7 month old - frequent night wakings - never STTN

[Carrie-12]

Hi, I am needing help with my 7 month old DD (7 month and a few days). She is EBF and is now eating solids (is not enjoying solids and eats small amounts). She has always woken up during the night but recently - last month, it is happening more and more. She goes to bed at 7:30 OSHA d is held until sleepy and then laid down and patted on the back. She might stir a few times up until 10:00 (dummy fallen out or startled by a noise. Sometimes I will DF between 10:00 and 11:00 (but sometimes she doesn't accept it). She then might wake up at 11:00 then again between 1:00 and 3:00 a few times or once. Then at 3:00 and recently awake at 4:00 or 5:00 ish and fully awake(takes up to 40 min of holding - ignoring and not talking to get her back to sleep. I then tend to put her in ourbed as shattered then.
Would love some help, I don't mind being woken by her as she is a baby and this is all part of being a parent, I just want her to have a good solid sleep. Plus everyone else who has babies keep going on about how their babies sleep through the night, this doesn't bother me but it does bother my husband. Plus husband snores which can disturb her if she is stirring - now causing problems as I'm waking him to stop and he is getting miserable. Any help would be great

[Bex09]

Hi there, let's see if we can get to the bottom of these NWs hey? Do you feed DD when she wakes? How do you resettle her? Is the paci a prop, so does she need it to fall asleep and then get back to sleep?

Do you want to post your EASY for us to take a look at and see if that shows anything up too? Sorry for all the questions just trying to see what is going on!

[Carrie-12]

Hi, thanks for replying, I generally use to just feed her at the NW between 12 and 2 and the 4 to 5 NW. But recently at every NW she is wanting to eat and is eating a lot. I think her paci is a prop, I'm just dreading taking it away at night as it does settle her. Before I get her up to feed I will ways try to resettle by patting her back or placing a hand on her chest, sometimes this works but recently it doesn't and she then starts to make a cry/shout and will then cry (she also will try to sit up by pulling herself up - sit up style). I also think she might be getting her top teeth ( could explain her more frequent NW but she was never good at sleeping before).
My EASY is roughly this - changes daily as if she is tired from being awake a lot then struggles to do a long A first thing, plus some naps are interrupted by the annoying postman/ phone etc.

E - 6:20 ( can be between this time and 7:00)
A - 6:20 to  9:20 - usually 3 hrs from waking up - solids an hour after milk
S - 9:20 ( always stirs after 45 min sometimes she will go backa
 after patting ut today she iswide awakes and happy
E- 10:00 (sometimes she will drink lots or not - Breastmilk
A - 10:00 - 3:00 ( changes daily sometimes longer or shorter
S - 3:00 can be 1 to 1 and a half hours or less
E - 4:30 ish milk. SOlids at 5 to 5:30 ish depending on milk time
A 4:30 to 6:15
6:15 - milk 6:45 bath 7:20 more breastmilk/ singing until sleepy and place her in her cot and pat with the paci
This EASY changes depending on her wake up time/ mood and if we are outa about

[Bex09]

Ok it looks like a few things going on here hun. First if the paci is a prop then your DD may well be waking and wanting to be replugged. At this age it shouldn't be long until your DD can replug herself, have you tried loads of practise in the day? Once she can replug then the paci won't be a problem.

Secondly your EASY may need a bit of tweaking, that middle A time is really long at 5 hrs and is likely causing LO to be OT. Have you tried adding maybe 10 or 15 mins of A time on to the first A time and see if that gets a longer first nap? If DD is waking at 45 mins happy that could be UT. Then I would try for around 3 hrs of A time again before the 2nd nap. If you get short naps you usually find that LO will need a shorter than normal A time afterwards, on these days you may need to offer a very short CN to avoid OT at bedtime.

Then lastly I wonder if your DD is getting enough milk in the day. She seems to be going a long time between the morning and afternoon feed and I wonder if you pushed the morning bottle to maybe 11am then she would take more. Then also it would be less time between those two feeds too. I would also try to make sure that you don't feed more frequently than 4 hourly for the NFs too. DD can go at least that long in the day so can at night too. So if she feeds at 6.15 she really shouldn't need another feed until about 10.30 at the earliest, then 2.30 and 6.30. Of course this is only if she wakes. If DD wakes before the 4hr mark you could try to resettle with shush/pat or PU/PD. How does that sound?

[Carrie-12]

Thanks I will give it a go today,

[Carrie-12]

Forgot to say, during the day she easily puts her paci in her mouth and out (chews it like a teether and always plays with it) but during the night she sucks on it for a while and then spits it out, sometimes it ends up under her head as she rolls about.  She has never tried to find her paci during the nights even though I leave 3 lying in the cot in different places, should I attach  it to her grow bag with a paci clip?
Milk: she has never been a greedy guzzler, she will only drink what she wants and then pulls away, during those A times she will snack and have some milk (normally a few guzzles) and generally before her naps she will a quick drink and then come off and then go to sleep. I do agree that she isn't getting as much milk as she should but she never wants to eat for a long period. If I make her wait for 4 hours she will get extremely upset and cry, which makes her tired, then when it comes to the feed she wlll drink just enough to make herself go to sleep.
I will post today's EASY as the day goes along. Again thank you

[Carrie-12]

