NWs & EW in 4-month old

[Aless]

Hello!  Long-time lurker, first time poster but I hope I can help others on here in the weeks to come as I grow more confident .

Anyway, trying to resolve LO's combination of NW and EW problems.  We've fairly recently switched to a 4-hr EASY which has helped the NWs a little bit but still not 100%.  Here's our average day:

E - 6am
A - 6:20am
S - 8am
E - 10am
A - 10:20am
S - 12pm
E - 2pm
A - 2:20pm
S - 4pm (CN)
E - 4:30/4:45pm
A - 4:50/5pm
E - 5:45/6pm
bath, massage, and bed around 6:15/6:30pm

Night-feed happens at around 2-3am.  We cluster feed in the evenings because a DF was causing worse NWs and neither one of us liked it.

Anyway, I'd LIKE the wake-up to be around 7 so we can do a 7-7 day, but lately he's been doing 6am and today it was 5:30!  We're also having NWs which can vary to once an hour to only a couple a night.  Even the days he naps really well he still NWs.

Sometimes A time is a little shorter at 1h45 if he's getting really grumbly, but I then try and tweak the rest of the day so it still all evens out.

Just also to say we used to do a 7pm bedtime but he was having massive OT issues so I moved it up to temporarily catch up on sleep.  I've tried moving it back to 7 but he still wakes up at 6am and causes worse NWs - maybe fix the NW first then tackle EW?

I can deal with the EW if we can get the NWs sorted.  I just can't see what's wrong!

[Tweakster]

Hi there, routine looks good but perhaps LO needs more A time?  A later bedtime rarely gets a later wake up in LO's this age.  Also he's napping very well, you could try cutting back the nap lengths, some LO's do not need 2x 2 hr naps.  I know my low sleep needs kid was only doing 2x 1.5 hours at this point and a CN if we were lucky lol.

[Aless]

Hi there, routine looks good but perhaps LO needs more A time?  A later bedtime rarely gets a later wake up in LO's this age.  Also he's napping very well, you could try cutting back the nap lengths, some LO's do not need 2x 2 hr naps.  I know my low sleep needs kid was only doing 2x 1.5 hours at this point and a CN if we were lucky lol.

Thanks Wendy.  I've thought of that but recently he wakes up on his own after 2 hrs or sometimes I even have to wake him up myself - so it's not like we're going to a lot of effort to get past 1.5hrs or anything.  I do try and keep him up until he gets genuinely tired and sometimes even bordering OT territory, so I doubt he could do more than 2hrs A time at this point.  Maybe it's just one of those tweaks that will iron out with age!  The NWs have seemed to have gotten better, fingers crossed, as we only had 2 last night.

My LO is also named Finn .

[Aless]

Just as a mini-update but after a truly terrible night Wednesday night, I made an effort to decrease his naps every so slightly yesterday - and we were out in the pram for the afternoon, so he effectively got a short catnap then rather than his usual one at home.  It's of course only been one day, so far too soon but last night was pretty darn good for us - only 1 NW at somewhere around 12:30am; it did take a while to get him back to sleep but we got there in the end.  Up to eat at 2am and then back asleep until around 5:30am where we managed to hold him off getting up until 6am.

Baaaaaaaaaaby steps.  I've found that trying to extend both A times would be a very bad idea, as 2hrs in the morning is VERY MAXIMUM he can go, but the afternoon ones can stretch a tiny bit longer.

[Tweakster]

Hi there, yes baby steps :-)  When we stretched A time with Finn it was always hard to shift his morning A.  He was an early riser and more tired in the AM and always had a decent AM nap...so we moved carefully on that one.  And at times we found that his middle A would actually shrink a bit until he was used to the new morning A.  It's all so much trial and error really.

Where is he at in relation to his growth spurt and/or any teeth at play just now?

It does iron out with age as you said, there was a big jump in A time for us between 5-7 mths and that helped our routine and napping a lot.

Finn is a great name! :-)