5 1/2 month old early waking at 5am

[J0lene]

My wee boy is 5 1/2 months and has had a great sleeping routine since about 4 months old, but lately he's started waking at 5am which is too early.  He is still tired and not hungry and I do get him back to sleep but takes half hour to an hour to do so.  The 5am wakings have been going on for about a week or so.

His routine is more or less as follows:

E 7.45am: wake and feed
A
S 9.45am: sleep for 1.5-2 hours
E 11.45am
A
S 1.45pm: sleep for 1.5 hours
E 3.15pm
A
S 5.15pm: 45 minute catnap
E 6pm
A
E 7.45pm: formula bottle before bed (otherwise breastfed)
S 8.30pm: off to sleep on his own

He has also recently had a few issues with his afternoon sleep, occasionally waking after only 30-45 minutes, but not always.  He also began solids a few days ago, just a little bit after his 11.45 feed.

Any help with how to prevent the 5am waking or with best way of getting him back to sleep appreciated.  Also any thoughts on the occasional short afternoon nap?

Thanks heaps 

[newmummy82]

Hi!

I agree 5 am is painful!! Sometimes EW can be due to the first nap being too early ie needing more A time. I think your A times may be a tad short. Your LO may be getting near to the point of transitioning to dropping the CN. If the afternoon nap is getting shorter you could try pushing out the a time before it. SO say you aimed for a time of 2 hr 15 your day would be

E 7.45 wake and feed
10am S 1.5-2 hr
E 12
14.15 S 1.5 hr
15.45 E
17.45 CN 30 min
then BT routine etc

Your times between feeds may be more than 4 hours occasionally but thats ok, especially as you introduce solids. Or you can have a feed before a nap as long as you dont feed to sleep (ie change nappy and sing a bit to break it up).It's a bit messy when you work towards dropping a nap so sometimes you may have a very short CN but as long as you make sure you keep an eye out for OT you should be fine! The problem I found with this age was that my DD would just settle on a routine then would need more A times so I had to be constantly watching a very slowly pushing them out ( like by 5 mins here and there).

HTH!
Ruth

[J0lene]

Thanks for your advice Ruth.  I had been wondering if it was time to drop the catnap, but I tried it twice and had terrible nights following it.  I will give it a go extending the A times and see how that goes.

Jo

[newmummy82]

We dropped the CN fairly slowly by going down to 20 mins some days and occaionally cutting the second nap slightly short to fit a CN in.  But we had dropped it by 5.5 months ish I think and A times getting up to 2 hr 45.

Hope it works!

RuthX

[J0lene]

Still working on extending the A time and that's going well.  But he's STILL waking at 5am every morning and then I need to intervene to get him back to sleep. It appears to have become a habit.  How can I break the habit?  Does it have to be W2S or HTTJ?  I'm nervous about using either... Or maybe I should be doing PU/PD when he wakes (though I've tried this before I've never been successful as he doesn't tend to stop crying)?  Any ideas?

Regarding the catnap...  If I reduce it to 30 minutes I would be waking him then - is that right?  And also once I extend A time enough to drop it altogether I'm not sure what to do with his feeds - I don't think he's ready to drop a feed as well...

Thanks, Jo

[newmummy82]

Hi!

re catnap- we pretty much always had to wake DD up anyway so just woke her earlier. 20 mins did seem to really annoy ehr and at that point we were better off without!

re feeds- am not sure, as we didn't feed when waking from CN. currently we feed 7am, after both naps (11.30 and 1600 ish) and BT (about 1850) and have a dream feed at 10- do you dream feed? You can feed before a nap as long as not feeding to sleep.

So is your DS going back to sleep at 5am? or starting the day from there? And what do you do to get him back asleep? Does he have any other night wakenings? If not, waht did you used to do in the night?

If starting the day then your day is pretty long if wake up is now 5 and BT is 830. How long are his nights when things going well? Although it feels counter intuitive, it's best to try for a 12/12.5 hr day as being overtired can contribute to early wakenings I think. So putting him to be a bit early for a few days til you are getting back to long nights and then you can gradually push bed time back again by 15 mins every few days.

If he resettles at 5, W2S may work. It worked well for us for a habitual 1.30 wakening. Sleep is generally lighter in the early monring though so it could be more tricky? We just lightly stoked DDs cheek once and she stirred and that was all we did. Worked after 2 nights and never came back.


What's your A time now?

Ruthx

[J0lene]

Hi Ruth,

Thanks again for your thoughts . 

