5 month old waking every 3 hrs, and 30 min into every nap?

[newmamajo]

Hello!

My DD just turned 5 months old and we are just at a loss as to what to do to help her sleep better. She's been learning to self-soothe via pat/shh for the last 2 weeks and is doing a great job! BUT we were really hoping that self-soothing would mean that she slept better at night (she had previously been waking every hour to 2 hrs to nurse, now she's waking every 3 hrs).

Any idea as to how to get her to sleep for longer stretches? Is she too young to try night-weaning? And how in the world do I go about it without breaking her heart? The idea of not nursing her at night when she expects it makes me feel like a terrible mom. I've tried having my husband go in instead of me and help her back to sleep, but it turns into a screaming mess of a battle that wakes everyone up.

AND since she's been putting herself to sleep for naps she's started waking 25-30 minutes in. She goes right back to sleep once I pat/shh her (and stays down anywhere from 1:15-1:30 hrs more), but when I was nursing her to sleep she would wake at the 50 minute mark (one complete sleep cycle), so I'm not sure what this new 30 minute thing is about? Any thoughts on how I could get her through this so she'll take a complete nap would be awesome. Mama would really love a complete nap of her own after all these NWs!!!!

[Erin M]

What does her A time look like right now -- how long is it?  Actually if you could write out a day in EAS format that would help.  How is she acting when she wakes up at the 30 minute mark?
How often is she nursing during the day?  One/both sides?  Any solids yet? 

Lots of questions I know, but they'll definitely give me a clearer pic of what's going on.

[newmamajo]

We only started her on the EASY schedule about a week before sleep training (so she's been doing it for about 3 weeks now). Her A time is pretty consistently 2 hrs long. If she wakes up super early (like 5:30 to 6am) and manages to get a 3rd nap in, her A extends to 2:30 hrs after that 3rd nap.

right now it looks like:
WU/E - 8am
A - solids for brkfst (usually veggies) at 9am
S - 10am-11:40ish (up at 10:30, back down around 11:10)
E - 12pm
A - top off at 1
S - 2pm- 3:30 (up at 2:30, sometimes back down, but not always)
E - 3:30
A - top off at 4:30
S - attempt a CN at 5pm - 6
E - last feed at 6pm
A
BT/S - 7 or 7:30
NWs @ 10, 1, 4, 6 (approximately)

I've tried a DF, but it hasn't seemed to help at all- she'll still wake up an hour after a DF if it's technically been 3 hours since we put her down. My DH goes in and helps her back to sleep if she wakes before 3 hours (so we only feed every 3 hrs), and she usually goes down really easily for him. When I nurse her in the night I can do the Gentle Removal Plan once she starts comfort nursing and put her down and she doesn't ever fuss. She's also only been sleeping in her own room/crib overnight for the last 2 weeks (we're on Day 13 of the PU/PD, pat/shhh - with the last few days being a bit all over the place bc of a family crisis)

I was getting her up when she fussed around 5:30 or 6 (honestly bc I just didn't have the fight in me at that hour), and she would play and hang out until a first nap around 8am just fine so I think that could be a wake-up time for her, but since we've been making her sleep those 2 more hours she wakes up much more content & happy (playing in her crib).

I've been trying to stick to the 2 hour block method for feeds, so I only switch sides every 2 hrs.

At the 30 min mark she wakes up fussing/crying/calling me. I should probably explain that up until 2 weeks ago she was nursed down for every single sleep (but it was getting alot harder for her to do, so it turned into rocking/nursing/sing-screaming simultaneously- a huge mess!), and I would even nurse her as a sort of nap extender (she'd wake 50 minutes into every nap, and I'd come in and pop her on the boob until she fell asleep and then put her back in her crib where she'd sleep for another 50 minutes). So she really was very VERY reliant on me to sleep.

She's also been working on crawling super hard these last few days and had one day of wretched teething (those bottom 2 are super close). I realize as I'm writing this that it's no wonder my poor girl is a whacko right now, but  I feel like if we could get a handle on the 30 minute wake-ups for naps, and have a game plan as to how to get more sleep at night we'd all be so much happier!!

TIA!!!

[dollster]

Hi.  It's hard isn't it!  No advice, but just to stay my 5 month old is doing the same thing.  waking every three hours during the night to feed.  I'm interested to find out how to start night weaning but I know that there is going to be a lot of crying, so hate to do this.  hopefully people can help us sort it out!

[Erin M]

I'm wondering if all those top offs are turning her into a bit of a snacker and causing some of the NWs?  At her age, I'd say we'd expect her to go as long (or longer) between nursings during the night as she does during the day -- but from your EASY, she's only going a few hours.  Are you concerned about oversupply?

