18 week old & Early Waking - Help please!

[jen2b13]

My 18 week old has been waking early - around 5am, for the past 2-3 weeks. I have been having problems making the transition to 4 hour EASY for a good month at least now (catnapping too)!! He does seem to be in the 'habit' of waking at 5am now and i'm never sure whether to feed him, get him up or what. We have tried leaving him before to see if he re-settles but when we have tried that he has called out for up to an hour and we just end up getting him up, feeding him and then my EASY tends to become AESY iykwim. I am getting really fed up now and don't know where to start with tweaking his routine. Any ideas?? if he wakes at 5am i am wondering should i try to get him to resettle (using any means!!- dummy/rocking) or should i try and keep him 'up' for longer? - risking the OT monster?? Any ideas would be very welcome as im all out! xx

Here was my 'routine' (word used loosely!! lol) for today. It is a bit all over the place!!:

3am - he called out. Fed. (he would have settled himself back down, but i had a brainwave and thought if we fed him he would sleep past 5am...)
5.30am woke... - Fed but only took small amount due to feed at 3am (bad idea!!)
6.45 - sleep, seemed very tired, cranky (maybe had been awake before crying at 5.30am??)
07.45 - woke up after 1 hour nap
08.45 given small amount solids
9am - gave bottle, became extremely sleepy on bottle. Fed to sleep :-(
9.30 - sleep
10.40 - woke
12.15 back to sleep.
13.00 woke after one sleep cycle and fed.
14.45 - seemed tired so put down at 14.45. Didn't settle until 15.15
16.00 woke after 1 sleep cycle - given small amount of solids and small amount of milk as 'snack' to see him through until bedtime feed.
17.55 - 18.15 (20min catnap)
18.30 - fed
18.50 - bedtime story
19.00 put down - settled to sleep about 19.20

Plan to dreamfeed at 23.00. Where on earth do i start with adjusting this routine??? His temrament is such that if we miss the 'sleep window' he gets overtired really quickly and screams!! So i know i probably need to look at 'A' time but pushing it too musch is a risk.

[timmysmommy]

Jen,
I'm having many of the same troubles you are having.  I had some crazy weeks with early wake-ups.  It is better now, but I am still having troubles.  Here is what I am doing.   I am doing a DF at 11:00 PM and then trying not to feed until around 5 or 5:30.  A full belly seems to help settle him better at that early hour.  After a little while of trying this, he began sleeping in longer again.  Unfortunately, he is waking between 11-5 am.  Typically around 3, and then 4 AM, but I can pat him back to sleep.  

Maybe if you push his A time 5 min at a time, he won't get quite so OT?  Have you seen the thread for moving from 3 to 4 hr in 5 min intervals?  It's on the sleep board in general facts.

If he wakes at 5, I would try to resettle.  I would do whatever it takes to resettle him.  It is so much easier to maintain EASY if the day starts at the right time.  I wouldn't worry too much about AP.  Use it if it works for you- you can always break them of it later.  If he doesn't resettle in whatever time is "normal" for you (for me it's about 15 min) then I would start that as the beginning of the day and I would feed him.  Everything would get pushed earlier.  When I posted a similar question a few weeks ago, many people told me the EW is due to being OT.  I think it is pretty common when you are pushing A times.  

Hang in there!!!

[jen2b13]

Thank u so much Timmy's Mommy, the 4 hour easy transition is really getting me down and it's nice to know you've been in my situation and have had some progress. i think i will go with your advice and try any means necessary to try and resettle him. I am wary of props but we do use them sometimes - the way the last few weeks have been he has been fed to sleep loads (going AESY rather than EASY) :-( but managed to self settle today plenty so i know he still has the skills there. I read in another book that the time of the first nap of the day can affect EW (basically saying for a 7am wake up you need to put baby down at 9am for first nap. not sure about this - but there's no way i can even try this with a 5am wake up. I will plod on and will be back in the morning to let u know how we get on at 5am.

xxx

[jen2b13]

Hey! well it's as if the LO knew i was posting on here!! this morning he did wake around 5am (can't remember what time exactly now) but he wasn't properly crying iykwim and put himself back to sleep. Then at 6.40am he woke up - OH went in and used paci/ holding him for a bit then put him back down until 7am, when we got him up. I was so suprised!! especially as i can't see what we did differently yesterday to help him sleep through longer,

Consequently today has been fantastic (first good day in WEEKS!!) had 1 x 1.5hr nap and 1 x 2 hr nap then a 20min catnap (with paci in pram :-(  ) and he went down for bed no problems whatsoever.

I hope tomorrow goes as well. I had almost forgot how lovely it was when 'routine' works.
xx

[timmysmommy]

That's great!  I hope it continues for you!