HELP! 6.5 month old night wake ups

[hokiemom2628]

This is my 1st time posting but our family has been a huge fan of BW since our son was born 2 years ago.  He was an angel baby - textbook in everyway.  Sleeping through the night by 4 months, dropped DF by 5.5 months and sleeping great (day and night) ever since.  My youngest has been much more challenging to sleep train.  He started to sleep through the night around 4 months but never consistently.  We are still giving him the DF but in the last week, he has been waking up in the middle of the night almost every night.  We try to shush pat him back to sleep and while it calms him, he won't go back to sleep.  Given his formula/solid intake during the day, it seems he shouldn't be hungry but giving him the bottle is the only thing that will settle him.  As soon as we give him 6 oz, he rolls right over and sleeps until morning.

Is it possible that he is actually hungry?  Here is a sample schedule...

8 AM - wake-up
8:15 - E (6 oz formula + cereal)
8:30 - 10 - A
10-11:30 - S
12 - E (6 oz formula + veggies/fruit)
12:15-1:15 - A
1:15-2:45 - S
3 - E (6 oz formula)
3:15 - 5:30 - A
5:30 - 6:15 - Catnap
6:30 - E (4 -6 oz formula + veggies/fruit/rice cereal)
7:30 Bedtime routine (diaper change, pajamas, book/singing, crib)
11 - DF (6 oz)

**Sometime between 2:30 - 4 AM he will wake up crying.  Doesn't seem to be in pain because we are able to soothe him to stop crying but not back to sleep.  He stops crying with the sh pat but he doesn't go back to sleep until he gets fed.  As soon as he's done with the (6 oz) bottle, he rolls over and sleeps until 8.

While he might fuss a bit, he doesn't have a hard time falling asleep for naps or bedtime.  He doesn't take the paci. 

Do we need to drop the catnap and put him down earlier?
Is it possible he's actually hungry and that is why he is waking up?  He has at least 30 oz formula + 3 solid meals/day!
Help and thank you!

[Erin M]

6.5 months is a good time to think about dropping that cat nap.  I'd see if you can push those A times out some and see if you can get some longer naps and lose the cat nap.  Here's some info that might help: How do I know its time to drop the cat nap and move to 2 naps?

If you're able to stretch those A times, you'll be on something closer to a 4.5 hour EASY -- which might mean that you get longer stretches between feedings and he might take more at those feedings (and you'll also have 2 closer together at the end of the day which might serve to tank him up a bit). 

I always hesitate to say that it's not hunger at night -- babies vary greatly in their ability to lose night feeds -- my 3 needed night feeds for very different lengths of time -- dd1 dropped them the earliest, and ds took a long time to stretch out at night.  Generally, we say that babies should be able to make it as long between feedings at night as they can during the day.  Will he take more in those daytime bottles?

I think I'd start with stretching A times and trying to lose the cat nap and see if that helps you.  It could very well be that he's just UT in the MOTN and the full belly is helping him to fall asleep. 

[hokiemom2628]

Thank you Erin!  We pushed his awake time yesterday, skipping the catnap and put him down a bit earlier for the night.  His afternoon looked like this...

2-3:30 PM - Sleep
4 PM - 6 0z
6 PM - Dinner
6:30 - bedtime routine started - 6 oz, diaper, pajamas, songs
7 PM - Bedtime
11 PM - DF, 6 oz

He went right to sleep at bedtime.  No NW but he did wake up at 5 AM for an 8 oz bottle but went right back to sleep until 8 AM.

Overall I would take this night (for now) all day long.  I hope you are right and by skipping the catnap and extending his awake time, he will sleep better.  I'm always afraid of him being OT but last night he was happy boy!  Thank you Erin!

[Erin M]

Glad you had a better night!  Hopefully, he'll manage to push that 5 AM feed out himself until it gets dropped.