30 minute fussy naps sound OT to me -- I'm wondering of she needs about 10-15 minutes less of A time (especially since your naps tend to be broken, I'm wondering if she needs a touch less A time to get a good nap in?  What do you think?

[newmamajo]

I think you may be right about the A time! I've noticed that when I get her down at like 1:50 she usually has very little trouble going right to sleep (unless her last nap was lame and she's OT).

Ugh, and maybe she is snacking? She eats for about 7 minutes at each sitting. I'm really not sure how to go about extending her time between Es. She was fed on demand up until we started this about 3 weeks ago so I'm just kind of nervous to ignore her if I think she might want to eat, especially at night. How do I do this gently? I'm not really concerned about oversupply, as much as it's just a habit we've gotten into. Also she developed what we thought was reflux (now no is an intolerance to dairy/eggs so she's good as long as my diet is free of them!) around 3 months which began the frequent (like every hour!!!) NW and constant comfort nursing during the day.

The little stinker is also learning to crawl like all day everyday now (at 5 months! silly girl!!), and my DH and I think she might be showing a little separation anxiety from it at night. Or I'm just really good at making excuses for her lol.

[Erin M]

The 7 minutes is fine, babies can get enough with that short of a feed.  Massive amounts of distraction is your best friend when it comes to extending the time between feeds -- you can start with only feeding every 3.5 hours and dropping the feeds between to start with.  Many breastfed LOs don't make the 4 hour mark until you've got solids in between. 

The developmental stuff does mess with sleep, so her nights might be a bit disrupted anyway until she gets through the learning to crawl stage.     When we talk about weaning night feeds, we usually say to pick a time that you won't feed before (if you can get her to every 3.5 hours during the day, stick to 3.5 hours at night -- at this point, you don't really expect her to go longer during the night than during the day -- a few night feeds are perfectly normal at 5-6 months).  If she wakes before the time you're due to feed her, try to settle her by any means necessary -- I usually had to hold mine up on my shoulder because if I put them down on my lap, they would think it was time to eat and it seemed sort of cruel to me.  Often, it's easier for someone else to do the settling since they don't actually smell like milk.  The idea is that she's actually asleep again (even if it's for only 5 minutes) before she eats -- you don't want to teach her that if she cries for long enough that she'll eventually get fed. 

[dzara]

playing white noise through a stereo has helped my baby sleep throughout the night

[newmamajo]

I do play a vacuum cleaner sound that she's loved since she was teeny and we have a sleep sheep she's starting to cuddle up to that plays ocean noises

I've been using W2S with some success at naptime, but what seems to really help the most is getting her down kind of early for her age- sometime between 1:40 and 1:50 A time. Is this okay? She'll be 6 months old in 2 weeks!

Erin, How will I know that she's getting enough during the day if I cut back on the top-up feeds? BF is so tricky that way! I had heard that you should make sure your LO is eating most of their calories during the day so that they don't make up for it at night (esp. since she's so playful and easily distracted during the day now). Will she automatically start eating more at each sitting if she starts having to go longer btw feeds at night?

Also, my DH and I are having a hard time extending her night feeds. We've been pushing her to go 3.5 hrs, but she just fusses for that last half hour (quite angrily until she's super awake) until it's time to feed her, at which point I just walk in and feed her (I know that's totally against the rules!). She's a textbook/angelic baby so she learns extremely quickly (which is why I'm fairly sure I'm not doing this right). To be honest, I haven't  cut out her top-ups during the day yet bc I'm nervous she'll be too hungry to nap. I guess that's where I need to start? I just can't imagine dealing with no naps/messed up naps again AND hardly sleeping, and I don't know that I'll have the nerve to keep up with sleep training if I think she could be hungry. Just a little nervous to try this...

[newmamajo]

Also, I found this is Tracy's sleep interview (I think this is where I heard this advice first) and it's why I'm confused 

Q:  So if night wakings are starting again, and it’s clearly hunger, you would feed him that night, but the very next day start trying to increase the calories?

T:  Yes, get the extra calories in wherever you can.  Don’t even think about the clock.  So if they get up at 7 and feed, you give them a couple more ounces at, say, 9.   Whatever you fed them in the night you’ve got to make up the next day – let’s say he woke up at 2am and gulped down 8 ounces.  Then you’ve got to get 8 extra ounces in the next day.  It doesn’t mean in one bottle or feed.  It may mean you’ve got to add an ounce to every bottle/feed they’re having in the day.  Say they’re having 4 feeds/bottles, that’s an extra 4 ounces.  Then, say after an hour that they’ve fed, you give them an ounce.  And then another hour later, you give them another ounce.  And then it’s not until about the third day that they’ll start to adjust during the day so they can take all the extra they need at regular feed times.  But if they’ve been sleeping through the night, and suddenly they start waking, I could put money on it that it’s hunger, and it’s calories.