The catnap thing is tricky.  There's almost not enough time for it, but leaving it out altogether leaves too long before bedtime.  Will keep working on extending A time until it's long enough to accommodate this.  And agree that we should bring bedtime forward a bit.  Plan on doing this when I drop the catnap, as at the moment if I brought forward bedtime there wouldn't be long enough A time after the catnap and before bed - it's a tricky balance!

I have never dreamfed and except for the 5am waking bizzo, he's slept through the night fine without it.  I breastfeed when he wakes (7.30am) after all three naps (approx 11.30am, 3.30am and 6pm) and before bed (8pm).  I also give him 200ml of formula at this final feed (used to have huge milk supply issues and never dropped this bottle once that improved).  The formula feed top up at bedtime seems to do the job of the dreamfeed.  I don't feed to sleep.  He always goes down awake and just about always drops off himself with no fuss.

I feel that he still needs the 5 feeds but am not sure how to fit them all in if we drop the catnap.  I would love to see an 'ideal' EASY routine for a 6 month old to give us something to work towards.  That would be really useful.

Yes, my DS does go back to sleep after the 5am wake.  I think when he wakes at 5 he is wanting to start his day, but I haven't been letting this happen.  He normally doesn't have other night wakings but he has on the odd occasion in the last couple of days - I think things are a little bit out of kilter for him as we try to work towards a new routine.

I religously used to do shh/pat to get him to sleep when he needed help, but have found this stopped working recently (which I believe is usual when they get to his age).  I know I should probably be doing PU/PD but I've never followed through enough to do this successfully (every time I've tried he gets really upset and it's like he thinks I'm crazy).  I've been rocking him in my arms and putting him back down when he's sleepy.  I know this isn't recommended BW practice so perhaps I should change it.  But as I've said he usually goes down fine on his own and I only do this when he wakes in the night and can't get himself back to sleep (i.e. the 5am wake). 

When things are going well his nights are 8.30pm-7.30-8am ish, so 11-11.5 hours, so not too bad I think.

Could try W2S I guess for the 5am wake.  It does sound a scarey concept though...

His A time is now slightly over 2.25 hours.  I'm putting him to bed after 2.25 hours up, so add a few minutes for the time it takes him to fall asleep and that's where we're at.

Ok, sorry about the massive novel, but wanted to answer all your questions.  Thanks again for taking the time to give advice.

xx Jo

[newmummy82]

Hi!

Dropping the CN was a total pain so I understand where you are coming from! When it got to the too-short-for-a-CN-but-too-long-til-bed days, I just put DD in the pram and went for a walk- she only sleeps in the rpam if really really tired and doesn't sleep well so I figured that she might get a few mins if she needed it and if not she had a bit of quiet time out rather than active play and that got us through til BT.

You sound much better than me with the old shh-pat! We found after about 3 months DD was better off without it! We have only done PUPD a handful of times and it has worked. Now white noise and a hand on her tummy is all we can do.
I reckon that if it's a habitual wakening at 5am (same time pretty much exactly/not hungry or wet etc) and your DS is not OT or really UT at BT (that gives us funny EW I think) then I would give W2S a go. It sounds horrible but if the worst case scenario is that he wakes fully and you have to resettle him (which you were doing anyway) then it is worth it. We only did 2 nights (I think Tracy recommended 3 to be sure) and I think we could have done it with one TBH. Plan it for a weekend when you could get a nap later if needed.

Feeds-wise, the sample routines on the EASY forum FAQ may help. Our routine from about 6 (after dropping CN)to now (aged 7.5months) is below (my DD likes fairly long As and evenly distributed)

7am wake and BF
8am solids
10am-11.30 sleep
11.30 BF
12.20 solids
1430-1600 sleep (you could maybe fit a small feed in before this nap at say 1400)
1600 BF
1645 solids
1845 BF
1900 bed (asleep by 1920 latest)

Good luck!!

Ruth

[J0lene]

Ok....  so one last question on W2S before I give it a go...  How long before 5am should I go in?

Thanks heaps, Jo

[newmummy82]

I'm certainly no expert re W2S but we did 1 hr before the habitual wake time and that seemed to work.

We got such a buzz that it worked!

HTH

Ruth

[J0lene]

Just to confuse me he's slept through properly the last two nights without the 5am wake.  Well he woke briefly at 5.30am this morning but put himself back to sleep quickly.  Maybe the extending A times is working?  I don't know, LOs can be a mystery.

Really appreciate all your help Ruth, and fingers crossed we're good from here

[newmummy82]

Brilliant! I guess it was just the extra A time needed then. At least you will know if the 5am party restarts what to do!