Looking for advice

[Barb]

Hi!

My ds is 5mo. old and is having some issues.  He was sleeping throught the night from about 5 weeks until a month ago.  Now he wakes sporadically sometimes around 12:00, sometimes 2:30, and sometimes every 2 hours.  And then there are the occasional nights when he goes 7 hours.  We try to follow a 4 hour easy (starting at 6:30) the best we can with four children.  We have to be careful because if he gets overtired he will wake all night long.  Bedtime is 7:00 to 7:30 and he will most often put himself to sleep.  I have a hard time determining hunger as he always takes a full feed when offered...no suckling to sleep.  Thanks for any input...I'm tired!

[sherry lynn]

Do you mind posting your routine in this form

Eat
Activity
Sleep

I know it's probably not the same everyday, but just post whatever is most common for your LO.

Do you think he is waking out of hunger?
Do you think it is possible that he needs to extend is Awake times a little bit?

Did he go to the 4 hour routine early? I guess what I'm really asking is do you think he is on the average on Awake times or does he tend to go a little longer than the average for his age.

Thanks

[~*Nicole*~]

Hello,

Just wanted to ask you: do you always offer a feed when he wakes at night? Or do you try to help him settle etc? Just wondering if he is eating each time he wakes or only some times.

[Barb]

Thanks for responding ladies!  If this little guy is overtired we have to really work.  For a long time his awake time needed to be really short and he was easily overstimulated...hard when you are the youngest of four.  He has been extending his awake time but has never been very easy to read.  I really have to watch the clock because he will most often stay really happy and engaged until it is too late.  No yawning, or quieting down...but sometimes he rubs his eyes.

His EASY looks like this:
between 6-7 wake and nurse/sleep usually up 6:45-7
7-8:30 play
8:30 wind down walk and routine
9:00 sleep ( will usually sleep 1.5 to 2 hours...sometimes 3)  I used to help him at the hour mark  but he does not seem to need it anymore
10:30-11ish nurse
11-1:00ish play
1:00 wind down walk and routine
1:15 ish sleep for about 2 hours
3:00 eat and then play
5:00-6 sleep
eat, play, bath, bed at 7:30
Some nights I can dream feed around 11 and sometimes he wakes no real pattern to this.  For a while he would wake around 12 and 3.  I tried upping his food during the day but it didn't change.  We try to comfort him in other ways first.  Now there is no pattern to his waking...I have written it down.  Very confusing.  The one thing I know is that if we are going to be out at night past bedtime as a family we can expect to be up on and off all night.  He won't sleep someplace else.  Please tell me what you think!

[Barb]

BTW he always takes a full feed if offered except for one night 2 wks ago when he seemed to be teething...no teeth yet.

[~*Nicole*~]

If he doesn't sleep when out and he has NWs you know it's probably OT from not sleeping and you'll need to try to fix it the following day. So that isn't a mystery for you at least hehe.

The other nights though...I wonder if you try to keep your wake time and naps consistent if it would help you. So try keeping the first nap to only 2 hours at most. If you hit 2 hours you can wake him. Then the next nap should happen at the same time everyday in the pm b/c you'll know how much A time he needs between. If he sleeps longer than the 2 hours in the am two things might happen. 1. He won't be tired enough for your pm nap, and might refuse it or take longer to settle and then end up OT and restless which can mess up your nights. 2. He might make up for lost night sleep so much that he continues to wake often at night and make up for it with the long am nap.

Does that make sense? I think if you work on keeping that first nap consistent it might help make your nights a bit more consistent. Also for your own sanity, since he is waking with no pattern at night....maybe you can make a pattern. If he is taking a full feed when offered...try only offering a full feed at the same time(s) each night. So if you can handle 2 and 5 or just the DF and 3 or whatever then only offer feeds then. The other times keep comforting and resettling and teaching independent sleep skills and hopefully a pattern will emerge. Once he is only taking feeds at consistent times you can work on eliminating them, but it might help him establish a more regular sleeping pattern right now.

Lastly, he is getting a lot of daytime sleep if he naps the full amount listed in your day 5.5 hrs or more. He also may be showing UT signs by waking at night....esp. if he has been waking earlier than normal in the morning. If you aimed for 5 hrs or less you might see some improvement as well. 2 hrs. am 2 hrs. pm and a 30-45 min. catnap early evening.

I hope I haven't confused you. Let me know if you have any questions. Here is info on typical amounts of day and night sleep:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85130.0

Hope that helps you as well.

[sherry lynn]

Hi Barb -
I completely agree with Nicole. The thing that stuck out to me the most was the amount of daytime sleep. That is a lot.
Also the A time between an hour sleep for the catnap and bedtime could be causing a lot of the night issues. I know that if my LO doesn't have enough A time between the last nap of the day and bedtime is can cause HUGE trouble for us at night. Which has been really odd in the past for us because he would go to bed willingly and then be up for 2 hours straight at night.
So I think Nicole has set up a really good ideal routine for you. Hopefully that will help your nights.

I think I would wait until after you know that your son is past the 6 month growth spurt to cut down to 1 bottle. I know this seems absurd, but the 6 month growth spurt was huge for us and I had just spent the whole 5th month sleep training and then it sort of all went lopsided at 6 months anyways. So once you've started solids at 6 months and you are past that then I think it would be reasonable to stick to just one bottle a night. But for your sanity do what Nicole said and stick to some times (rough times, and help him back to sleep all other times)
However, I have a lot of confidence that if your start limiting the night sleep and up that last A time before bed that a lot of the waking will go away, so you won't even have to worry about the feeding