night waking problem 8 weeks old

[nollie]

hi,
my second ds is 8 weeks old, BF, his routine is still erratic, .. at the moment i'm not sure whether he has colic or i have fast letdown (he's always end his feed by crying and has a couple of big burp) and he's either have a terrible nw or have his day and night switched.. not sure because i found that it took less time to put him to bed at noon than at night
i better post my EASY, so maybe you can spot something about this situation, here goes:

E: 06.30 - wake up
A: bye bye to DH and DS go to office and school
S: 07.45 ( i still hold and sway him as his cue to sleep, he's a tummy sleeper)

E: 09.30
A: Bath time
S: 10.15

E: 12.30
A: play together with his brother
S: 01.45

E: 03.30
A: Bath time at 04.30
S: 05.00

E: 06.30
A: play together with his brother

E: 08.30 - prepared bedtime routine, changed to jammies (hold and sway) , slept on his tummy, i reckon it's because his gas problem (but again.. not sure) so i let him sleep on me for a while till he's in a deep sleep, put in his crib then after 10 minutes.. another wail, so i hold and sway again.. it went on till his next feed, i wanted this feed to be his first cluster feed --> guess it's not working

E: 10.30 - same thing happened like his 8.30 feed.. but the crying intensified, did sucking motion on his thumbs, or on my clothes.. end up gave him medication for his colic, his eyes wide awake and it took a long time to make him sleep

E: 12.30 - finally i could feed him to sleep, burped and put him in bed, but he's very fidgety and restless. i have to pat and shush every time he fidget or he will be awake..

E: 03.00 am - pat shush or feed to sleep

wake up 05.30 - pat shush or feed to sleep

for my fast letdown, i take off the nipple until my letdown pass.. sometime it helps..
i'm afraid to start sleep training because of this chaos (in case he's colic)

it's really hard to steal time to sleep at noon, because of his big brother... soo i really need my night sleep.. if you can spot something .. please let me know ...

Thank you...

[nollie]

hi again..
after a couple hours of investigating ... i think the problem is simply his day and night time switched...
any suggestion how to fix this ladies?

[ZacsMumme]

Hugs Hun, I'll be back. No experience of day/night switch but I'll certainly ask around for you once I get a chance to properly read your post

[ZacsMumme]

Getting some more eyes on this for you hun, I'm uncertain if it is day night switch or colic/gas wind. My LO was a screamer all day, crash at nightat this young age so I'm not best to give advice

[amayzie]

Hugs!! You seem to have a lovely day time happening there! What a lucky little bundle you have! I don't think the day and night are switched to be honest as his naps aren't too long and the A times are nice and long too. If i was seeing a baby with a confused night and day i'd expect to see a long nap of more like 4-5-6 hours in the day and then up all night.. Your naps are nice but not too long.

In the evening- he seems to be going from 6.30 to at least 8.30 before getting to sleep. This seems like a ling time- is there a reasonfor this? Is it that you can't settle him, or just that that's how it fits with your routine. I would perhaps try to get him down for the night a little earlier- say 7.30 or something. I found my little guy would get tireder as the day went along- and so i was always best having a short A time before bed.

Also- the crying in the evening and the first part of the night could well be that fussy evening period a lot of babies get before 12 weeks- they can be really unsettled and want to feed all the time. There's not MUCH you can do- other than try to keep things calm (hard to do with a DS#1 on the scene!) - you could try carrying him in a carrier so he's close to you...

Also- the night feeds- I'd feed him whenever he wakes as he's waking through the rest of the night at times that are similar to what you'd expect most babies to do... It's going to probably be easier on you than trying to shh-pat...

Other things you can do to make sure it's not a AM/PM switch is to keep those A times nice and long (as you have them- no longer at this point) and make sure he doesn't nap much longer than 3 hours. Also see if you can get plenty of sunshine onto him in the day as this helps his body realise it's the day time...

[becj86]

Hi! I agree with Katy - your day looks fine (amazingly good actually - I'm a little jealous!) but he's got a long A time before bed. I'd try one of two things:
1. feed when he wakes from his last nap around 6:30, then feed again at 7:15/7:30 depending on how long he takes to feed, nappy change and bed.
2. wake him after 45mins - so at 5:45ish and feed then, do a cluster feed, then change nappy and put him to bed at 6:30/7 depending on how he goes after a catnap.

