Issues around bedtime

[nugget13]

Hi,

My 9-week old has been consistently waking at the 45 minute mark after putting him to bed at 730 for the night. Any idea what could be causing this? The 45 minute wake has also been happening during his daytime naps more and more over the last few weeks. Sometimes I can lengthen those - not always though. At night, I've rarely been able to get him past the "jolt" - he usually wakes screaming. Any advice?

We are on a 3 hour easy routine - that we've done since week 2. His bedtimes have shifted somewhat over that time and we've now settled on 7:30 (sometimes earlier at 715 and sometimes 745 when he just won't settle - but we're usually in this window). I've been trying to have a consistent WT at 7:30am - but this hasn't always happened. Sometimes we go past 8am and I adjust throughout the day to get us back on track. His first morning nap is usually pretty good and he sleeps to his next feed around 1030 pretty consistently. The mid-morning and early afternoon nap have become shorter and shorter - 45 to 1hr usually now. I can sometimes lengthen these but not always. Anyways - here's our day.

730 - WT, feed, play
830-845 - nap
1030 - Wake, feed, play
1130 - 1145 - back to bed
130 - Wake, feed, play (ideally - though this nap is now starting to last an hour with me sometimes being able to lengthen it. If not, he'll have small A time at which I point I'll feed).
230-245 - back to bed
430 - Wake, feed, play (though, this nap is now consistently starting to only go 45min with me being able to lengthen sometimes. Again, he'll have small A time prior to eating, or eat early - depending on this mood)
6pm - Wake him (if he's not up already by 530 - 545), feed
630 - Nudie time to dry out bum
645 - bath, moisturize
700 - Last feed
715 - back to bed

After the last bedtime, he will always get up 45min later now. We usually cannot prevent him from waking up screaming though we can get him back down within about 15minutes. Sometimes he'll wake again in the 9-930 timeframe. His dreamfeed is at 1030. He'll then wake at 2-230 and 4-430 - though he doesn't take a full feed at both those night wakings. Actually, I should also add that he's dropped his feedtimes down. He's not eating for as long at each feed - this started over the past 1-1.5 weeks.

Any help or advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.

[nugget13]

Any help?

Our night was terrible last night. Went down at 7:30, woke up at 815, went down 845, up at 915. At that point we just held him till his dream feed at 1030. Up again at 145 and then 345. He's not lasting after his dreamfeed at all.

I did manage to get a 730 WT today. We had 70min of A time at which point he went down very easily. I decided to let one arm out of the swaddle so that he could start self soothing - he has started to find his fists. He had a great nap, whenever he stirred he soothed himself back to sleep. I woke him at 1030 for his feed and 70min of A time. At that point he went down easy again but woke up after 30 min. I've been trying to get him down for almost an hour now and no luck. Soon as his back hits the crib mattress, his eyes pop open and he goes from whimpering to screaming in 3 seconds.

I'm at the end of my rope. I don't want another bedtime/night like last night again. Does anyone have suggestions???

[3littlemen]

I don't know if it applies yet, but I remember with my other lo's when they were older, waking up before midnight was considered OT (I think), but then perhaps he's just going through the sleep cycles and hasn't properly settled yet? Not sure, one of the 'experts' on here will help you for sure - they are much better than I!

My 6wo is only doing 3hr sometimes 2.5hr stints at night, which I'm ok with, despite dfing. I guess I work on accepting what I cannot change!

My oldest used to have shortened A times in the arvo to get longer naps but I'm not sure that always worked - it's a while ago and hard to remember yesterday let alone 4yrs ago! 

I'm not sure any of this is good advice, but if it helps, good. If not - one of the super ladies on here will help you!
Fingers crossed!

