Hunger Habitual or Developmental?4mo

[yufeiisme]

My lo is bttole fed with EM and has a well established routine. Since three days ago, she started to wake up to play at around four in the morning. Normally she would wake up for a feed around that time anyway, but three days ago she woke up at 4:15am, cooing as well as winging for half an hour. I fed her and she took 100ml ( so almost a full feed) but she didn't go back to sleep right after. And yesterday same thing happened, but she woke up at 5:10 am and took 60ml. This morning she did the same thing at around 4am. So I am very confused about what the real cause is...A typical day would look like this

E7:30
S9:30

E11:30
S1:30

E3:30
S5:00

Wake Up 6:00
E7:00
Bath7:20
S7:30

DF 11:00

NF 4:00 or 5:00

Before she would wake up crying so that I know she was hungry in the early morning, but for the past few days, she woke up just cooing and winging and would not go right back to sleep after feeding. What should I do?

[Erin M]

Usually when my LOs would do that, it meant that we needed some more  A time in our day.  I'd try one (or both) of the following:
--stretch out your A times by 15 minutes each
--just bump your last A time so it's the same length as your others (2 hours) and then cap the cat nap at 30 minutes

My feeling is probably that by shortening the cat nap, it might give you the little bit that you need to keep her sleeping through those early morning hours.

[yufeiisme]

Hi there, we tried your method yesterday by extending her A time for half an hour and it worked! She didn't wake up till 6:30. However she played in her cot for half an hr then fell asleep again. My new question is should I let her sleep till 8 or should I just start her day as she wakes up?

[Erin M]

I'd probably leave her, at least for a few days, and see how she does -- she might need a touch more A time or she might just start sleeping through on her own.