7 month old waking up in the middle of the night wanting to play

[cassiadawn]

My daughter just turned 7 months. We were recently having weeks of trouble with her waking up every hour AND picking a random middle-of-the-night waking to be wide awake and wanting to get up and play. We seem to have gotten past the every hour wakings (we moved her to the crib and cut her NFs back to just one - she's generally waking only once or twice a night now, and has for the last week), but she's still waking at least once a night wanting to start her day. It's not early waking - some nights it'll be at 1:30am after her "DF", other nights she wakes at 3 or 4 am. Usually it takes an hour of patting to get her back to sleep - she'll lie quietly and just stare off into the distance, just moving her head occasionally, maybe thump her feet on the mattress now and then. If we stop patting, she starts to fuss (the "I'm bored" crying, which eventually escalates being truly upset). Eventually (usually an hour or a bit longer) her eyes drift closed, and she sleeps for the rest of the night.  I know usually wake ups like this mean a baby is UT, but I can't see how she's not tired! Her first A time of the day is 2 1/2 -3 hours (only occasionally less when she's -really- fussy) and we make an effort to make her other A times as close to 3 hours as possible.

Her EASY right now is approximately this:

Awake at 7:30am
E: 8am
A
S: 10am (1hr 20min)
E: 11:30am
A
S: 2:30pm (1hr 20min)
E: 3:00pm
A
S: 5:30pm (cat nap, 30-45min)
E/A: 6pm-7pm (I nurse her 2 or 3 times here to try and fill her up)
S: 7:30pm - 8pm
DF: ~1am (I'm not great about waking before her, so sometimes this is later if she sleeps longer)

She often does one nap of 2 hours (sometimes both) and skips the cat nap.

Yesterday is a prime example of why she CAN'T be UT. I was in town yesterday with her, and she had her first nap at my parent's house (2hrs). After that, she got about a 20 min nap in the car, and otherwise -refused- to go to sleep (OT, I'm sure, but she was inconsolable when I tried to make her nap when I got home). Finally got her to bed at around 8pm, and she went out like a light with no fuss or help. I woke up at 1:45am and fed her (first proper dream feed in awhile - usually she wakes up during, and then wants to party after!) and she was asleep shortly after 2am. Then she woke up at 4:15am, broke out of her swaddle, turned herself sideways in the crib, and started to cry for someone to entertain her. 1 hour and 15 minutes of patting later and she went back to sleep until 8:30am (oops, should have gotten her up at 7:30am). Today she's had two 2 hour 20min naps (had to wake her from the 2nd one) and she's still been tired and fussy much of the day.

So WHY does she want to party in the middle of the night??? And more importantly, how do I fix it? I -need- her to sleep better, because I'm now having a hard time falling asleep either after her DF. Yesterday was just awful because I'd only just fallen back asleep after her 1:45am feeding when she woke up at 4:15am.

[becj86]

Middle of the night cot parties and naps shrinking to 1hr20 are pretty much always UT at BT. She should really be up to at least 3hr A time by now... do you think she could manage that?

A DF is ideally done 3-4hr after LO falls asleep so it doesn't disturb their sleep, just moves their longest stretch without feeding later in the night. If you're going to bed early, though, there's not much point doing it - she'll wake for a feed when she's hungry...

When she is crying 'for someone to entertain her', is this a mantra cry? Does the cry escalate when you go in? I just wonder if you're disturbing her attempts to settle herself back to sleep. Not to say don't respond to cries, just to say listen first.

[cassiadawn]

She woke up at 8am yesterday, and I kept her up for 3 hours for all three A times yesterday (she gets SO cranky for that last 1/2 an hour!) She slept for 2 hours for both naps, and had to be woken (cranky!) from the second one. She slept from 9pm until 12:15am, and woke very upset... took about 45min to go back down (actually fell asleep at 12:30am, but I tried to leave too soon and she woke). She then slept until ~4am - that's when her grumbling woke me anyway, she'd already unswaddled herself and turned herself sideways. Fed her then, and she took an hour after that to go back to sleep - babbling, looking around, etc. until she started to grumble about 20 min in. Let her grumble until she started to escalate, then patted until she finally fell asleep. Then she slept until around 8am.

It's not mantra - when she wakes at night, I wait long enough for her to either wind down or escalate before going in (unless she's definitely due for a feed). Occasionally she does mantra cry and resettles herself, but usually only in the first part of the night. If she's awake enough to start babbling and staring around, she doesn't resettle - she starts to grumble, then to "I'm bored" cry, and eventually "I need you" scream. Regardless if she's managed to break out of her swaddle or not.

I should mention we only swaddle her arms, and we're slowly working on getting rid of the swaddle - she does some of her naps with one arm out.

[becj86]

I wonder if she would self-settle better without the swaddle... how does she go with those no-swaddle naps?
Has her bedtime always been around 9pm? If so, do you think you could move it earlier? It would just maybe fit better with her biorhythms and she may sleep better...

