these EW's are killing us

[*Jo*]

both me and Caleb that is. Levi wakes anywhere around 5am-6.30am. My preferred start to the day is 6.30am and thats what I aim for. but he wakes at around 5/5.30am and that screws everything up!

our routine is out of kilter at the moment due to a reflux flare up but this was going on before that as well. he has a DF at 10.30pm and will wake anywhere from 2-3am for another feed. then he will wake around 5/5.30am, sometimes I can resettle him till 6am. this morning and yesterday morning I fed him again because Im thinking Growth Spurt however it takes a full A time for him to go back to sleep, with me patting or even leaving him to grizzle. so that means hes finally falling asleep at our normal wakeup time for the day which means everything is backwards.

So do I take his start of the day as the 5/5.30am time that he woke up for or still consider that a NW even though hes taking a full A time to go back to sleep? this means that if i stick to my 6.30pm bedtime (which I do, I absolutely have to in order to deal with Caleb and things around the house) then hes really only getting 10.5-11 hours at night and its not enough, hes a real high sleep needs boy.

So what more can I do to get this stupid EW out of the way, its messing everyone up, Caleb ends up waking at6am because his brother his crying his head off (they share a room) and Levi will not be APOP'd back to sleep. Im exhausted because I dont get to bed till 11pm and then im up with one nightfeed at 2am and then up again for the day around 5/5.30am with Levi. Once levi is back to sleep then Im up with Caleb. I really need this EW gone

[rach321]

Is he hungry when he wakes for that 5am feed? Does he take a full feed or just a small amount?
We've had real issues with EW over the years with both of mine - even now its a 6am start every day (unless the miracle sleep fairy visits - sadly not as often as I would like and never at the weekend :-))
If he's not really hungry then I would be tempted to get him up at that ungodly hour, don't feed him and just keep him occupied/distracted (but keep it really boring/low key) until the time you want to feed him - maybe after a few days he will get the hint and realise that its not worth getting up for since nothing is going to happen till 6.30am.
Although just looked at your ticker and saw he's coming up to the 3 month mark - for both of mine that meant a huge growth spurt and sleep definitely got screwed up at that time. I'm sure one of the experts will be along soon.

[*Liz*]

I have 2 EWers, and I know how hard it is.

Nothing very sensible to say to help (as you know I never really solved it with either of mine), but what I thought I would say is that Megan very clearly EWs if ANYTHING is wrong. She wakes at 10ish hrs and doesn't transition to the final sleep cycle. So too wet = EW, reflux = EW, teeth = EW, hunger = EW. If all is well she does 11-12 hr nights.

She also is very prone to napping too much and then doing short nights. It took me ages to work that one out as she always gave off loads of tried cues and went right to sleep but actually she was just one of those babies with a very strong body clock who was tired at 'nap time' regardless so ended up napping all day and then EWing every morning. I always had to encourage her to extend her A's.

I can't help with your direct question as I always kept her up until her usual naptime ie ignored the EW as my hands were always full with Jacob as well.

Huge ((((hugs)))) Jo. I remember the exhaustion  .

[*Jo*]

well the last three days hes been eating a decent amount at those wakings, but previously he hasnt so I know a GS is going on now but this has been happening before the growth spurt

Liz, i think Levi is the same, once he hits that 10 hour mark if anything is wrong he will wake up, it doesnt take much. I have also wondered about too much daytime sleep because his A time is still only an hour at three months old and he will do a 2 hour sleep... but I cant get past that because hes stuck there, ive tried moving him forward by five minutes even and we had issues getting him to sleep, otherwise he goes down fine.