[nugget13]

Thanks. You're right, the dreamfeed is working as it is for his needs. I guess I just get antsy when I hear others going 4-5 hours afterwards....or just jealous

To be honest, the DF is not an issue. I just don't know why he doesn't stay down. It's so frustrating. I think you're right, in that he's overtired. So for his last nap today, before bedtime, I let him sleep as long as he wanted. Just to catch up from the short naps earlier today - it wound up being about 100minutes. This ended up pushing his regular bedtime back an hour - I was hoping that he would be well rested for his bath and bedtime routine.

However, he woke up 30minutes into it again.

[3littlemen]

Does he ever wake at 30min in his naps?

[nugget13]

Quite a bit lately.

[ZacsMumme]

Your day routine looks pretty good for a little one but they do sometimes  just get OT and OS from the days events YK? - 45 min naps and WU after bedtime after 45 mins is developmental to some extent...also can be the result of gas/wind from feedings.

Does he. Behave Colicy or display reflux symptoms at all, or just typical fussiness.
Dyt he could be hungry? Some LOs cluster feed in the evening and don't settle for the night till 9pm or so at this age.

[nugget13]

He's not colicky and isn't showing reflux symptoms.

Yesterday I thought he might be hungry so I nursed him for a bit and he calmed down but still wouldn't sleep. He ended up being awake for his dreamfeed. He woke at 1:30 but wasn't hungry so we resettled him. Then he woke at 3, had a full feed (with a 2oz bottle top-up) and slept to 730 (after waking at 545 need resettling). That was the first time in a long while where he's only had one night feed.

Today my goal was to get good naps and try to battle OT if that's what it was. This morning he slept 2.5 hours and went 3.5 hours btwn his WT feed and first morning feed - I just let him sleep when I would normally wake him at the 3 hour mark. I wanted to see how long he'd sleep. His A time was a little longer after this feed but he ended up sleeping 2 hours. His third nap was 1.5. Things got a little screwy at the end of the day when we had a surprise visitor. So though he was only up for 70-75 minutes - he only took about a 20minute catnap before we started his bedtime routine. He woke up himself. This time I fed him after his bath, right before bed (with a diaper change after the feed). I again topped him up with 1oz with the bottle, hoping he would sleep. He woke up 30 minutes after he went down. I didn't think he'd be hungry but he kept rooting so I breastfed him again with another 1oz top-up. He went down, finally, an hour after he got up.

Could it be possible that he'd be hungry again so soon? It was only 90minutes between feeds (start of feed after bath to when he woke up). Is this normal at this age? I thought most babies stopped cluster feeding at this age? He was sleeping through to his dream feed from his 730 bedtime with the odd wakeup. Over the last week this wakeup has become consistent - and frustrating.

He'll be 10 weeks tomorrow night.

Thanks.

[ZacsMumme]

Has naps are fantastic, I think he may need a bit more A time during the day so he is more tired at night possibly that said! you don't want him to get OT either. I'll ask for more eyes x

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, I agree with Sara that it sounds like a little more A time is in order. I think those shorter naps NF sometimes stirring at 45 mins were signs of needing a bit extra A time. It's an odd thing but often going doing for naps a bit undertired (Ut) leads to a LO being overtired (OT) by the end of the day, which is what is disturbing your nights.

Now that the OT has potentially built up a little bit you're getting some 30 min which is an indicator of tiredness.

I would try lengthening that first a time a little - 10/15 mins maximum and holding it at that new length for a few days. If you get a good nap length you can start working on lengthening the second A time a little then too. Does that make sense? If you get shorter naps you will need to shorten the second A time to make up for the less restorative sleep the first time.

So if you get WU at 7.30am as per your EAS above, perhaps try for a nap at 8.45-9am for a few days.

What do you think?

[nugget13]

Hi,

Thanks so much for the reply!

I have increased his A times. He can go as long as 90minutes before showing signs of tiredness, usually I'll start putting him down at the 80minute mark. I have also tried "Wake to Sleep" the last few days for his naps and it's seemed to work better. We've gotten 90minute naps out of him and one 2 hour nap today. However he woke up at the 45minute mark again today - after bedtime. I'm starting to wonder if his bedtime is just too early and he's treating it like a catnap. And in actuality he wants his bedtime to be 8-830ish.

