6 month old waking every 2 hours after first night feed at 11pm

[mummyala]

Hello!

In desperate need of some help and advice after trying so many things to improve my baby girls sleep at night. After ebfing for 5 months she is now bottle fed. She used to wake for her first feed at 12.30pm 1ish but since having a series of bad colds she now wakes every night at 11pm

I have had her on a 4 hr easy since 4.5 months old and have been battling short naps. Finally have this semi sorted but her night sleep still hasn't improved. I then decided to try and take her dummy away to see if that was the problem and it's been a week and she still wakes up as much as she did with it!

Typical night:

Bedtime @7pm, in her own cot in her own room (shared with her 2.5 yr old brother)

Sleeps without waking until 11.pm - we try to extend before feeding with shh/pat but she wakes every 15 mins from then till we feed her. Sometimes she will eat 5oz, sometimes only 2oz. There is no pattern so I have no idea if she needs this feed or not!

Wakes between 12.30 and 1.30 - shhh pat back to sleep

Wakes @ 3.00am - feed - sometimes has a whole bottle. Sometimes only a bit.

Wakes @5.30M - very hard to settle her back to sleep. Do shh/pat until waking properly at 7am

Here is our typical day:

Wake @7am (after lots of shh patting from 5.30am)
E - 7.30ish, 5oz
A
S - 9.20ish sometimes will wake after 40mins, shh/pat back to sleep for another 40 mins, sometimes sleeps for 1.5/2hrs without waking

E - 11.15am ish 5oz
A
S - depends on when woken, I keep her awake for 2hrs 20mins though before putting her down. Usually sleeps for 1hr 15

E - 3.15pmish 5oz
A
S - 5ish for 30/40mins

Bath and bed routine from 6.15

Last bottle 5oz then in cot at 7pm

I have tried to increase the amount she eats during the day but she just refuses to eat anymore than 5 oz, even that I have to give with a 15min break inbetween. I have just started weaning so she is only eating a small amount of veggie purée at lunchtime as well.

She has always slept in her cot since around 4 weeks old for all naps and at night. I have taken her into bed from around 3am before as I was bfing and so tired but stopped that around a month ago. She used to settle herself without help but since taking the dummy away last week she needs a small amount of shh/pat to help her go to sleep for naps and at bedtime. I have given her a lovey but she doesn't really seem to bother with it.

I just don't know what else to try!! I'm sooooo tired of having less than 3 hours straight sleep for so long. I would have said her wakings are habitual if she never ate much but sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't and there's just no pattern. I am wondering if the shh pat is bcomingb a prop but don't want to take that away until she's been dummy free for a while. Any help anyone can give would be massively appreciated.

[Layla]

Hi there and welcome to the BW

I wonder if maybe she needs to be transitioned to 2 sleeps (3-2 nap transition). You mentioned she is sometimes only taking 40min nap... this can be sometimes a sign of baby not being tired enough to sleep more and a lot of babies start the transition around this age.

Here is the link to the 3-2 nap transition All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

Shh/pat can't become a prop unless you are shh/patting her TO sleep every single time. I would shh/pat until she's settling down and then stop patting and just shhh and then stop shushing and leave. That way she isn't relying on you to put her to sleep.

[mummyala]

Thanks so much for the reply!

Eeeek, yes I think that's what I have been doing, patting her too long and now she seems to need it to go to sleep. How do I fix that? Just start doing shhh/pat properly? Do I shh/pat her to the point where she stops fussing or crying then stop? If she starts crying again do I start patting again straight away (as this seems to be what soothes her and what needs to be happening to go to sleep) or should I continue to shhh for a while keeping my hand on her?

We managed to push her first feed until 12.15 last night and then she slept for 3 hours before waking which is much better (she didn't have a catnap yesterday so maybe that helped). She woke at 3.15 and I tired to push the next feed to 4.15 but she just cried everytime I stopped patting her back and didn't fall asleep properly. Then after taking 3oz at 4.00am she went straight back to sleep with jojoba tying but woke 15mins later crying. She finally went back to sleep at 4.40am and didn't wake until 7.15am which is a first! Not sure whether all the whinging from 3.15 tired her out? I would love that to become a habit!!

I will have a read about the 3-2 nap transition too, thank you!

[Layla]

Maybe because she didn't take the catnap, there was more drive to sleep at night, which is what makes me think she might be ready for the 3-2 nap transition.

But in any case, yes, you could ideally stop shh/patting when they start settling down and I would probably continue shushing and stop patting for a little bit longer and then stop altogether and wait a little. If she starts to cry again, you could start shushing again and then stop again once she's settling down... you know she's going down from the really hard cry (the i need you now cry) to the mantra cry. I used to leave the room altogether as having me in the room would wind mine up even more. Also, I found when sending DH in, she would settle much sooner than when I would try and do it... probably because I would get all anxious about her not going back to sleep and he wouldn't and babies are good at picking up on our vibes!

When you do start adding more A to get rid of the catnap, I would suggest 15mins every 3-4 days as you don't want her getting overtired. I found it was much better to do an earlier bedtime than the catnap towards the end of the transition, so for example, if her 2nd nap ends around 3pm, I would do a bedtime of 5.30pm and she would usually sleep until her usual wake up time in the morning. But that all depends on whether your baby is good at tacking on. If you feed like that bedtime would be much too early, you could try a super short catnap (so say 30, even 20mins) just to tie her over to bedtime.

Please let me know how you get on over the next couple of days.

[mummyala]

I will, thank you!

Just one question about extending naps, does that mean bub will be going 4.5hrs between feeds?? To fit in 3 hours of awake time and 1.5hr nap, means 4.5hrs between feeds and then what if she sleeps for 2 hours??

I'm struggling to get enough good into her in the day as it is so I'm a bit worried about stretching the time between them.

Thanks in advance!

[Layla]

That's an excellent question and I actually posted the exact same question when we went down to 2 naps .

Here is my thread Feeding schedule - 3-2 transition

I hope that puts your mind at ease as I had the exact same concern

[mummyala]

Just a quick update!

So, not much has changed so far except I have got rid of the cat nap. I started extending a times slowly but was getting 45 min naps even after a couple of days so figured I'd go straight to 3 hours if I am getting short naps anyway, even after 3 days. No getting 35 minute naps but sticking with it. I pat back to sleep after first 45 mins which has taken up to half an hour on a number of occasions but she then tends to sleep for another 45mins to an hour.

Night wakings are still the same though :0( she is still waking at around 10.30pm/11pm and then every 2/3 hours after that, however she is easier to settle back to sleep now. I'm going to give it another week or so and see how she settles into it, otherwise I'll be back for more advice!! 

[Layla]

Just be careful with going straight to 3hrs A.. we did it slowly and over a couple of weeks.