minutes later.  I let him sleep for a total of 2h15min.  Third nap (also in crib) was about 2 hours after waking up.   He woke up 35 minutes later (@ 4:20 pm).  I wanted to put him down for the night by 6pm because of the short catnap but he ended up spitting up so by the time I got him into the crib for the night, it was 6:15pm and he was asleep by 6:20pm.  He actually didn't wake up before his dreamfeed at 10pm and didn't wake up until 3:30 am.  I fed him again for about 4 minutes and it took him about 10 minutes to fall back to sleep.  Unfortunately, he woke up around 5:30 am and didn't go back to sleep by 6:00am, so we started the day there.  For his first feeding, he barely ate which tells me he really doesn't need the 3:30am feed. 

Because he woke up at around 5:30am, I put him down to sleep around 7:30.  He slept for only an hour and wouldn't resettle back to sleep.  I'm going to try increasing his "a" time tomorrow morning by 5-10 minutes to see if it makes a difference.  I'm not sure whether he woke up because he was undertired or hungry.  I had to feed him at around 9:30 instead of 10am because he was  extremely fussy after waking up and kept on trying to root towards my  breast. 

He's asleep for his second nap right now (again in the crib).  This was after about 1h50min of "a" time.  Hopefully he will take a long second nap like yesterday.  I'm so relieved that the transition to the crib has gone so smoothly (knock on wood).  II was fearing for the worst.  I was still swaddling him for his naps but I've been swaddling him with one arm out for about a week now.  I'll do both arms in a couple more days and hopefully he can still sleep. 

[lilac83]

That's great that the transition to the crib is going so well! I really hope that continues. The nice thing is that he's used to sleeping in his crib for the night, so it wasn't a total shock.

I would try increasing the A times a bit. It looks like those naps are UT.

[sxdo333]

Since my posting, things have gone downhill.  After about the third day of sleeping in the crib for his naps, DS started waking up at 30 minutes or att an hour.  Patting/shushing never really worked  for him while he was in the crib (agitated him more).  So when he wakes up from a short nap, I place him back in the swing and shush him while slowly rocking the swing until he falls asleep.  He would then sleep for another hour or so.  I can't do pu/pd because of a back injury that I had from an accident.  His day naps were about 4.5-5 hours on average before I transitioned to the crib.  Now, it's 3.5-4 hours.  I don't know if it's coincident, but then his night wakings got worse.  He would still wake up 2-3 hours after he falls asleep and would not go back to sleep until 1-1.5 hour later.  He's usually fussing and I can see that he's trying to go back to sleep but can't.  I go in to check on him only if his cries get hysterical.  he seems to get more agitated if I go in so I try not to do it too much.  I try to do a dreamfeed if he's asleep or go in and feed him if he's still awake during that time.  He would wake up again around 12am and won't fall back to sleep until an hour or so later.  And then he's up again at 4am and sometimes he would fall back to sleep and other times, he would sleep for maybe 20 or 30 minutes and be up.  So our days have been starting really early and I'm having to put him down for the night around 5:30pm.  this is too early for me because DH never gets to see him and when I return to work, I will not be able to put him down for the night at 5:30pm.  I work almost an  hour away from home.

So instead of getting his usual 9.5-10 hours of sleep at night, he's been averaging about 8 hours.  Do I cut down his "A" time during the day to compensate for the time lost at night.  We are still doing about 1.45-2hours of "A" time.  When he wakes up 30, 45 or 60 minutes after he falls asleep from his nap, I almost always am able to resettle him back to sleep in the swing, therefore, I never know whether my "a" time is too long or too short.  Each of his naps have been about 1hr15 mins to 1.5 hours except for the third nap (mostly an hour or less).

I really want to go back to a more reasonable bedtime of around 6 or 6:30 pm with a wakeup of around 6am or so.  And the night wakings is totally exhausting me.  I'm a very light sleeper and it's hard for me to fall back to sleep (takes me 30 minutes or so).  My mother told me that she always had to nurse me to sleep so I wonder whether that's why it's hard for me to fall asleep.  So I'm averaging about about 3-4 hours of sleep a day and can't really nap during the day since DS wakes up prematurely from his naps.  So any help to resolve this issue is greatly appreciated. 

The other thing is that he does have a slight case of eczema.  It's not severe and his pedi has prescribed him an ointment for it.  I don't know if that's what's causing him to wake up and night and keeps him from falliing back to sleep.  I've been lathering him up for lotion to keep him moisturize.  If this is what causing his night wakings, I don't know if I can prevent it or comfort him.  I never nurse him to sleep so once he's done feeding, he is usually awake.  Before, after a feeding, he would just lay there quietly and eventually falls asleep.  Lately, once I feed him at night, he would continue fussing and eventually falls asleep some time afterwards.  That's why i think it's either from being OT or the eczema. 