[cassiadawn]

She's had one nap 1/2 out of the swaddle where she woke half way through and resettled herself. Usually though, if she startles at all she starts to rub her eyes or pull her ears/hair and just wakes herself up more. Her successful 1/2 swaddled naps almost all work because she just sleeps deeply until an appropriate wake-up time (and once or twice I've resettled at the 45min mark)
Right now she's having a completely swaddle-free nap, because she was falling asleep nursing and didn't really wake when I carried her to the nursery - figured if she'd fall asleep when I set her down, there was no point waking her up trying to get the swaddle on! (normally she doesn't fall asleep deeply enough while nursing to stay dozy during burping and moving to the other room, but thunder and a power outage woke her 1/2 an hour early from nap #1 today). I had to pin her arms for about a minute, but she dropped back to sleep after two little wails. She's 45 min into the nap now... she's moved her arms up around her head, but hasn't really started yet this nap. ETA: Right as I hit post she coughed and started rubbing her eyes. I think she's back to sleep again now though! (we have a camera monitor, but I can't see her face where it's sitting now)

Usually she's been waking around 7:30am, and then going to bed between 7:30 and 8pm. But since she woke at 8am, had two 2 hour naps, and I kept her up for 3 hours for each A time, that pushed her bedtime to 9pm. She would have happily gone to bed at 8pm though!

[katie80]

Just hopping on to see how things are going? Have you done more naps swaddle-free? It sounds like 3 hr A is working well for her. Have the nights gotten any better?

[cassiadawn]

Yesterday was kind of a mess. 2nd nap ended with a hail storm (and a poopsplosion) after just an hour. Tried to do a catnap frm 6-6:45pm, and I think I should have just let her sleep. Tried to put her to bed at 8:30pm and she just worked herself up to screaming over the course of an hour, no matter what I did. Finally got her back up, fed her again, and daddy put her to bed at 10:30pm. She woke at 11:15pm screaming, but was easy to resettle, then slept until 3am (at least she was tired enough to go right back down after!). Then she slept until 8am (she woke for awhile at 7:15, but put herself back to sleep).

She had her 1st nap today after a 2hr 45min A time in a 1/2 swaddle, woke herself at an hour and couldn't resettle. 3hr A time, then nap #2 was full swaddle, and she yelled at an hour but put herself back to sleep... Had to wake her at 2hrs. Trying to keep her going until 8pm.

She's also starting to get her 1st tooth, so everything might be a little crazy for awhile!

[katie80]

Yes, at this age it's probably best to do an early bedtime rather than a CN, because the CN often messes with night sleep. My guess is yesterday's shorter morning nap was due more to being OT from the short, disrupted night than the 1/2 swaddle. I'd say don't change too much while the tooth is coming through and then go back to trying to wean her from the swaddle. Keep up the good work.

[becj86]

Totally agree with Katie re: early bedtime instead of catnap and keeping things the same where possible while the tooth comes through.

[cassiadawn]

Still crazy nights over here. The tooth is still working its way through, but honestly she hardly seems to notice it most of the time! He naps are still mostly no fuss at all. Bedtime is getting harder though - she's more likely to fuss and complain for 20 minutes or so before finally going to sleep. And most nights we're still having an hour or 2 of no sleep.

Yesterday I was in town with her most of the day. She woke at 8am and I went to put her down at 11am for a nap at my parent's* and she just wasn't having any of it. After 1/2 an hour I got her back up and let her play until she started to whinge, and she went down for a nap shortly before 1pm! She woke briefly about 45min in, but my mom rocked her back to sleep in about 10 min (I'd gone for groceries. My mom is getting to an age where she has a hard time assimilating new ideas so getting her to do shush/pat correctly will take a little work) and she slept until 3:30pm. She then napped in the car for about 20 minutes on the way home around 7:00pm, and went to bed about 10pm (she got OT hyper right after we got home and I fed her again - from experience I know it's worse than useless trying to put her down until she's wound down from that). She slept until 2:20am, woke to nurse, and she was back asleep by 3am (restless, but sleeping - she's having digestion issues related to starting solids). Then she slept until 8am.

Obviously that's WAY less sleep than she'd normally get, but she wasn't any fussier than usual (she usually gets difficult about 2 - 2.5 hrs into every A period), didn't have any OT wakings, and she didn't want to party at 3am. So I just don't know... she's got to be too young still to be wanting to drop the morning nap already, right? I'm thinking maybe I should try extending her A times another 1/2 hour each and see if that sorts things out... but if I do that she's going to be going to bed awfully late every night. As it is I'm waking her from her naps more often than not so she doesn't sleep more than 2 hours. I just have no clue what to do!

*She's napped at my parents just fine several times before, though she tends to wake at about the 1hr 20min mark - my parent's house is a little noisy

[katie80]

Yes, having trouble settling at bedtime and still being up for awhile in the MOTN suggests UT, especially if she's having long naps from which you are having to wake her. She's not ready to go down to just one nap yet, but it sounds like she'd benefit from a bit more A time.  And just because you're adding more A time doesn't meant bedtime keeps getting later.  She can still sleep for up to 2 hr in the morning and then you can cap the pm nap when needed in order to keep bedtime at a decent hour. 

Are you giving any pain meds for the teething in the MOTN? That could be a factor in the longer NW as well.