The NW's look to me like what DS was doing when he had gas and he had it BAD - he'd sleep happily for a bit after a feed then he'd wake screaming and be inconsolable for a while until we could get the gas out. He'd root as if he was hungry but he  having more feeds would only make the problem worse.

In reality, the night is not too bad for his age but I think you may benefit from that last nap being cut back to a catnap and getting in a longer night (aiming for a 12hr night and a 12hr day) so if he's up at 6:30, bedtime should be 6:30/7pm.

In terms of the letdown - have you tried lying back a bit to feed? Esp. at night as you will make more milk at night when your body is resting and if you're engorged, bub is likely gulping to cope with the flow and taking in quite a bit of air.

[nollie]

i know.. right.. i love my daytime.. because it's pretty smooth i thought maybe i switched it..

My LO was a screamer all day, crash at night at this young age so I'm not best to give advice

my first son settled very easily after every night feed..coz in day time he fussed and cried a lot .. soo i'm clueless like you too Sara..

In the evening- he seems to be going from 6.30 to at least 8.30 before getting to sleep. This seems like a ling time- is there a reasonfor this?

i guess i'm still trying to figure out the perfect time to start bedtime.. under the assumption the more tired the baby is the more settled he sleep at night.. which is not true in my case..

The NW's look to me like what DS was doing when he had gas and he had it BAD - he'd sleep happily for a bit after a feed then he'd wake screaming and be inconsolable for a while until we could get the gas out. He'd root as if he was hungry but he  having more feeds would only make the problem worse.

what did you do when that happened? once i tried feed to sleep every time DS woke at night and he vomited in the middle of the night .. aarrrggghhh... now after 11 pm DF he woke up to feed every 3 hr, at 2.30 and 5.30.. and every time he'd cried after feed so i had to burp and rock DS to sleep..

thanks ladies i'll try your suggestion.. and i'll let you know the result... finger crossed

[amayzie]

look at his little face!! Sooo sweet!!

[becj86]

I had to deal with the screaming (he did scream blue murder night and day when gassy) and cycle his legs, burp him, pat him, sing to him - anything to get the gas out, calm him down and get him out of the cycle of eating and getting gassy. I did block feeding to reduce my supply, laid back in a recliner chair to slow the flow a bit (going against gravity instead of with it) whenever I fed. I also expressed in the morning before feeding him - this allowed me to store up a bit of milk and start the day off with lots of hindmilk in him and really helped with the foremilk overload situation. I even expressed and bottlefed EBM for a few days to make sure he was getting a good amount of the fattier bits of milk. Once I found out that the fat is in the latter part of the milk because it adheres to the milk ducts and requires more effort to get out, I would do a little bit of massage of the breast to get the fats to let go more easily and that helped too.

[ZacsMumme]

His, have you also tried grpe water or infacol for the wind/gas? X

[nollie]

thanks katy..


about meds for gas.. i gave him piptal .. not sure if we use the same name for the meds.. but it's for colic baby.. i'll ask my pead tomorrow..

yesterday routine was a mess.. i have a couple of question tho.. please take a look at my EASY:
E: 07.30
S: 09.00 (i try to make the sleep and wake up time both one and a half hour)
E: 10.30
S: 12.30
E: 02.00 (i woke him to feed but he fell asleep again after feed for another half an hour)
S: 03.30 (he slept very restless, and everytime i put him to bed, he'd wake up.. so since grandma, hubby, and auntie all here he slept on our tummy)
E: 05.15 ( i woke him up again to feed, but he's getting cranky)
S: 06.00 (sleep on us again)
S: 07.00 (woke up and cried inconsolable
E: 08.00 (change to jammies and feed to sleep)
E: 11.00 (woke up and Feed to sleep)
E: 01.30 (woke up and Feed and wake up till ..
S: 03.30
S: 04.00 (woke up, feed, burp and rock to sleep)
S: 05.00 (woke up, burp and rock to sleep)
E: 06.00 (woke up, feed, burp and rock to sleep)
E: 08.30 (woke up, feed and sleep)

so my question is:
is it because i tried to stick to 1.5 hr sleep, and maybe he's too OT, he won't settle at night?

I even expressed and bottlefed EBM for a few days to make sure he was getting a good amount of the fattier bits of milk. Once I found out that the fat is in the latter part of the milk because it adheres to the milk ducts and requires more effort to get out, I would do a little bit of massage of the breast to get the fats to let go more easily and that helped too.

so basically you express the fore milk so the baby can get the hind milk faster. is it because the fore milk cause gassiness in baby more than hind milk? (am i saying it right.. fore milk as the first part of the milk and hind milk as the fat one?)

thank uu..