My EASY from today.
E - 6:20 - ate from both sides
A - 6:40 to 9:40 (solids at 8:20 - she ate it all could be because I left a longer gap) had a feed of milk from one side before nap.
S - 9:40 to. 11:20 ( at the 45 min Mark she started to stir a bit so I patted for a few seconds)
E -  11:30 - milk and solids at 1:45 - she ate quite a bit 
A - 11:20 to 2:30 wanted more milk at 2:15
S - 2:30 to 3:30 (had to wake her up as we had snappy at 4:00
A - 3:30 
E. - some milk at 4:30 ish ( expressed milk in bottle plus some purée 
E - 6:10 -  more milk when we got home
6:50 - bath
7:14 - milk ( gave more expressed milk only drank 3 oz
S - 7:30

[Carrie-12]

Not a great night last night, DF at 10:30 as she was stirring a bit. Woke at 12:35 and tries sh/pat but she was getting upset so I fed her. She then woke again at 2:35 woke u and was just quietly moving around, gave her a paci which she put in her mouth, I left her for 10 min to see if she will go back to sleep but she wouldn't. Then tried ah/pat just made her cry, so Ipick her up and cuddled get( I don't talk orintersct when Icudfle her at night) she fell asleep at 3:30 and Luther back in her cot, she then woke up again and I made my Dh get up with her, all she did was scream so I had tocuddle her and she finally  fell asleep at 4:30. She then woke up at 7:20. If I pick her up and cuddled her straight away she would of gone straight to sleep and wouldn't of been up for 2 hours.
So what do I do know??

[becj86]

Is she actively teething? Do meds make a difference?
Does she have reflux? The frequent milk may be her way of helping with it?
Have you still got little newborn dummies or have you gone up through the next sizes? There are bigger sizes as they grow and the smaller ones tend to fall out when its time to go up a size. Great that she can replug herself when given the dummy in her hand though
When she wakes, are you going in before she's crying? If so, you could be disturbing her self-settling. I know DS stayed awake a lot longer in the night when I got up to help him get back to sleep than when I left him to it til he cried that he needed me...

[Carrie-12]

Hi Becj86
She already has two bottom teeth (4 months and 4 and a half months). She is chewing her fingers a lot and your fingers if she gets a chance. So I think a tooth will be soon. I can give her calpol but it doesn't  help her sleep for longer. She has the next size up dummy, as far I know she doesn't have reflux - I think she just likes to drink enough to keep her going until the next feed - easily distracted and always thinks there is something better to look at or do, she has Lways been a grazer since she was born.
She sleeps in our room a d is right next to my bed, we have had SIDS in our family past, so we prefer her to be in our room. In the  past I have left her to resettle herself and she won't especially if she starts to get fully awake.

[Bex09]

Hmm I really do think that a lot of the issues that you are having is to do with your DD snacking in the day. It could well be that the feed has become a prop now to settle her at night and because she also has a feed before naps in the day she may feel like she needs that to get to sleep yk? Have you tried feeding her in a darkened room with no distractions? DD may take more then. You could maybe try to stretch her to 4hr feeds by just holding her out for 5 mins extra every few days. Do you think that would work?

Does your DD always resettle as soon as you PU? If so then it does seem like comfort props are the problem, either you to cuddle or feed. She will then expect this when she wakes, if she is hungry from her snacking in the day then this will just make it even harder for her to resettle. Does that sound like it could be the issue? What do you think?

[becj86]

Rightio then, I shall have to think of some more possibilities.

How much light is there in the room? Is she waking and able to see you and trying to interact? Is there enough light that she can see she's in her bed and safe?

I wonder if she might be ready for an A time increase at her first A time - she seems to be waking/stirring at 45min during that first nap a bit now.

Is she asking for milk just before nap time? DS did that around this age and it was more so that he needed to go to bed than that he wanted milk - just wanted a snuggle and a nap. Our routine went to pot for a while until I figured that out because snacking during the day meant he wasn't taking as much as he usually would and he was waking at night for feeds.

[Carrie-12]

Bex08:I think the snacking is a prop and will try a 4 hr feed starting from tomorrow morning - question though, if she wakes at 7 am and I feed her and has 3 hrs or more A time and then sleeps for 1 hour and a half that would be over 4 hours, so she would feed at roughly 11:30??? Is this what it should be.

Becj86:She can't see me when in her cot but tries to sit up( but can't) our room is not very dark, we have Venetian blinds and outside is a street lamp so always a slight glow in the room( not too light and not pitch black). I have recently also been trying to let her sit inher cot during the day and play with a toy to get use to it.
I will try and extend her A time to 3 and a half hours to begin with, and I think she does love to snuggle before naps ( but so do I and I think I do feed her as I the begin g BF was so difficult and nearly gave up that now it's easy I love feeding her and the cuddles )
Thank you to both of you for your help and support,will try all the new things tomorrow

[Bex09]

I wouldn't make any sudden changes like jumping to 4 hr feeds and adding on 30 mins of A time to start off. This is likely to confuse your LO and lead to one grumpy, tired and hungry baby. Instead I would maybe just try to move to feeding every 3.5 hrs or less if your DD can't handle that. You may find that she cries because she is used to snacking but by holding her out for even 15 mins extra may mean that she is hungry enough to take a good feed. I would maybe just try adding 10 or 15 mins extra A time to that first A time too, then stick with that for a few days to see if it makes a difference.

In answer to your question then yes you would feed milk at 7am, then maybe solids 1 or 2 hrs later and then another milk feed (or solids) on waking. You will find as your DD gets older that the feeds get later as A times increase but the solids fill the gaps if that makes sense? Some people do solids and milk the other way around too, so solids first and then milk after. Whichever works for you and DD though is best.

[Carrie-12]

Thanks Bex09 will try that tomorrow