Six month old - wide awake every night for about 1/2-1 hour

[marianyc4]

We've been training our 6 month old daughter for 2 weeks now. Overall, we've seen some progress... she goes down on her own at night which is fantastic. We use to bounce her for 10-20 minutes before putting her in her crib asleep. Now she goes down after nursing, sleepy but awake. Only problem is, she's still waking up at night, anywhere between 2:30-5am. She sometimes goes back to sleep if we go in there early enough and turn  her white noise back on, or pat/shish her. Other times she's up for a .5 or 1 hour. She wakes up chatting, singing... We sometimes don't go in there until she begins to grunt or cry. We've weaned her off of night feedings about a month ago. She does not seem hungry. She gets plenty of breast milk and solids (started about a month ago) during the day and is not at her hungriest first thing in the morning. My only thoughts as to why she's waking up are: 1) Overtired -- her naps are hit or miss and she's been missing at least one nap of three -- usually the last catnap for the last week or so 2) Bedtime is too late. Here's the schedule we try to follow, but it shifts depending on what time she actually wakes up.

4 hour EASY
A: 2:15 to 2.5 hours

E 6:30/7:00 wake/nurse         
A 8:30 breakfast            
S 9:00/9:30-11 nap (1.5 hours)

E 11:00 wake/nurse         
A 12:30 lunch
S 1:30-3 nap (1.5 hours)

E 3:00 wake/nurse
A 4:00 dinner
S 5:30-6 catnap

E 6:00 wake/nurse
A 7:30 bath, pjs
E 7:45 nurse
S 8:00-8:15 bed

We keep the 4 hour feeding schedule and 8:00-8:15 bedtime in tact, even if she's missed her catnap or if the nap times shift...

Any thoughts on why she wakes up every night

[Tweakster]

Hi there, just to clarify, if she misses the CN you don't put her to bed earlier?  That would cause a lot of OT in a LO this age. 

[Khalam's Mama]

Is she missing the catnap because she doesn't need it anymore? A day from 6.30 til 8.15 is very long for a 6MO. 6MO is about average to drop the catnap and if she wakes in the night happy it may be that she needs more A time. I would stretch her A time a little and put her to bed early instead. working towards something like
7am wake and E
8am Breakfast
9.45 nap 1.5hrs -2hrs
11.45am E
12.45 Lunch
2.30pm Nap 1.5 - 2 hr
4.30pm E
5.30pm Dinner
7.00 E and bed
You will probably find when you drop the CN she will take longer naps at the other times. If she is OT from long A's when she doesn't take the CN you may need to get past this first, maybe with an early bedtime for a night or two.
What do you think?

[marianyc4]

Hi Khalam's Mama - So, are you suggesting that she may be getting up in the middle of the night/early morning because her A time during the day is too short and/or she gets OT before bedtime? 

If so, that sounds fine, except that we just increased her A time to 2.5 hours - it was 2 hours. She begins to get fussy after about 2 hours, 10 minutes or so... do you think that increasing it even more would be a good idea? Also, we try to stick to a 4-hour feeding schedule (for nursing), with the exception of the cluster feed before bedtime, so it usually ends up being: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 5pm, 7:45pm. We're also debating over dropping one feeding if we move her bedtime up to 7, then it would be a true 4-hour EASY schedule (not sure why this is so important, but it says so in the BW book...) Anyway, the schedule you're suggesting has 4 feedings, but they're not 4 hours apart. Isn't this important?

Thanks so much for the input!
Maria

[Khalam's Mama]

Hi Khalam's Mama - So, are you suggesting that she may be getting up in the middle of the night/early morning because her A time during the day is too short and/or she gets OT before bedtime? 

My thoughts are if she is resisting naps and happily awake in th night she may need less day sleep and more A time yes. If she resists her nap and ends up with a superlong A she will likely get OT too which often happens when they are UT for a nap and either refuse it or cut it short.