[lilac83]

Hi ~

Sorry to hear things have taken a turn to the worse! At this point I would have to say he's in a bit of an OT cycle. Probably due to the short nights since night sleep is more restorative than day sleep. Since he's waking between sleep cycles when before he would sleep through, I would try to shorten his A time by about 10/15 minutes for a day or 2 and see if that helps him.

Is he now fully transitioned to a 4hr EASY?

[sxdo333]

He was transitioned to 4 hours but lately I've been doing 3hr45min because of his early bedtime.  I wanted to ensure that he gets a good feed in before bedtime and this gives me almost 4 hours since his lastt feeding.

Two nights ago (Friday nite), I had to take my daughter to my aunt's house so that she could go to Florida with them for the July 4th weekend.  Unfortunately, this feel around DS's bedtime.  Last nap ended at around 3:30 and we were still on the road.  We didn't get home to close to 7pm and by the time I gave him a quick bath and topped him off, he was asleep around 7:40pm.  It didn't take him long to fall asleep (<5mins).  That night he stirred a few times before 10pm but never woke up.  I decided not to give him a dreamfeed at 10pm because I was afraid I might interrupt his sleep, especially with the late bedtime.  He slept until around 12am and I gave him a feed then and he slept until 4:00am.  I gave him a quick feed (3-min) and laid him back down.  He didn't fall back to sleep until around 5:30 and woke up at 6:00am.  While he was awake, he really didn't cry, just fuss alittle and then stay quite sucking his lovey/fingers and then fuss again.  With the exception of the early waking and not going back to sleep until 5:30, he slept pretty well that night.  Don't know if it's because the lack of sleep caught up with him and he finally was able to sleep longer strecthes to make up for it. 

Last night was not so fortunate.  He fell asleep around almost 6pm.  Woke up around before 9:30 and I went ahead and fed him since it's been 4 hours since his last feed.  He woke up again around 12am and fussed for about 10 minutes and fell back to sleep and woke up again 20 minutes later and fall back to sleep and wake up again about 20 minutes later.  So I went I fed him around 1am.  It took him a while to fall asleep.  He woke up again around 2:30 and fell asleep sometime later (not sure when because I fell back to sleep since he wasn't crying).  Woke up again around 4 and fuss for a while but not sure when he fell back to sleep (again I was so tired).  I heard him again at 6am and I went and got him to start the day. 

As for today, I decided to not watch the clock  and just follow his cues.  Here's how today went.

E 6:00
A
S 7:18 - 8:30 (in crib) - put him down once he started yawning, rubbing eyes and face into my shoulder
E 9:45
A
S 10:00 - 10:58 (in crib - following cues)
   11:04 - 12:28 (resettled  in swing - motionless)
E 1:30
A
S 2:00 - 3:20 (in swing - motionless)
A 4:30 - started bedtime routine
E 4:50
S 5:18 (laid him down at 5:10 - he started fussing - usually he doesn't do this)

Before he started waking up at night and staying awake for a long period of time, it usually took him less than 5 minutes to fall asleep.  Lately it taakes him up to 10 minutes or even 30 minutes.  If it takes 30 minutes, does it mean he's UT or OT (second wind)?

Also, should I have tried to give him a catnap at 5pm for 30 minutes and put him down at 6:30-7pm? 

Hopefully tonight he will sleep better since I cut down alot of his "a" time today.  It might backfire and make him wake up more.

[lilac83]

There's nothing wrong with putting him to bed early, the only thing is he'll probably wake early then too. However, if he will sleep until even 5am tomorrow, that's a good 11.5hr night to start the day off right with. So really it's up to you how early you want to make an early bedtime.

I'm wondering if he's UT and then ends up OT by the end of the day. Have you had any experience when you know for sure he's OT and putting him to sleep? Would he fall asleep right away or fuss a bit? My experience with DD has been that when she's OT she will crash, but if she's UT she'll play around and fuss and refuse to fall asleep.

Is he 5 months old now? This is a month when a lot of LO's will begin the transition to dropping the catnap. Usually that nap is dropped sometime when the LO is 6 months old, but the process of it usually starts a bit beforehand. His A times may be up to 2hr 15/30min and this is why he isn't wanting to settle and why he's waking up in the night. If he's not getting enough A time throughout the day, he's going to end up getting it at night.

So, it looks like today was a good catch up day for him. Hopefully he'll sleep well tonight and then tomorrow perhaps see what he does with a bit more A time.

[lynsey1980]

Hi

I think your little one may have the day & night mixed up, mine tends to do the same everytime he gets more than 2 x 2 hour sleeps a day.