Q:  So why is it they like to go back to eating more in the night than in the day?

T:  It’s more relaxing and they don’t have the distractions – the thing is, at this age, with all they can start to do now, they want to spend less time to eat, less time to sit and be still – that’s pretty boring!  That’s why a lot of children will actually lose weight at this age.

Q:  And that’s where you were saying earlier to just get the calories, don’t worry about the clock and the schedule, just get the calories in.

T:  That’s right, just grab ‘em any time, and pop ‘em on the boob, as long as it’s in the day, when that sunshine is out, and not the moon penny!


Again, I hope you don't misunderstand me! I totally appreciate your advice and it makes sense to me on the one hand. It's just I keep hearing A) extend her time btw feeds and then B) feed most calories during the day. Not sure which will actually help?

[Erin M]

Confusing, isn't it?  The reason I'm telling you to try to cut out some of those daytime calories is that things aren't working right now as they are, so we want to make a change -- if you were in the position where you were feeding every 4 hours during the day already and she started waking more at night, then we might try adding some more feeds in during the day to get some more calories in.  However, we already know that it's not working with you, you know?    A few thoughts behind all this -- if she's feeding more often, she might be taking shorter feeds, which put together would not equal one bigger feed.  I found with my babies when they were small that they (especially ds) could take tiny amounts all day long, but if I had him wait a little longer, he would get right down to business and take a larger feed (also, distraction plays a much smaller role if they're hungrier).  Also, if she feeds for longer, she's going to get more hind milk, which is fattier and has more calories -- fills up her tummy more and makes her last longer (also a good thing).  You can even throw in some breast compressions at the end (are you familiar, I'll give you think link otherwise) to get even more fattier milk in her. 

Also, my DH and I are having a hard time extending her night feeds. We've been pushing her to go 3.5 hrs, but she just fusses for that last half hour (quite angrily until she's super awake) until it's time to feed her, at which point I just walk in and feed her (I know that's totally against the rules!).

Yeah, this is where you have to make a choice (not said disapprovingly at all -- you have to be ready to stick it out and go the distance, or it's not worth doing -- and I understand that sometimes you're just not ready, I waited until 11 months to tackle night feeds with my little guy, I just didn't have it in me until then) -- either you feed her when she wakes right away, or you try to get her back to sleep and don't feed her until she falls asleep and wakes again. 

Honestly, I'd probably tackle the days first and see if that gets you anywhere.  Will she sleep in the stroller or car?  You can get some naps in that way for a few days.  DS was really easy to distract when we were out of the house, so that's what I did. 

Will she automatically start eating more at each sitting if she starts having to go longer btw feeds at night?

That's what should happen.  (Same idea with dropping the top ups.)

What do you think?

[newmamajo]

That makes a lot of sense Erin. Thank you for talking that out with me! So I'll try to working on the days for now and see if that helps. She doesn't really nap well anywhere other then her crib which is why it's a bit of a gamble to mess around with nap time, but your right that it's not working this way. The last few nights (now that her bottom two teeth are through) she's been waking at 10:30, 1:30 and then up at around 5am (at which point putting her back down is a bit tricky), but my DH and I are starting to be hopeful that if she could just go a little bit longer between feeds she'd only be up twice in a night which be a huge improvement for us!

So would you suggest that I continue to do the block feeding or should I offer her both sides at each feeding in the hopes that she'll eat more? I had been only offering one so that she'd get that good hind milk.

Also, I'm starting to suspect/anticipate her 6 month growth spurt. If that sneaks up on us in the next few days would you delay extending her daytime feeds? Or should I just go with it and see how she does? We've never been through a growth spurt with the EASY routine before since we've only be doing it for about a month now.

[Erin M]

So would you suggest that I continue to do the block feeding or should I offer her both sides at each feeding in the hopes that she'll eat more?

I would try letting her have her fill on the first side and then offering the second just to see if she'll take it.  Unless you're seriously concerned about oversupply, you should be good with 2 sides for now. 

Also, I'm starting to suspect/anticipate her 6 month growth spurt. If that sneaks up on us in the next few days would you delay extending her daytime feeds? Or should I just go with it and see how she does? We've never been through a growth spurt with the EASY routine before since we've only be doing it for about a month now.

Growth spurts, for me, were always pretty unmistakable for what they were -- my LOs would wake much more frequently at night and be very unhappy with anything but food.  If you get there one night, I might try feeding more in the day to compensate, but only for a day or two.  It seems like every baby treats growth spurts somewhat differently, so you'll just have to feel it out and see.  In the meantime, I think I would try to stretch the feeds for now and see if you do any better -- offering the second side actually might balance out the growth spurt as well.