Dear BW ladies,
I have been following along on posts really similar to my issues but just wondered if anyone could cast a light on my EASY as it had been working so well for my DD. She will be 6 months this week. We've been having really early wakings for a couple of weeks, it used to be closer to 7am, then towards 5.30, now closer to 5. My approach has been a bit inconsistent as nothing really seems to make a difference. She wakes babbling, not crying, so I am reluctant to feed straight away, but if I leave it too long to feed I can't get a 4-hr routine/12 hr day working. So I've tried both feeding straight away before she's really frustrated crying or leaving it 1/2 hr until she is. She will usually take all I offer, and then I try both PUPD and ignoring the babbling and no lights on until 6.30 ish. But I think she has only resettled once in the last week or more, and it's so hard to start your day with an hour and a half of trying to settle a baby in the dark with little hope it will work. This past weekend we were staying with family and her naps were terrible too, 45-mins back with a vengeance, and it's too hard to spend ages trying to extend them in someone elses house. Yesterday she would not catnap and was awake for about 4 hrs in afternoon, but happy. How?! I am lost on her activity times. I also need to start solids and don't know how or when I will fit it into the day.
I won't post my EASY from the weekend because it was a mess and not very typical, lots of AP to sleep in car etc. I will when I see how today goes, but so far:
Awake babbling 5.15.am
E: fed 5 oz straight away which was all taken (she only had a 4oz dreamfeed last night as so tired at 11pm, so I was worried about hunger this am) then tried PUPD and just ignoring babbling with lights off until 6.30 am when I gave up
E: top up of 1oz at 7.15
A: back for a nap at 7.40 but she was really fighting going down and took a bit of PUPD
S: asleep at 7.45 am, woke crying 45 mins later but sshed back to sleep.
to be continued...
My questions really are:
- when she wakes at 5.15 ish do I feed straight away, and start counting my 4hr routine from then, or wait an hr and count from then. I've never been clear on this, because we always wanted a 7am start and used to have it, so I fed at 7,11,3 and before 7 bedtime. But that's out the window now
- to try to get some consistency should I have her in bed at 12 hrs after wake up time, so 5.15 pm? I hate the idea of that but am willing to try to fix this
- what are typical 6 month olds doing in terms of activity times? Last week on a good day I was working with 2 1/2 hrs pretty successfully, I got a lot of good 1 1/2 hr naps. The catnap has not been longer than 45 mins in some time, and last week in pram it was as short as 20-30 mins most days. Can activity times take a sudden leap?
- Is this developmental and will it change? I really struggle with a wake up before 6, even though I do get to bed early. Mentally it feels like the middle of the night. And I really feel DD is tired too, she's a pretty good sleeper when she goes down but the past weekend she has been getting only 10 hrs night sleep and I just don't think it's enough
- This is just a moan but none of my new mum friends have anything like this going on, and they all think I just put her to bed too early. But I've tried 6pm bed, 7pm bed but am still up after 5 and DD has just had less sleep! So frustrating, as the day is totally skewed when we're up so early and baby groups etc so hard to fit in.
Thanks all! I'd love to hear if someone got over this EWs and how to approach.