[becj86]

At 8 weeks, you only really just follow the order EAS and wake LO if they're still sleeping for more than 2-2.5hr during the day so they can sort out the difference between day and night. 1.5hr A time is probably too much at this age - it would be more typical to be at 1.5hr by 12-13weeks moving towards 2hr around 4 months, so you could be right on the overtiredness front.

so basically you express the fore milk so the baby can get the hind milk faster. is it because the fore milk cause gassiness in baby more than hind milk? (am i saying it right.. fore milk as the first part of the milk and hind milk as the fat one?)

Yes, the milk is all the same when its produced, but if you express and see the milk after it's settled, you'll see there's a layer of creamier milk on top - that's the fatty stuff LO needs to gain weight and it digests slower than the watery stuff below. Not to say the watery stuff is useless - it hydrates LO and has lots of goodies that LO needs. LO needs a BALANCE of these. When there is an oversupply, LO can often get lots of foremilk which comes out first and is mostly the watery milk and a little bit of fat. As the feed goes on, the milk that's coming out becomes creamier. If LO gets too much foremilk over a period of time, the speed at which the foremilk flows through the gut can damage the gut - green poos and gassy screaming baby result. So foremilk is not bad but too much can be

Those frequent wakings at night seem to me like discomfort - probably gas or maybe reflux.

[nollie]

Hi ladies.. yesterday went soo much better.. no long tantrums in the evening.. only a little bit of crying
i tried the 2 hr sleep time and catnap that you all suggested to me.. so basically started at 4 pm:
E: 4 pm
S: 5 pm - 6.30 pm
E: 7 pm
played in his cribs with brother and hubby till 07.30,
changed to jammies at 07.30 (he started crying already.. guess i missed his window)
then rocked to sleep till 08.00, but when i tried to put him to bed he started crying again..
tried to "feed to sleep" him.. not working, still cried and it went on till 10.30 pm
and finally he settled to sleep at 11.30...
then the usual 3 hr feed.. 2pm and 5 am..

all the fuzziness in the evening happend because i missed his bedtime, right?

the nighttime feed went pretty smooth, i massaged and expressed my milk before fed him.. even tho i still have to burp and rock him to sleep.. but at least we did it with less tears..

**happy jig**  still not smooth enough but WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT can't do it without all your suggestions
thank u

[becj86]

Yeah, I think you did miss his window there.
I do wonder if partly he's a bit overstimulated having play time with his brother and father just before bed too. I know playtime in the morning isn't ideal but maybe he needs some special daddy time in the morning when he's just got up and you can work on keeping him pretty chilled out in the last A time of the day. Maybe daddy does his bath/jammies routine so he's getting daddy time but then says good night to everyone and has a feed with you, relaxes a bit and then goes to bed?

[nollie]

at seems that LO really had a hard time settle down for bedtime..
please take a look for another missed window, and please bear with me.. i'm going to do a lot of experimenting with this..

the day EASY is 3 hr cycle, he wake up at 9am with 1 hr wake up and another 2hr sleep. start from 3.30 pm then..
E: 3.30
S: 4.30
E: 6.30 (activity: play in cribs, massage and singing)
7.15 (bedtime routine: change to jammies, rocked to sleep, rooting and squirmed a lot, maybe he tried to find a good position?, didn't work tho and at the end cried)
E: 8.30 (cluster feed 1, cried at the end of feed, try to burp him, but no gas out.. so i guess he just tired)
E: 9.30 (try to "Feed to sleep", didn't work)
S: 10.30 --> daddy put him to sleep, i gave up.. and finally he slept
wake up to feed 01.30am and 4 am and 7 am and since he didn't sleep well enough i let him sleep until 10am..

question is:
He woke him up at 9 am so he should start his night sleep at 9 pm right? but i wanted to set his wake up time at 7am so i started his bedtime routine at 7 ..
should i do this gradually, like 1hour shift rather than go straight to 7?
is this what makes him so cranky at his bedtime? but if i start his bedtime early, he should have 1 more cycle of EAS to begin with .. why he's so hard to settle down?  ,

even if it's only two hours of crying, it felt like a very long time of rocking, swaying, cooing and trying to make myself be patient .. it frustrated me soo bad.. i felt i'm being mean to my LO and neglected his brother..