My sons routine looks like this & it tends to work fine as long as he doesn't miss a nap or sleeps for longer than 2 hours:

Wake 7.45am
Eat 7.45 (8oz bottle)
Play
Sleep 9.45 (wake after 2 hours)
Eat 11.45
Play
Sleep usually in cot by 2.30pm (wake after 2 hours)
Eat  4.30pm
Play
Sleep - 6.30pm take for walk in pram for 15mins
Play - kick about in nappy, bath
Eat  - 8pm next to cot
Play - story & lullaby next to cot
Sleep - 8.30pm
Eat - dream feed around 10.30pm/11pm
Wake - 4ish (usually takes 4oz) occasionally sleeps through
Sleep until morning

I hope the comparison helps, good luck x

[seesawbaby]

My dd is 23 weeks and we are going through the same problem. She has 2x1.5/2hr naps and a 30-45 min catnap.  She can barely make 2hours A time in the morning then only2hr5min during the rest of the day.  After her catnap she is usually up for another almost 2 hours b/c she never goes to sleep any sooner even if I put her down earlier.  we have been having numerous night wakings and most are around 2/3am with lots of crying and fussing; even any AP (rocking) does not put her back to sleep.  I have given her gas drops, rocked her, walk around her room with her, re-swaddled her, then finally I end up feeding her b/c it is usually 2 hours after she has woken up and I usually feed around5/6 anyway then she goes back down.  When she is up like this in the middle of the night she will always sleep another 4-5 hours after the feed and does wake until usually after 9 which I fine for me b/c I catch up on lost sleep too.  I don't know if it is teeth b/c her gums are swollen, gas b/c we have introduced a 2nd cereal feeding at 4/5pm or not enough A time even though I try to stretch it.  Any thoughts?

[sxdo333]

Thanks everyone for your responses.  DS is almost 5.5 months old.  I don't think that he got his day/night mixed up.  He was doing fine up until a couple of weeks ago.  It may have been that he needed more "a" time and was taking shorter naps than before and the vicious cycle kept going.  Or transitioning to the crib did it. 

Yesterday I cut his "a" time down alot.  Putting him to sleep for his naps after about 1.5 hours of "a" time.  I based on him viciously rubbing his eyes and rubbing his face into my shoulder.  Once I laid him down, it took him a few minutes to fall asleep.  If he's UT, wouldn't it take him longer to fall to sleep?  Well he went to bed before 5:30pm, stirred a couple of times but never fully woke.  he stirred again around 9pm and I went ahead and  gave him a dreamfeed before he completely woke since his last feed was 5pm.  He woke again around 1am and I gave him a 4-min feed and laid him back down.  He eventually fell asleep about 20 minutes later, just babbling to himself.  This was odd because before, he would just fuss alittle and stay quiet (on and off) until he fell back to sleep.  He woke up again around 4:15 and babble again.  Fell back to sleep around 5:20am, but only for 10 minutes.  He was probably UT last night because of the short "A" time.

Today, I put him down after 1hr45min to 2hrs of "a" time (again this was mainly on his cues).  First two naps were 1.5 hr and 1hr20mins and I couldn't resettle him back to sleep (I was always able to resettle him - so maybe he was UT.  I will try to increase "a" tomorrow depending on how he sleeps tonight.  When we are trying to stretch his "a" time, do we suppose to ignore their cues?

I'm always hesitant of increasing his "a" time because around 1.5hr of "a", he would start rubbing his eyes and yawning.  Therefore, sometimes I would give him a long wind down just to get to 1.45 or 2hr.  That's why I'm not sure if he can handle more.  Especially when he falls asleep without a fight when i put him down and falls asleep quickly.

Can anyone tell me whether their little one moves alot in their sleep?  Some nights, he hardly moves and some it seems that he moves at every cycle transition (very restless).  What does that mean?  Overtired?  I just would like him to go back to the 6-6:30 am wake-up.  Before, he would wake up at 4 and once I feed him, he would go back to sleep, but not anymore. 

It's so true what they say about each child is different.  I never had these problems with my DD.  She slept through everything and we really didn't have a schedule with her.  I put her to sleep based on her sleeping cues and no matter what amount of sleep she had during the day, our bedtime was always at 7pm and she would sleep through the night, even when she was sick, teething, etc.  That's why it's so difficult to handle DS sleeping problems. 

[lilac83]

It sounds like a UT issue to me. Some LO's get set on a specific amount of A time and you need to give them a little nudge to get them going towards more. For now, I would ignore his tired cues to a point. By that I mean, if he's like about to fall apart tired then obviously put him down but if he's just rubbing his eyes a bit let him go. Increase slowly though to avoid OT. So add 15min to just 1 A time tomorrow and see how he does. Then add another 15min to another A time in a day or 2 and see how he does.

When DD was younger she moved a lot in her sleep. I remember one morning I went in to check on her (she was still sleeping) and didn't see her. I had to go all the way into her room and there she was jammed into the corner of her crib, LOL! This was before she could even crawl so I have no idea how she managed that.