I'm desperate ... 5 month old wakes up every 2 hours or so

[Kathie11]

The last  month my son has been waking up every 2 hours at night especially the last couple weeks. Around 4 months he usually slept 5-6 hour stretches and few times 8-9 hour stretches. He has always gone to bed on his own at night and the last 10 days I used PU/PD very successfully to put him down for naps (he only naps for 45 minutes). When he wakes up at night I either feed him (usually I put him down while still awake) or sometimes I can just pick him up and hold him for a minute and put him down again. I think the problem is that when he wakes up he rolls onto his stomach and he can't roll back and that's what fully wakes him up. I try to practice with him during the day to roll back which he can do with some struggling.

Do you have any advice??

[bug_blues70]

If it's just a problem with rolling, I think just keep doing exactly what you are doing. Let him practice as much as possible during the day and roll him back over when he rolls and it wakes him back up. When my LO was in this stage, I didn't pick her up, I just rolled her back over and went back to bed. If this works for you too, it might be better not to let him get in the habit of you picking him up when it happens. It's exhausting, I know, but it won't last forever... as soon as he learns to roll the other way and/or be comfortable sleeping on his stomach, it will stop. Good luck!!

[jmd]

Hi, agree with the rolling advice. We had that phase too but not that often in waking. We at 5 mo also had a waking phase like yours, including short naps during the day, but it was hunger. Is this possible? We were told to not start solids until 6 mo but as she was irritable after feeds and was very interested in our food we started earlier. Thank goodness we did because we went to the doctor for a usual check up and even though she had grown in height she had not gained any weight in 6 weeks! We then upped the solids as she was taking to them very well and waking problems were solved. Also naps were longer. Your LO shouldn't have to feed at night if he is getting enough to eat during the day.
Hope that assists. If you would like you could post your EASY? Are you on the 4 hour routine?
All the best

[Kathie11]

Thank you

My EASY is
E - 7 am
A - 7-8:30
S - 8:30 - 9:15
E - 9:15
A - 9:15-10:45
S - 10:45 - 11:30
E - 11:30
A - 11:30 - 1:00
S - 1:00-1:45
E - 1:45
A - 1:45 - 3:30
S - 3:30 - 4:15
E - 4:15
A - 4:30 - 7:00
and then bath and get ready for bed

I'm also working towards the 4 hour routine but I'm having a hard time because he only sleeps for 45 minutes and the last week I have increased the A time to 1:45 to 2 hours and I look for tired cues. He has gotten better the last 4 nights by waking up usually every 3.5 hours at night. Also today I had to take my 3 year old to dance class so Lucas only had 1 hour of A time in the morning but then he slept 1 hour for his nap and I had to wake him up. Then he was awake for 2 hours and has another 1.5 hour nap. In the last month he had 1 hour naps only twice so for him to do this 2 times in one day is major.
Regarding his hunger, he eats 8-9 times a day but he only eats for 5 minutes or shorter. He's 18 lbs so he's a pretty big boy. I think he is getting enough food but he could still be hungry. I did noticed that he gets distracted easily when eating.

Thank you so much for your advice.

[jmd]

My heart goes out to you - you must be tired! I was exhausted when we went through a similar thing. I will have a good look and think and get back to you very shortly. Sometimes I have found you can 'do everything right' and they just go through a phase. Frustrating though!

Talk soon

[jmd]

Hi there,

Some thoughts.

Food
How much milk will he take at night? If it is a full feed/bottle then I do think part of the issue is hunger. Are you BF or bottle? If you are BF could it be supply? I had a supply issue around 5 months and also my LO needed solids which we started at 5 1/2 months. Would you consider solids? Is he interested in your food?

Routine
With your routine I read it that you are essentially on a 2.25 hour routine. Has he ever been on the 3 hour EASY? I do think it would help if you could lengthen the times between feeds as he is probably only snacking at present. If you could keep heading toward the 4 hour routine that would be great.

Sleep
45 min naps are very frustrating. I went through that. Have you tried PU/PD to extend the naps? I am not sure what you mean with the PU/PD for naps in your initial post. I also gather that with a 3yo dedicating time to PU/PD must be hard! Apologies if this is too simple but I realised as well that I was doing too much with her before naps and I found a wind down time of about 15 mins pre nap very useful to getting her to sleep longer - quietly reading a book or something. I also believe though that the short naps are a phase and they can also just grow out of it. I was so relieved when she did! Good news is that on solids it does give you a lot more flexibility with food/naps - well that is what I found.

Activity
Great that you have extended that out. You appear to have a long activity time before bedtime. Is it possible that he is overtired going to bed?

