5 1/2 month old NW

[wellywooder]

Hi

I'd just like to know if my 5 1/2 mth old's sleeping patterns are reasonable or if she should be able to sleep right through? We have a pretty good routine in the daytime and she usually does 4 hours between feeds, has two 1.5 hour naps and  a 45min nap during the day. At night we usually have her in bed by 7.15pm and she'll sleep until between 3 & 4am. At this time I've been feeding her and putting her straight back to bed (she goes back to sleep quite quickly). Unfortunately she'll then only sleep until about 5.30am when she is awake and ready to start her day. We've never had any luck with the DF and my thought has always been that eventually she'll drop the night feed...so far it hasn't happened! She is breastfed and we haven't introduced solids as yet.

Thanks for your help!

[Tweakster]

Hi there, she could be OT from short nights which may have started with a need for A time.  Could you post your whole routine.

[wellywooder]

over the last few weeks she has been waking at 5.30am or 6am and I have been holding off feeding her until 7am. So a typical day looks like this:

7am - BF
A
8.30/9am - S (usually for 1.5hrs)
11am - BF
A
12.30/1pm - S
2.30/3pm - BF
A
4.30pm ish - Catnap
6pm - BF
6.30pm - Bath
7pm - BF
7.15pm - Bed

Thanks

[Tweakster]

Hi there, how long is the CN? If I read your routine right it's 1.5 hours?  That's too long.  Should be around 30-45 mins depending on your LO's sleep needs.  Also the A time after the CN is too long, particularly with EW at 5:30 or 6 - you will need to shorten that up and do a slightly earlier bedtime.

[wellywooder]

her CN is about 45 mins (sorry, should have written that )
So, when they have a CN, do you recommend shorter A time than they'd usually have? I think my LO has just extended her A time to 2.5 hours...yesterday was an unusually grumpy day and there were huge protests when I tried to nap her at 2 hours like she'd been previously doing.

[Tweakster]

Hi there, yes most LO's do a shorter A time after the CN and to bedtime, especially those with long days from EW.  There is a big jump in A time between 5 - 7 mths so it's not unusual for her to protest if she's not tired. 

If she's at 2.5 hours A time, you could try:
Awake 5:30
Nap 1.5 hrs @ 8 - 9:30 (A = 2.5)
Nap 1.5 hrs @ 12 - 1:30 (A = 2.5)
CN 45 mins @ 3:45 - 4:30 (A = 2.25 - shorter A time so should naturally produce a shorter nap)
Asleep no later than 6:30 (A = 2 hrs)

When she's doing this with reasonable success, you can start to push out the day, which will mean the CN will be dropped between the 6 - 7 mth period.  You would push her morning A time bit by bit, and shorten up the CN.

We had a nightmare with the CN - we'll call it our 4 - 6 month CN fiasco - but by pushing out the morning we got there in the end.  There was a lot of bad OT so whatever you can do to avoid it I would do :-) 

[wellywooder]

Thanks very much for this...we will give it a go. Can you please just confirm when E times should be? Should they be as soon as my LO wakes, or stick to times like 7am, 11am etc etc. Thanks

[Tweakster]

Hi there, to be honest I would at this point follow your LO with feeds, if she can do 7, 11, 3 & bedtime it would work with the above routine.  The important thing is that she is not fed to sleep and is always put into her crib awake and she gets to sleep on her own.   Usually EASY becomes more like AEAS the older they get and particularly when solids are started as solids feeds work into A time just like milk feeds.

[wellywooder]

Thanks very much for all your help - it's most appreciated!