You will know her best regarding what A she can manage but they do jump quite quickly at this age and this is a schedule you may like to work towards but not jump staright to tomorrow. Here are some links you may find useful.
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652
Late 5 months/early 6 months 2.25-2.5 hours
6.5 - 7 months 2.75-3 hours. Some are getting more.
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85134.0
6-8 months                                                            Two naps 1-2 hours each;
More mobility; able to                                                   10-12 hours at night
sit and crawl
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64837.0

You may have to bring bedtime earlier while she gets used to it for a short while so you would stretch the A's one at a time maybe starting with the morning only 1st for example. Also at 6MO typical sleepy signs are often unreliable so always check she doesn't perk up if you change scenery. Also they get used to the A's they have and sometimes expect a nap so to speak even though they could do more.

Regarding the 4hour feeding - this gets difficult at this age when they manage more than 2 hours as it often falls at the same time as a nap, but if they are having solids than they are still getting fed often enough. Cluster feeding tends to be for smaller babes who can't hold much in their tummies at one feed, I think Tracy says only up to 8wo, so do you think she really needs it still? I guess there is no reason you can't add another feed in if you think she needs it.

What do you think?

[marianyc4]

I don't think she's getting too much sleep during the day. She resists naps no matter how tired she is. It's been getting better though. She's now sleeping about 1.5 hours twice a day, but will also wake after 30 minutes or so on some days which throws us off if we can't get her back down. But maybe we an still stretch her A time between when she first wakes in the morning and between her two naps so that she doesn't have such a long stretch at the end of the day. But I agree with you, I still think her bedtime needs to be earlier, probably 7/7:15 instead of 8/8:15. I'm just hoping this doesn't get her to wake up earlier in the morning... Thanks also for you input on feedings. I think that we'll need to be somewhat flexible with nursing times, especially since her actual naptime varies. Like I said, we shoot for 4-hour, but sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less...

Her schedule, actually, has been very similar to your suggested one these last couple of days, except for bedtime, which has been 8pm. The first A time was 2.5 hours and the second was 2 hours and 40 minutes and 3 hours and 40 minutes by the end of the day. Could it be that everything is fine as is during the day and her late bedtime is what's causing her to wake up wide awake? Seems counter-intuitive that OT would cause a baby to wake up  and be happily awake for an hour!

[Khalam's Mama]

As you say I think generally OT tends not to be happy but each babe is different. Maybe you can try the early bedtime for a week or so and see how she goes. If it helps great and if not you can tweak something else.

[marianyc4]

So, nightwakings are becoming the norm in our household... They tend to be an hour long (almost to the minute) each night, anytime between 2:30 and 5am... Our 6 month old wakes happily and remains in her crib chatting away for 30 - 45 min and then she begins to grunt. At that point, my husband goes in and puts her down. Usually shush/pat. We've pretty much gotten rid of her third catnap and are trying to get her to bed earlier (15 min. increments at a time until we get to 7pm). Here's what her schedule looks like - more or less - these days...

A: 2:15 to 2.5 hours

E 6:30/7:00 wake/nurse         
A 7:30/8: breakfast           
S 9:00/9:30-11 nap (1.5 - 2 hours)

E 11:00/11:30 wake/nurse         
A 12/12:30 lunch
S 1:30/2-3:30 nap (1.5 - 2  hours)

E 3/3:30 wake/nurse
A 4/4:30 dinner
E 5/5:30 nurse (cluster feed)
A 7:15 bath, pjs
E 7:30 nurse
S 7:45 bed

I realize that she's OT because she has over 4 hours of A time at the end of the day, but our goal is to get her to bed by 7, which would bring that down to less than 3.5 hours (schedule often shifts and she wakes at 4pm). But is this why she wakes up in the middle of the night? Should we expect this to change once her A time decreases? PS - She's gone a couple of times with a catnap of about 30 minutes in the stroller when her #2 ended too early (less than 1.5 hours) and we've put her down earlier, ie, 7:15, but she still woke up for an hour in the middle of the night.. Lastly, she's eating more solids, so we're planning on getting rid of the cluster feed before the pre-bedtime feed (original BF schedule has been: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 5pm, 7:30pm). I hope this doesn't make her night wakings worse....Thoughts?