5 month old sleep issues

[Hester]

Hi everyone, I am posting this for my sister. Her dd is 5.5 months now and sleep has been going wonky!
She used to do 7pm, 1am and 5am feeds. Then she started her on a 4 hour easy and now she's up at 10 pm, and every 2-3 hours after that. Her feeds only last about 5 minutes per side.  so right now she's basically on a 4 hour routine throughout the day and night.

Her naps during the day were good when switching top the 4 hour routine, but now she's back to 45 min. Who had any ideas to lengthen the night sleep and naps

[jessmum46]

Could you post her daytime routine in EAS format?

Is your sisters LO an independent sleeper?

[Hester]

It's hard to post the routine, since she is all over the place. I will post the estimated one below, bit she deviates from it all the time. And yes she is a independent sleeper, she uses a soother to fall asleep, but often spits that out since she doesn't need it. She does cry a bit to fall asleep, but that's just self settling.

E 630
A 640 (if she feeds that long)
S 745 (she starts to get tired at the 1 hour mark, we have tried to lengthen the A time, but that is counter productive)
A 830 (try to resettle, works sometimes IF it works she'll sleep another hour)
E somewhere between 930 and 1030
S if she slept long enough, then she will make 1.15 hours, but if not 45 minute she starts to get tired.

Then if she doesn't sleep well, the vicious cycle continues.

[jessmum46]

Ok if that's how the day starts, she definitely needs to have a longer first A time.  1h15 is an appropriate A time for a 1-2 month old, not a 5 month old.  Some babies do like their first A time shorter than the rest but really at this point she should be able to handle a good two hours.  LOs can start to show sleep cues because they are used to sleeping at a certain time of the day, but actually if you distract them and keep the extra time awake low key, they can often push past it and stay up quite a bit longer.  I would suggest that your sister keep an eye on the clock and keep LO up an extra 5-10 mins every 3-4 days until she starts getting a longer first nap of 1.5h or more.  She will need to hold at the new time for a few days before increasing again to give LO chance to get used to it - it is common and normal to get OT naps the first couple of times you try increasing A time - resettle if possible (AP if needed). 

The problem with A times that are much too short is they cause UT short naps, and over time the multiple short naps cause a big build up of OT and can disturb night sleep.  I was in exactly the same position at that age and just had to watch the clock, push past the tired signs and work on resettling naps if I could.  I used to walk round the garden with DD to keep things low key as I was extending the A time. 

Do you think that could work?

[Hester]

Makes sense to me! She's giving it a shot. My sister is lurking on here as well, but she is dutch and has some trouble posting in English :-)  thanks for the insight!