Hi Ladies!
DD, now almost 10 months old, has slept through "her" night a handful of times - say from 7:30 to 6:30. 99% of the time, though, she wakes anywhere from 5am - 6am and is wide awake, usually chatting in her crib. If I go in and feed her and it's before about 5:45, she will generally go back to sleep until 6:30-7:00. If she (rarely happens) wakes up at 6:00, she will stay awake for the morning, which is pretty much fine. She is tired, but handles it well (she's our little Angel baby!). Although she certainly gets a nice chunk of sleep at night, she really isn't sleeping through her night as she wakes tired and tends to go down for her first nap a little early. Because she is waking up so late (i.e., not a 3 am wake up call) and because she never cries during her wake up, I generally just go in, feed her, and put her back to sleep - mostly because I just want to get back to sleep quickly, I guess. I know in my heart of hearts that she is not hungry; this is just her preferred method of going back to sleep. I BF (she really won't take a bottle) and do nurse her at night before she goes to bed, but she never falls asleep to that.
I would really like to stop the 5-ish feed because I feel it is not necessary for her (nutritionally speaking) and feel like it would be better for her just to get her extra 1 hour of sleep, but not sure how to go about it. Plus after 3 kids I am just ready to sleep through my own night!!! I guess I feel like she is not going to respond well and would just be awake for the rest of the morning, which will mess up our routine (I have two older children in school and preschool). So my question is: what would you do/what should I do to drop the nighttime feed? Should I even drop it? All my kids have been so different: DS1 STTN at 6 months on his own, DS2 at 11 months (we had to pull the plug on his night feedings, too), and now DD's 5am NW. DH is really helpful and willing to do what we need to do, but I am sort of not sure what to do with a baby who wakes up and doesn't cry??? My boys always woke up and cried for their NW. She just wakes up and wants to talk and roll around.
I should add that we did get her to move her NW from about 4am to 5am-ish about 6 weeks ago. DH would go in and put her back to sleep and she did pretty well with extending her night until 5am. It took about 5 days.
She is a good eater with her solids; will only take finger food and rejected the mush about 1 month ago.
Here is her usual routine:
5:15/5:30 - wake up and nurse (only one side); back to sleep
6:30 - wake for the day; short nurse again
8:00 - breakfast (toast, fruit, cottage cheese, water)
9:30 - nap for 1 hour 20 minutes
11:15 - wake; nurse
12:15 - lunch (veg, cheese, pasta, fruit, water)
2:00 - snack (Cheerios or crackers, water)
3:15 - nap for 1.20
4:30/4:45 - wake, nurse
6:00 - dinner
7:00 - bath
7:20 - nurse, bedtime
Of course, if she is up at 5:45 or 6:00 in the morning, the entire routine is about 45 minutes earlier, but follows the same pattern. I do notice that if she takes a later nap (later than 4:30), she will tend to wake up earlier for her nighttime feeding - more like 5:00am instead of 5:30.
Any thoughts? Thanks so much for your help!
