5 mo waking every 20 - 60 min all night. help!

[brenda2]

i'm back again...sleep troubles are still not resolved and i am getting so tired of doing shh pat all night.  i think there must be a prop but i don't really know what it is that wakes her up so often all night.  last night she was up about 15 times overnight and i am so exhausted.

dd2 is just over 5 mo.  she is ebf.  she eats on a 4 hour schedule.  all naps are short and despite working on this for months now i haven't been able to change it.  i think she is just a short napper.  in her life (including the newborn period where most babies sleep all the time) she has maybe slept longer than 45 min on her own about 10 times.  when she wakes at 45 min i always try to get her back down with shh pat and am successful sometimes once a day and sometimes not at all. 

usually her naps are one short nap in the morning, one nap that i extend midafternoon for a total of about 1.5 hours sleep and another short nap in the evening.  every day is a bit different due to the short naps.  total day sleep is usually 3 to 3.5 hours sleep in a 11-12 hour day.  i put to bed about 1.5 hours after she wakes from her last nap so bedtime is between 6:30 and 7:30.

she then will sleep fairly well for the first 3 hours of the night and then like she did last night wake up every 45 min or so all night.  sometimes she will go 1.5 hours and sometimes 20 min and then i need to go back in and shh pat her back down.

when she wakes at night usually i do shh pat to get her back to sleep.  i feed about twice a night but no more than that.  usually if i feed her she will fall asleep at the breast and then i'll get a bit longer out of her - maybe 1.5 or 2 hours before she wakes again.  perhaps this is a prop?  also i roll her onto her side and use rolled blankets to keep her there so i can pat her back more easily.  she seems to settle better on her side.  maybe this is the prop?  maybe i should just keep her on her back, but then how do i pat?  or should i do pupd instead of the patting.

i'm so confused as to why she's waking like this.  she goes down for naps and night independently.  i rock a little bit for winddown and put her down awake and she goes right to sleep on her own.  she sucks her thumb and is in a sleep sack.  the room is dark.

i don't think she is OT.  she is happy when she is awake even with the short naps.  she hardly cries unless i am trying to get her back to sleep after she wakes early.  even on relatively good nap days she still wakes like this all night.  not every night is like this but lately more and more nights are really really bad and i am getting so tired of being up all night. about a month ago she did have about 10 days where she actually sttn 5 or 6 times but then she got sick and since then it has been terrible even though she is no longer sick and i was very consistent with the sleep when she was sick.

any insight would be appreciated.

[chelled17]

Hey Brenda,  DS sounds EXACTLY like your DD and they are relatively the same age.  We'll get down to the bottom of this together  

This is what I am thinking is going on with my DS.  He is trying to phase out the CN earlier than most, and needs more A time.  I know some pp would think against this, but with my A extensions, really things are getting better.

Here's our routine,

A - 8am
E
S - 10:30  (45 minutes) If I keep him up closer to the 3 hour mark it's easier to extend from the first 45 minutes, but then I'm on the border of OT so I don't want to  push him too much.
A - 11:15 sometimes if I can extend then 12:00
E 12:00
S - 2 ish (1.5hrs)  Have to PU/PD/Pat at the 45 minute mark, but is very easy to settle
A - 3:30
E - 4 pm
S - 6 ish CN Limited to only 20 - 30 minutes
A - 6:30 ish  Bath
E - 8 pm
S - in bed by 8 - 8:30 at the latest cause he only had a small nap.

So I'm in the process of extending his A times, as I think this is the real problem,  Some babies just need less Nap time, and I think mine is one of those.  As  he is not having any 30 minute naps, and the longer the A time, the longer nap he does have.

HTH

[brenda2]

hi
i think my lo is at the low end of sleep needs too but as she never takes a long nap i'm not sure she could handle a longer A time.  when she does do a long nap (ie wakes at 45 min but if i am successful at getting her back down) i try to keep her up longer and she can do upwards to 2.5 hours but after a short nap often she starts to get fussy so i put her down earlier to avoid OT.

i would agree and try to keep her up a bit longer first thing but her nights have been soooo bad lately that she is cranky very shortly after waking up and again i feel like i need to put her down because hse is at risk of getting OT. 

its a vicious cycle - never a long nap so never a long A time and therefor never a long nap.  i just don't know how to break it and also don't know how to help her transition at night.  if she was just short napping but sleeping well at night i would be fine with it.  but she was up about 15 times last night and i just can't deal with it and don't know how to help her through this. 

[chelled17]

It's hard,  I get what you mean about the OT cycle, maybe someone can pop in with a bit more experience in your field of question.

((HUGS)) to you, and hopefully things get sorted out

[chelled17]

Hey Brenda, I've been brainstorming...

Have you tried APOP to try and get her to sleep and maybe catch up on some sleep?

[brenda2]

hi
no i haven't tried w2s.  i agree that she needs me to get through to the next sleep cycle but i am faithfully doing pat shh and not picking her up or feeding back to sleep etc when she wakes and so i don't know how to teach her to transition on her own.  i have tried httj and it doesn't work.  what other technique is there?  i can try w2s...maybe i will try first for naps tomorrow.
once in a while she has a nap in the carrier if we are out with dd1 and she also wakes at the 45 min mark and doesn't go abck down easily.  she is happy when she wakes though usually.
today for nap #2 she woke up after 45 min, i patted, she went back but woke up 10 min later, i patted again, she woke 10 min later...she did this 3 times and then slept for another 45 min so got 2 hours but broken up in the middle.  every once in a while i am successful with a nap like this.  but really it is the night sleep i want to fix!  i know they are related so i try really hard to have her get enough total sleep in the day.  but it doesn't seem to help, no matter what her naps are like in the day lately the nights are terrible.. last night she was awake every 1.5 hours all night exactly.  at least she went down easily each time, but i am getting really burnt out.

