5mth old Night waking due to hunger??? - HELP!!

[Dall1616]

Hi,

My DS has just turned 5 months and has never been a great sleeper.  Lately he is taking the all too familiar 30-35min naps throughout the day and wakes up at least two or three times during the night. He normally goes to sleep at around 9pm and wakes routinely (almost on the button) at 2am looking for a bottle (he is formula fed) and then stirs a couple more times. I usually turn him on his side and he goes back over but it can take a good 10-15 mins for this to happen.  I have recently introduced spoon feeds which he loves and seems to really enjoy and he still takes around 6oz at each bottle feed.  He cant seem to take any more than this without spewing up. Im beginning to believe that his waking through the night is not hunger-led as he is not taking a full feed and is in fact taking less and less milk as the nights go on.  He wakes in the morning at around 7 or 7.30 and wont take a bottle until around 9am and even then he will only take about 4oz.  I am afraid not to give him a feed during the night in case he is in fact hungry and I am reading the signs wrong.  I am so confused and desperate to get some sort of routine set for him.  Tonite I think I will try putting him to bed at 8.30pm to see what difference this makes.  Has anyone else gone through/going through something similar?

I would really appreciate some advice on this.

P.S. I dont dream feed him as this just appears to wake him up and he wakes up more frequently through the night.  We also roughly follow an EASY routine and I never feed him to sleep. This only happens, it seems, with the single night feed.

Yours hopefully,

Dall1616.xx

[anna*]

Hi and welcome to the boards!

Could you post your routine? It looks like he could be pretty overtired which will likely make his night wakings worse.

[Dall1616]

Hi Anna, Thank you!

Our routine varies i'm afraid depending on his wake-up time and my success/failure at pu/pd at nap times.
A typical day looks something like this:

Wakeup: 7.30am
E:  9am
S: 10am-10.35 (Then I go in and try pu/pd) This usually takes around 20 mins and then he sleeps for another 30-40mins
E:  12pm
A
S: 1.30pm - 2.05 (Again try pu/pd)
E 3.30/3.45pm
A
S: 5pm (Cat nap)
E: 7pm
A
S: 7.30pm (Cat nap 30 mins)
Bath @ 8.15ish then bottle then bed @ 9pm.

He takes approximately 24oz of formula and 3 spoon feeds in a day and he weighs circa 15lbs.
I'm so unsure if he's waking due to hunger or something else.
How much sleep should he be getting at night?

Thanks Anna.x

[anna*]

Yeh, he is definitely getting too little sleep for his age. 30 mins naps are a pretty classic sign. Now this might not fix all your night waking problems but at least it will rule out overtiredness as a cause!

I would try to make sure he is never awake for more than 2hrs - 2hrs15mins. His first nap will probably need to be 2hrs after he first wakes up. After a short nap (less than 1.5hrs), the next awake time will need to be even shorter, perhaps only 1.5hrs. And he needs to be asleep for the night 12 hours after he wakes up, max 12.5hrs.

Just popping out now but I"ll come back with an 'ideal' routine.

[Dall1616]

Thanks Anna.

Its just so good to hear someone else say it as I thought the night wakings were probably due to something else.  I have to admit that I've found it difficult to keep on top of a routine for him so a little help is so much appreciated.

xxx

[anna*]

OK so at 5 months you'd be looking for a routine something like this. Remember that if he takes a short nap he will need the next nap to come earlier.

7.30am awake and milk
9.30am nap
11.30am awake and milk
1.45pm nap
3.30pm awake and milk
5.45pm nap 45 mins
6.30pm awake
7pm last milk
7.30pm asleep for the night
11pm dreamfeed

What do you think?

[Dall1616]

That sounds a bit more reasonable to me.  I just need to work on extending those nap times now.  He gets so frustrated when i i try to do pu/pd with him when he wakes from a nap. I guess I just need to persevere with it.

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it!!

[anna*]

I never had much luck extending overtired naps - I would start by cutting back the awake times, and see if that helps. By all means try extending the naps but don't keep at it for ages. You will know within yourself if he's going to settle back down or not.