8.5 mo NW and EW - any insights?

[draxela]

Hi everyone, really grateful for some eyes and advice please

DD2 has been in a pretty solid routine in the day for quite a while now; her usual EAS looks like this:

Wake + bf: 6.30
E (solids): 7.30
A
S: 9.30
E (bf): 11.30
E (solids): 12.30
A
S: 2.30
E (bf): 4
E (solids): 5.30
A (bath, book, bf)
S: 7-7.30
(On good nights, one feed in the night between 3 and 4.30).

Over the last few weeks she has started multiple random NWs (eg 11.45, 1, 2) and EW at 5  Sometimes she'll go back to sleep with some boob, other times pain meds, other times nothing seems to work and I'm up for hours trying to settle her. I have to go back to work in the new year and I'm freaking out about how to survive on so little sleep.

Some additional info:
She pretty well always self settles (sometimes at BT if she's really tired she falls asleep on the boob).
She has reflux, not on meds, but pretty well controlled by my diet (I'm dairy, soy, wheat, egg and fish free).
We're trialling one new solid food every 7 days, currently potato and no reaction as yet.
She is trying to master the cross pattern crawl and currently commando crawls around everywhere.
She doesn't have any teeth yet, but is drooling and pulling at her ears and chewing on everything.

Pretty exhausted. Is this baby EVER going to sleep in the night? She slept through from 7 - 7 once and I nearly died of shock.

[Layla]

Hi there,

Is she sleeping 2hrs in the morning and 1.5 in the afternoon? You may need to cut down her daytime sleep as we often have lots and long night wakings when dd has too much daytime sleep and you might find that if you cut her morning nap right down to 1hr, the EW will fix itself as sometimes too long of a morning nap can reinforce the EW. The teething could be another reason she is waking up so often. My dd cut her 2 bottom teeth recently and we had night wakings right before too.

[draxela]

Thanks Layla! I'll give that a go. Her A time is only 3 hrs though, so she'd be going down much earlier for her arvo nap and then potentially awake for a long time til BT. what are your thoughts on that?

[draxela]

Also, noting you're in Australia, do you think baby ibuprofen is better than baby paracetamol for teeth? Or much of a muchness?

[Layla]

I've always used baby panadol, don't know much about ibuprofen... I think they may do the same thing in the end but double check with the pharmacist/doctor?

So with regards to the A times, you can probably look at stretching her to 3hrs 15mins and so her routine would look something like this:

6.30 - awake
9:45-11:15 - morning nap
2:30-4 - afternoon nap
7ish - bedtime

Eventually, as she starts to approach 12months you will need to cut down either the morning or afternoon nap, leading to the 2-1 nap transition. We are at the moment limiting the morning nap to 1 hr and I then put mine down for afternoon nap 3hrs later and she will sleep 2hrs and I put her down at night around 3.15hrs from time she's woken up. It would be up to you if you want to start shortening the morning nap (which I prefer doing) or letting her sleep up to 2hrs in the morning and limiting her afternoon nap.

HTH

[draxela]

That looks good, thank you! I'll see how the rest of the week goes and get back to you.

[ZacsMumme]

Hey Hun,
Just popping in to day hi! And that we use ibuprofen for teeth, I find it more effective and it lasts longer. I try to use it only for BT as it gives you a longer stretch with no pain. Just always give with milk or food (6-8 hrly)

8-10 months  is the pits for sleep! Really common age for rubbish with GS, teething, developmental leaps and sa

[draxela]

Thanks Sara! That's what I was thinking, but Layla might be right about too much day sleep too. Will defo get ibuprofen. Should help with any ear issues too, which reminds me I need to post some info re the link btw reflux and ear infections on the CRC board!

[ZacsMumme]

Oh I agree with Layla too this is when T started cutting his day sleep right back x