Another update, we've transitioned him to a 3.5 hour schedule. He wasn't taking full feeds at the three-hour mark and just didn't seem interested in eating when feeding time came around. He's taken to it very well -I think I could even stretch the 3.5 hour but I'm not going to push it. We'll leave it as is for now and see if that helps. This was his schedule today:

7am - WU/eat/activity
8:30 - nap
10:30 - WU/eat/activity
12 - nap
1:30 - WU/activity
2 - eat/activity
3:10 - nap
5:20 - WU/eat (I had to wake him)
6 - tried putting down for a catnap but wouldn't go down
6-7 - nudie time, bath, bedtime routine
7 - Eat (top up) but didn't take much, kept nodding off during feed.
7:15 - went down to sleep
8 - woke up
940 - It took over an hour and a half of near constant shush/patting to get him back down (there was a diaper change in there too). This is getting painful.

Thx.

[nugget13]

Hi,

I just wanted to provide an update. So last night was 3 wakings again (this is unusual for us). We resettled at the 1:45 waking, fed at the 3am waking, and resettled at the 5:30 waking. In the last few weeks he'd gone down to 1 waking where he really didn't feed that much and we'd thought he was getting ready to give up his night feeds. This last week has been a backslide.

So taking the advice from the forums and from this thread, I paid much more attention to naps and A times. We had been so happy that wake to sleep worked so well for naps that we didn't pay attention to how much he was sleeping during the day. We noticed that he just wasn't tired at bedtime and when we tried to get him down last night after he woke after bedtime, he just sat there wide awake. So we made a concerted effort to ensure his naps were not excessive. Here was his routine for today - we still had a post-bedtime waking but it was minimally disruptive and an hour after he went to sleep. Any advice on how to further tweak this would be appreciated:

WU/Eat   7:15   am
Activity   7:45   am
Sleep    8:30am   (Wake to Sleep @ 9am, woke up for 15min b/c of gas at 9:10am)
      
WU/Eat   10:35am   
Activity   11:10am   
Sleep    12:00pm   
      
WU    1:15   pm
Eat    1:30   pm
Activity    2:00pm   
Sleep    3:10   pm
      
WU/Eat    4:30   pm
Activity    5:00   pm
Sleep    5:40   pm
      
WU/Bath   6:40pm   
Eat   7:15pm   
Bedtime   7:50 pm   
      
WU   8:40pm
Sleep (resettled) 8:55pm

I will be doing a dreamfeed shortly, I just wanted to post this update first!

Thx.

[Buttonbobs]

I would probably push the A times a little longer. You're getting naps of less than 1.5 hours on an A times of less than 1.5 hours whereas 1.5 hours seemed to get you longer naps. While W2S has obviously helped, it would be good if you could find an A time that allows him to sleep a long nap without needing that help.

I wouldn't think necessarily that those NWs are uT at this age. Are you BF/formula feeding? What time are you doing the DF? When did you introduce it?

[nugget13]

Push A times longer than 1.5 hours? Wouldn't that be too much for a 12 week old? I'm curious...

So after I did the dream feed last night, he woke up once at 3 for a small feed (5-7 minutes) and went back to sleep. This is why I think he's getting ready to cut out the night feeds - he barely eats. Usually it's under 5 minutes.

We introduced the dreamfeed early on - maybe week 3? We aim to always have it done by 11. We usually start around 10:15 and it can get 20-25 minutes to get him started.

I have been exclusively breast feeding. However, on the advice from other moms, we've started offering formula for the DF as of last week - just to help him last a bit longer.

[Buttonbobs]

No I wouldn't suggest going straight to more than 1.5 hours, but that last day you posted the first A time was only 1 hr 15 mins and I thought maybe a little longer like on one of the earlier days, might get you a longer nap.