Author Topic: Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost  (Read 1173 times)

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Offline KandCsmommy

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Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost
« on: October 16, 2013, 01:27:55 am »
Hi,
I'm new to the forum (first post) although I have creeped the forum for the past 4 months since my son was born and in the past with my daughter (now 2 yrs old). First i want to thank everyone for posting their problems and success stories...this forum has really helped me through some tough times! A little background:
 I read bwsoyp and was VERY 'by the book' for my daughter the first time around and found it extremely stressful (to the point where I feel I didn't enjoy her infancy). I didn't know this forum existed with dd until she was about 6mo and we were already past most of our issues. Anyways the point is, this may be my last baby and I vowed not to stress and just enjoy but I'm finding it difficult due in part to multiple nw and napping issues but mostly due to my second guessing myself as I'm not as strict this time around. So here's the problem....

Ds started taking 40 min naps around 3mos so at 3.5 mos I decided to start transitioning to a 4hr EASY nice and slow. Just by extending to 3hr 15 min EASY his naps lengthened sometimes to 1.5 hour sometimes to 2hr (I was very happy)...then growth spurt hit hard and we had to start from scratch. Now at 4.5 mos we're back to 4 hr feedings exept in the evening when it gets a little choppy. However, since the growth spurt he has been all over the map at night and getting worse. He used to go from 8pm to 4am with an 11am df but the last week and a half he has been waking 4 times at night starting at 10pm and then randomly 2 or 3 more times throughout the night (never the same time except the 10pm which has been consistent for last two nights). I feed him (EBF) only once at the nw closest to 4am (never later or he will refuse to eat in the morning). I use PU/PD to get him through the other NW's with a little rubbing of the back and 'slow dancing' if he's really upset. Now to top it off his napping (past 2 days) seems to be reverting back to 40mins as well!!! I'm very lost and so sad (I don't want to cry about this any more as I vowed not to but I have no plan and don't know what to do!). He is a big boy just over 17lbs (almost triple his birth weight) so maybe it's time for solids? It's hard to post our EASY since its all over the place but I'll use today as an example:

E:  7:20am wake and bf (usually wake up is anywhere between 6:30 and 7:15am)
A: 
S:  9:15am - 10:10am

A: 10:10am (usually if short nap we have another A time until next E due)

E:  11:10am give or take 15 min (if short nap E is earlier by 15 min or so)
A:  shorter A time if short first nap otherwise 2hrs
S:  12:15pm (basically 2 hrs after wake up (whenever that was)).

A:  1pm (another A here if short second nap, which has been happening the past two days)

E:  2:50pm
A:  very short here but at least 15 min so as not to nurse to sleep
S:  3:20pm

A:  4pm (had to take my dd to swimming lessons and ds slept on the way for about 30min from 5:30-6pm but this is not the norm)

E:  6:45pm (evenings are still choppy...some days it works out that I have to feed him earlier in which case I AP a catnap in before bed if he really needs it)
A:
S: 8pm (can be anywhere between 7-8pm depending on how the day went)
DF: usually 11pm but have been feeding him at 10pm when he wakes last two nights

Final note: he goes down independently no swaddle or paci except for bedtime when I top up nurse but still try to put him down before a deep sleep as he does better knowing where he is. Tonight he wasn't interested in nursing so I just put him in bed and walked out as he seemed content and he put himself to sleep after about 10 min of sucking his fingers and playing (first time I've tried this tho so it could be just luck).

So sorry for the long post!!! Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated as I am kinda losing faith here which is something I never thought I would hear myself say!

Thanks so much


« Last Edit: October 16, 2013, 01:38:39 am by KandCsmommy »

Offline Layla

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Re: Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2013, 23:23:42 pm »
Hi there and welcome :)

Sorry to hear you're having some NWs at the moment. Looking at your routine, I wonder if he may need a little more A time, especially if he's up and happy after 45mins? Although the av is 2hrs for 4mo, at 4.5months, we were actually working on transitioning to 2 naps and some of our A's were close to 2.5hrs. By around 5-5.5 months, we were down to 2 naps and doing much better. By around 5 months, the av A time is somewhere between 2-2.25hrs, so I wonder if you try adding another 10-15mins to his A, whether that will help him take longer naps?! I would probably work on 1 A at a time, starting with the morning nap and if you're worried about him getting overtired, try adding just 10mins and hold that for a couple of days before extending him more.

Your E's look good and milk is the primary source of food until 6 months and if you add solids too early, his gut is probably not ready for that and may cause even more night wakings. There is also the 4 month sleep regression, which may be contributing to the night wakings and usually with sleep regression, try and stay away from using AP and it will pass.

But I would probably work on extending naps and rather than letting him take a 4th catnap, I would probably do an earlier bedtime.

What do you think?
« Last Edit: October 16, 2013, 23:31:49 pm by Layla »



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline KandCsmommy

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Re: Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2013, 19:28:56 pm »
Hi,

Thanks so much for your advice, I appreciate it so much! Since I posted (actually the same day I posted) ds slept very well, waking only once at 4:40pm! I don't know what happened but I'm just going to thank my lucky stars lol! His naps on the other hand...still short. But I read your reply and i'm so happy to have a plan now! I extended his first A time by 10 min this morning but still 40 min nap...not to worry, I'll keep it up for the next few days and we'll see how it goes. Second nap was also 40 min but he woke crying and I was able to resettle him for a nice 2hr nap, so I'm happy with that! It's also a little tricky now because my in-laws arrived from over seas yesterday to meet our little guy and will be staying with us for a month (so I'm going to wait for the excitement to die down before judging any changes or changing anything else). I'll keep you posted tho! Thank you sooo much once again for your help, it's nice knowing there's support out there! My husband and I were raised very differently from the BW way and neither my mom or mother in law quite understand what the big deal is with consistency and routine, so having somewhere to ask questions is so important! Thanks!

Offline KandCsmommy

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Re: Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2013, 10:45:14 am »
Ok so something different happened last night/this morning. Ds woke at 1:30am and I was able to get him back to sleep with PU/PD like usual but then instead of waking around 4am for a feed he woke at 5:10am. I didn't know what to do as I never feed him that close to wake up (usually around 7am). So I tried to put him back to sleep without the feed but after about 35min I caved and fed him but not quite as much as usual. Well he wasn't happy with that either so at 6am I gave him his full feed and we've started our day. The question is, should I have given him a full feed at 5am and back to bed until 7am or should I have tried a little longer to stretch the feed until 6:30 or 7:00am?

Offline Layla

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Re: Multiple nw with 4.5 month old and so lost
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2013, 11:27:53 am »
I would feed and back to bed and treat it as a night feed. I offer 1 side if the wake up is in the early hrs of the morning and offer the other side when mine wakes for good in the morning and count the Es from that time.



20/06/2012 - my angel baby