[*Natasha*]

What is her awake time before naps? At this age you would be looking at approx 2-2.5hrs. Do you do a dreamfeed? When do you feed at night?

[brenda2]

hi
when she does a short nap her next awake time is about 1 hour 45 min or when she starts to fuss - usually before 2 hour mark.  after a long nap she does about 2 hours 15 min to 2.5 hours.  first thing in the morning it's about 2 hours but her nights have been so bad lately that the first A time is getting shorter and shorter because she is fussing.

i don't do a df, tried it when she was younger but it made her wake more so i have never done it with her.  i try to not feed her before about 2 am and then sometimes will also feed at 5 am if she wakes at this time as otherwise it is hard to get her back to sleep in the early morning.  i never feed more than twice.  she's probably not really hungry when she wakes at night, she has done some nights sttn without any feeds (about a month ago) - so that is 12 hours and other nights has made it to 5 am without a feed so about 10 hours.

do you think i should do the df again and then not feed her the rest of the night?  is it confusing that some times she's waking and i'm patting back to sleep and other times she is getting a feed?  with dd1 she didn't sttn until i eliminated all night feeds (but she did take the df quite well), it was like she was holding out hope i would feed her and when i finally just did pupd and didn't feed all night she got the hint and started to sttn.  but she was a bit older when i cut out all the night feeds.  or should i just do pupd/shh pat and not feed her and make her go the 12 hours (seems like a long time at this age).

she obviously has trouble transitioning without me patting her back but i don't know how to teach her how to do this??? i am doing the patting and it's just not working.  it helps her get back to sleep but then she needs me to pat her back again an hour later.  would pupd with no patting be a better alternative?

[mcmeg05]

Brenda!! We're dealing with this exact same problem around here! It's definitely the sleep cycle I think. Our little one just can not get past that 45 minutes herself - I can get her back down for naps during the day usually, bedtime is always a disaster and then in the last few weeks our nights have been getting steadilly worse. She also has slept through the night in the past, and then got sick and things got really really bad!

Last night she was up every 2 hours - I only fed her once...but still I'm exhausted!

I honestly don't know what to tell you as we're in the same boat here. I really wish there was some sort of magic solution here - but I can't figure it out. Our first daughter was nothing like this - she was a dream in comparison. I'll be following this thread that's for sure!

[brenda2]

mcmeg, it is exhausting that's for sure!  what you describe is exactly what happened to us.  a good sleeper who has just gotten worse and worse.  i only fed her once last night too but she was up every 1.5 hours on the nose for a reposition and resettle.

jay,  when she wakes at night i go in and turn her onto her side and pat maybe a couple times and leave.  i am in and out of there in under a minute and she just goes right back to sleep, but then wakes an hour or so later and i do it again.  do you think turning her onto her side is the prop?  she doesn't settle well unless i do this and even though she is rolling by herself she doesn't roll onto her side herself at night to resettle herself, rather she cries for me to do it for her.  should i stop rolling her onto her side and just lay a hand on her tummy or something like this?  i think she wouldn't settle very easily this way but maybe this is what i have to do to teach her how to go back to sleep when she wakes at night?

maybe i should post over in props?  oh so confused.

i am off to try w2s for the first nap and see how it goes!

[brenda2]

well i did w2s for the first nap - went in at the 25 min mark and stroked her face until she moved a bit.  it has been an hour since she originally went down and she is still sleeping.  so that is progress.  now do you have to do it more than once during a nap?

[chelled17]

Hey Brenda,

I just wanted to share with you what is going on over on our end.  I extended his first A time to 2hr 45 minutes for the first one, and voila, he transitioned past the first 45 minutes and slept for 1.5 hr nap.
It always seems like he is getting fussy at the 2 hr mark during his A time, and I really have to keep him keep him busy by walking around with him in my Moby wrap,  It does keep him busy, but it also doesn't let him get OS.  
The second nap wasn't such a success, but I was happy with the first, so that made up for it.

His NW's have improved as well, he still wakes every 3 hours, but that's better than the 45 minutes he was doing a few days ago!!

I hope you get everything figured out, and you too mcmeg05

Posted at the same time as you Brenda, sorry I don't have any experience with W2S but would like to hear some.

[brenda2]

thanks
i got a good first nap today too so will try slightly longer A time before the second nap.  i feel better about keeping her up a bit longer when she has actually done a good nap and i know she's not OT.  so am going to aim for 2.5 hours before nap #2 and then also dothe w2s again and see what happens!

[chelled17]

Good to hear Brenda!! Let me know how the W2S works for the second nap!!

[firsttimemummy]

Are you maybe running in too soon?  I did that with DS around that age and he woke up so many times in the night.  One night I left him to cry for a bit and he settled himself (as long as his cry was not getting louder, and stopped and started) - 99/100 times he settled himself.  Obviously if he kept crying or the cry got louder I went in to him.  After a night of not running in to him to started sleeping soooooooo much better.