4.5 months old night wakings,can not understand why

[Maria14]

Hi,
My DD is 4.5 months old,EBF,recently switched to 4 hourly feeds in the day,she is lasting well between them.Her naps have always been short and she still only does 30 min at a time even assisted.She wakes up happy usually and we do 1.5 hrs A time,sometimes 1 hr,sometimes 2 although she starts fussing at 1 hr usually. So our schedule is more EASASE,as she never cries when wakes up from naps I ve never tried PUPD and just let her be. She used to be difficult to put down for naps but this has improved with a little ritual. She goes in cot drowsy and often settles herself to sleep but sometimes needs a bit if shh pat on the cot. I know her total amount of day time sleep is nowhere bear what it should be but I can't get more than 5 naps in during the day,most days it's just 4. I know she gets OT as often in the evenings she has a meltdown at bath time or just before.

BT is at 6.30 and she gets up between 6-6.30 but we had problems with EW recently at 5.30


Up until she was about 12 weeks we still fed every 3 hrs in the night,this then changed to 2.
Recently we had a couple of nights with just one feed around 12.30.

[Maria14]

I have since switched back to feeding twice- 10 pm and 3-4 am as it helps with EW,she tends to sleep better in early morning hrs that way.
At bed time I BF to sleep pretty much but when transferred to the cot she wakes up and settles again.

Regardless of when I feed her she wakes up around 10pm,then 12-1,then around 2 and then cam be waking every 40-60 mins in early am but that's helped by feed at 3.30-4am.
So if I feed at 10 and 3.30 like last night she still wakes at least once but more often twice between the two feeds. I settle with shh pat and it doesn't take long usually- may be 5-10 mins.

She sleeps in her tummy and recently started wriggling a lot turning sideways,sometimes her feet get stuck between bars and that wakes her up,other times she just fusses then starts crying.

I have to admit that I respond trying to settle her straight away and don't wait until she is really crying out of fear that she will just be more awake and more difficult to settle.

So since birth she has never slept longer than 4 hr stretch and at the moment it's pretty rare for her to even go that long unless it's the first stretch if the night in the evening.

I am on my own with her at night sleeping in the sane room,sometimes she is in bed with me after the feed and I used to find that she slept mire soundly but now it doesn't make any difference.

I am very tired and wish we could both get some decent sleep as I can't catch up I'm the day with naps being so short.

If she settles between feeds with shh pat then it's not hunger I presume,and she never tajes much at 7am feed also. As she is put to bed drowsy as well and settles herself why does she keep waking?...Is this because she is chronically OT?

I am so tired.

[PaulsMom]

Hugs for the nws.  its soooo hard when you are very tired. 

It would be very helpful if you could post a typical day (and night) for her
e.g.
wu 6:00
E: 6:15
A:
S

From what you have written, her A times are pretty short given she's 4.5 mo olds.  Most bubs this age are up for around 2 hrs to 2 hrs 15 min or so. 

WRT feeding at night, it's pretty common for EBF babies to be fed twice during the night.  it's good that she's settling with shh-pat.   As you have mentioned, she's getting stuck in her cot at night.  Around this age, many babies have a 4 mo sleep regression which coincides with some developmental milestones (e.g. rolling, etc).  typically babies need to have lots of floor time around this age so they can practice and hopefully not practice in their sleep.  Overtime, this type of sleep disturbance will pass as long as you don't introduce any props to overcome them!  So keep up with the shh-pat to resettle her. 

HTH

[Maria14]

Hi,thank you for your reply.
She used to do 2 hrs A time and still sleep for only 30 mins,I ve reduced these so that I can fit in more naps in the day.yesterday looked like this:
WU:6.30
E:6.45
A:7.00-8.15
S:8.15-8.45
A:8.45-10.15
S:10.15-10.50
E:10.50
A:11.00-12.35
S:12.35-13.05
A:13.05-14.30
E:14.30
S:15.00-15.30
A:15.30-17.30
E:17.30
Bath:18.00
E and BT:18.30

