6 months NW, never slept past 5am without NWs

[Vp]

Dear all,
 I started a previous post about NWs when my daughter was 4 and half months. This weekend she will be 6 months and Nws still occur. A few things have changed in the meantime, e.g. we got rid of the swaddle and naps are slowly getting better (1h30 instead of 40 to 45min) and we have been increasing her A time. Her routine is something like
WU: 6.45-7am
E: 7am
S: 9 till 10.30
E: 10.30 some Ebm
E: 11.30 vegetables and fruit
S: 1 to 2.30 or 2.40
E: 3 or 3.30 BM
S: 5pm catnap
Play, bath, Feed BM
BED at 7.30
DF at 10h30

She then sleeps until 4am. I thought this was an habit as she was waking Every night at 4am sharp, but lately she started waking up and 3h30 and one of the days she woke up at 4.40. She then calls us and we go there, put her paci on, and she immediatly settles only to wake 40 min later. Then we repeat the cycle of calling, paci in mouth , etc, until morning. Recently she started waking for the dreamfeed but she always takes the whole bottle of expressed breastmilk, about 150ml. Shall I continue dreamfeeding her?
Does anyone have any advise on whether I should change this routine?
Thanks in advance!

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Hmmm. What happens if you give her a bigger dream feed?  If she's drinking it all, she may actually be hungry by the early morning. Or, she's getting ready to start the 3:2 transition.


All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

What do you think?

[Vp]

We did try to improve her DF with two little spoons of cereals but in the morning (7am) she wasn't that hungry anymore so i assumed this was a bad idea.
Her A time is really increasing every day and this morning, before the 1st nap she even handled 2h45! However, i think she still isn't ready for the transition because she doesn't really fight naps. And she definitely needs the catnap to be able to handle the bedtime routine. 

[Layla]

If you have to keep replugging the paci, that may be the issue? Would you consider taking it away?

In regards to the 3-2, they don't always have to be fighting naps to be ready for the transition; early wakings are also a sign that they may need to transition. I would say if you are close to 2:45A, you are very close to the transition (as 3hrs across the day is about the av A when they go down to 2 naps). Once your LO is on 2 naps, you wouldn't be putting her down to bed at the same time as now, bedtime would be earlier to compensate for the 3rd nap.

You could always try no DF to see how long she will sleep for and feed her when she wakes naturally and see if that helps her sleep longer in the morning. If the wake up is in the early hours of the morning, you could do a "top up" feed when she wakes up for good in the morning and count your E's from there. We did that or we would just delay the morning feed (if she wasn't really that hungry).