This is the frustrating thing I had when I was going through the short naps. My LO could only stay up for a certain amount of time but would only sleep a short nap so what to do to fill in the time until the next feed? Low key activity is the only thing you can do I think.

Definately the developmental stuff will also be playing a part. It is a very exciting and interesting time for them at that stage! With that I suggest you just need to be careful with what you do when you do go in (and not rushing in) and it sounds like you are doing that by just being in there for the minimum amount of time.

Whew! Well it sounds like you have a complicated issue and I hope my outflow of ideas makes a little sense! I think first priority is to sort out the food (if there is an issue) and getting those calories needed in during the day and to extend those feeding times. Next trying to extend those naps - making sure enough activity time to be properly tired but not over tired and a wind down period pre nap.

All the best - let me know what you think. I realise I only have a snapshot. So much easier to give other people advice. :-)

[Kathie11]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that... I greatly appriciate it especially since he had another pretty bad night.

Food - only breastfed so I don't actually know how much food he is taking in and I think my supply is still good. I actually started with solids yesterday. He seemed interested and ate a bit.

Routine - My issue is that he naps for 45 minutes so after having an awake time of 2 hours plus the 45 minute nap, I want to feed him before his next awake time and nap. But I did notice that he usually has one small feed and the next one is longer.

Sleep - For naps I used to rock him in my arms and since he is heavy it was very frustrating because he would also cry. I used PU/PD to get him to fall asleep. He did really well and our wind down is a story, a song and then I put him down. Occassionally I have to pick him up once or twice but usually he just rolls to his side and falls asleep in couple minutes. But I will try a longer wind down. I did try once to do PU/PD to extend his nap but I did it for 45 minutes, and he eventually fell asleep and woke up 5 minutes after I left the room and he was laughing and in a great mood. Generally he wakes up in a good mood. I was hoping that since he can fall asleep on his own now that the naps might lengthen because he can now soothe himself.

Activity - He's quite happy in the evening and we try to have a bedtime of 7 because before that he was going to bed at 6am and waking up after 5am.

I'm going to try your suggestions and I'll let you know how he's doing. Once again thank you so much for your advice.

[jmd]

Happy I could be of some use - even if it someone to moan to after a bad night! That nap thing is frustrating and throws everything out. You have done very well to increase activity time to 2 hours. Possibly you could alternate solids and breastfeeds to spread out the breastfeeding timing? That is how it ends up generally anyway. Good that he was receptive with solids. When we started solids we gave her mashed banana because she was very interested in it which was too advanced for her system and she ended up constipated - doh!

7pm bedtime sounds like a good idea.

We will get through it! :-)

[jmd]

There have been a lot of views of this so hopefully someone else has been through a similar thing and may post. Or anyone else have some advice? More the merrier! :-)

[Kathie11]

Had a decent night. Woke up 9:45pm I just picked him up for 20 seconds and put him back down. Woke up again at 12:45am fed him and went back to bed and then woke lup 4:45am fed him again and then was up for the day at 6am.

It's funny how rested I feel after having 4 hours of continuous sleep. The one good thing is that even when he wakes up more frequently it only takes few minutes to get him back to sleep so it's not like he's crying and fussing for a long time.

Once again thanks for everything.

[jmd]

Great - good on you! Excellent about the 9:45 one. I forgot to ask - do you use a dummy? If not you might not wish to but we do and find it very useful if she wakes in the night. Also useful to know if they are really hungry or not. Just a thought.
At the other two wakings - did he wake crying? Did he take a full feed? Just wondering if it is hunger or habit.
Glad you feel a bit better. These things are very hard to deal with with interrupted sleep.
How are the day naps going?

[Kathie11]

Yes he was whimpering, not fully crying and he did take a decent feed (about 3-4 minutes). Last night he woke up 2 times as well but I think I'm going to him too quickly because once I let him whimper for 1 minute and he just went back to bed. How long should I let him cry or whimper?

The naps are still generally 45 minutes but today his afternoon nap was 1.5 hours.

We don't use a dummy.

[jmd]

That is great about the 1.5 hr nap. Hopefully his habits are changing!

I think how long you leave him depends on his temperament and whether he is likely to resettle. Great that he did resettle. I definately go in if she is really crying/upset and I definately don't if she is just mucking around or just stirring. However it is hard to know where the line is in between those two.

I suggest you wait and listen if he is not upset and see if he will resettle. My LO has different types of noises and I know(well I think I do!) when she won't resettle and I have to go in.

Great improvement from every 2 hours to twice a night - well done!

I suggest you need to stop feeding in the night but it will be hard to stop and it will only work if you really want to. PU/PD I think is the way but that will be hard for a couple of nights I would imagine to break the habit. If you are confident he is getting enough during the day then he won't be hungry at night but it may just be habit.

All the best