I tried to squeeze in another short nap late afternoon as I am trying to shift bath time to 6.30 but she refused and went into second wind,we did not have meltdown in the eve though some days we do.
Yesterday was also am experiment if shorter A times but like I say before it used to be closer to 3hrs throughout the day and EASASE pattern wasn't there as feeds would randomly fall before or after sleep.
NW1: 21.40- got stuck in cot,so I decided to feed as was planning DF around 22.00
NW2: 00.40- shh pat asleep within 10 min
NW3: 01.30- as above
NW4: 03.40- fed
WU: 06.30

That time around 1 am is when she wakes up crying most nights
The timing is random though..
We often also have EW at 5.30 with no real sleep until up for the day at 6.30,sometimes she ll dose off again for 30 mins,so I am trying to shuffle bedtime to later but when the last nap does not happen then we end up with early BT..
To be honest wd ve had issue with naps since week 2 of life and I ve experimented enough with A times with no success so now I just watch for sleepy cues rather than the clock,and the cues begin at 1 hr 20 I would say hence A time if 1.5 hrs,but before thus we were doing 2 hrs as per guidelines and all naps were still 30 min.very occasionally there would be a long one in the morning of over an hour but there's no pattern to it as our activities are pretty much the same every day and the long nap would happen with random A times.I also worry that with her poor sleep in early am hours she is already overtired first thing in the morning so I don't push for longer A times...
Hmm...

[Maria14]

Sorry I meant A times were closer to 2 hrs not 3..

[PaulsMom]

Hmmm...  Ok, so short napping is part of the problem, with a 4 mo sleep regression thrown into the mix  .  Poor day time sleep is likely causing OT which can also disrupt night time sleep.

If you try to extend her naps with shh pat, can you get a longer nap?  Or can you extend her nap with some other method (eg. Stroller, car ride, etc)?  Babies often short nap as they don't really know how to sleep through sleep cycles.  My dd was a chronic 40 min napper unless I APOP'd a nap but I tried to extend at least one nap per day and around 4.5 to 5 months, she got it....  Slowly at first but now she's pretty good at doing 1.5 to 2 hr naps, especially in the morning.  I would try to extend her A times and work on extending her naps with shh pat.  This will get more day time sleep that's needed with a 4 hr easy. 

The developmental stuff, you just have to ride through it.  Giver her lots of floor time so she's not practicing in her sleep.  Also be mindful that teething can also come into play around this age so check her mouth for any little bumps and give her things to relieve the pain (cold teethers, teething gel or powder or pain meds if you are comfortable giving them to her).

[Maria14]

Thank you for your reply.
With extending her naps-it's difficult as when she wakes up she is pretty happy and not really crying so fully awake when I go there wanting to play..so I never try to resettle.
She won't do a longer nap whichever assisted way it is,sling,pram,car...she is just too curious-spirited baby-and once those eyes are open that's it..especially outside!
Interesting,we had a v bad night with constant waking after 4 am so she was pretty tired when first got up already,I still kept her up for 2 hrs and 15 min total even though she just moaned all morning,she then did only 25 mins- OT nap,but the next A time I tried to cut down but she didn't want to settle to sleep despite clearly wanting to,so she did just over 2 hrs and was exhausted,she then slept for 2 hrs and 15 min and I had to wake her up as we had to go to swimming lesson..she hadn't done a long nap like this at home for weeks,I don't know how that happened to be honest.
Is it really that I have to push those A times despite her being exhausted and just carry her around or smth to keep her calm?..She was so red eyed and tired and not enjoying herself in those A times but obviously a different baby once she got up from that long nap..

[Maria14]

Is it possible that shh pat has become a prop?..

[PaulsMom]

Oh, my dd did the same thing.  She'd look at me, smile and act all cute but...  She was still tired so I tried to extend her naps.  I would try for around 15 min and if it didn't work, then I'd work on the next one.  As she got to the 4.5 month mark, I was able to extend some naps and then she learned to do it on her own.  One of the keys was go in before she woke so around 38 min into the nap.  I'd start to shh her and if necessary, rub her tummy. 

Wrt extending a times, do it gradually.  Around 10 to 15 min at a time.  Give her 3 days to adjust and then increase the time again. 

Wrt shh pat being a prop....  If you do it until she falls sleep every time, then it might.  I would recommend just doing shh pat until she's calm and drowsy and see how she does.  If she cried, then shh pat again until she's calm and then let her fall asleep on her own.