Author Topic: 7 month Persistent Early Waking  (Read 1071 times)

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Offline clc4r

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7 month Persistent Early Waking
« on: June 19, 2014, 12:13:16 pm »
I'm exhausted. My DD has been doing 4am-5:30 am early wakings for so long that I'm officially out of ideas, maybe a month maybe longer. She was doing great and sleeping through the night at 5 months. But everything I've tried doesn't seem to work. Here is her current EASY in which we strive for everyday:

E 6:30 Wake up and bottle
A for roughly 3 hours. Solids at 8:00 or 8:30 lately to help with nap.
S 9:15am. Start Wind down. 9:30 she's asleep. Will sleep anywhere from 1 hour 10 mins to 2 hours. Longer naps have been typical for past few days.
E 11:00 bottle or earlier if she woke up sooner.
A 3 hours. Solids at 12:30pm
S at 1:45-2pm depending on when she woke
E at 3:15/3:30pm bottle whenever she wakes. Solids at 5:30pm
E at 6:30 Bottle
S 6:30 or 7:00 bedtime. However, it can take her anywhere from 10 mins-30 to fall asleep. OT? Problem is she has only slept over 11 hours once in her life. Before all this, I used to get the consistent 11 hours no matter what time I put her down even though this wasn't always straight through.
EW 4am-5:30am Consistent early wakings. I go in if she's crying, put paci in and tell her to go back to sleep. No touching. She typically lays there for 30-1 hour until I get her at 6:30. If she wakes up earlier, she'll go back to sleep within 30mins-1hour. Back at 5 month I'd let her sleep until she was ready to get up anywhere from 6-7:30. Now we're enforcing 6:30 cause of the early wakings. I really try not to feed her if EW happen. Although sometimes I'm just over it. The feeding will always put her right back to sleep if its enough. But I don't think she needs it, she just uses it to put herself back to sleep.

Nap Routine: read a book, put on sleep sack, we sing and sway while we turn lights off and sound machine on, i kiss her and say have a good nappy nap. I put her in her Rock n Play (reflux baby), with paci and lovie. Then I can sit out of sight until she talks or lightly fusses herself  to sleep. Typically pop paci in about 1 time before she falls asleep. Bed time routine is the same except we eat in her room, and we have a bath before all of it.

Formula fed: gets 4 bottles about 30-32 oz a day plus 3 times a day solids.

At 6ish months she had an activity time of 2 hours and 15 mins if i was lucky. Then I started getting 30, 45 and 1 hour 10 min naps on a consistent basis. I figured this might mean she needed an activity increase, especially since she was behind the recommended amount. So I spent two weeks bumping her up form 2 hours to 3 hours activity time (which also included the 3 nap to 2 nap transition. She couldn't go to sleep at night even when her last nap was capped at 20 mins. So thats what made me think I should get rid of the 3rd one). Yet, every time I changed her activity time, I'd still get 45-1 hour and 10 min naps. So I increased it the A time to 3hrs and now I typically get 1 hour 30-2 hour naps. Good thing right? Well by the 2 hour mark on her 2nd activity time of the day she is already yawning. Does this mean I've stretched her too far? She basically goes down for nap anytime I put her down, so I can't judge it off her sleepy cues or how badly she fights it. And she gets cranky during A time around the 2 hour mark but if I change stations she is okay.

None of these changes have affected her early wakings. We thought maybe it was getting rid of the dreamfeed (even though she was doing them before we stopped the dream feed) but it hasn't affected the ew. Not to mention she is eating 30-32 oz of formula a day with solid foods on top of that. With dreamfeed she was eating way too much during the day in formula. Since I've scaled back the formula, she's been eating solids better. Never seems excessively hungry though. I don't think its a feeding issue but could be wrong?

For a week it was teething, but it hasn't been the issue lately. Same with shots from last week. She is a reflux baby, but her meds are golden! I know the difference between when they work for her and when they don't cause we struggled with finding a med that worked for so long. I know its not reflux issues. I'm being very careful to avoid food allergies.

She might have a pacifier prop issue? But she can almost put it in her mouth the correct way by herself. I know Tracy doesn't support it at her age, but we became hooked on many AP issues with the reflux. It was the one thing that soothed her and I didn't have to strength to battle another AP thing. Would this be the cause of all the early wakings?

I think I've covered just about everything. ANY INSIGHT YOU CAN GIVE ME WILL HELP! I'm officially exhausted and out of ideas. I do school work online until 12am. Then she has me up at 4 or 5am in which I cannot go back to sleep. Am I expecting too much out of her or am I screwing up somewhere and don't know it?! :)

Also wanted to add that before we started stretching her A time, early wakings were 1.5 hours-2 hours long and started about 3:30. We've made some improvement there so thats a positive.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2014, 19:00:00 pm by clc4r »

Offline Layla

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Re: 7 month Persistent Early Waking
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2014, 10:41:43 am »
Hi there,

You mentioned you cut back on formula and I noticed she's having 3 solids meals....at this age, we were only doing breakfast and some lunch and didn't add the 3rd meal until 9 months or so. Milk is much more important and solids at this age (before 1) and she could genuinely be waking up from hunger? If it were me, I would cut out the 3rd meal and I would feed at the 4-5.30am wake up and let her go back to sleep for another 1-2hrs. My LO was able to sleep throuh 11-12hrs without any feeds (no DF either) from around 4 months but it wasn't consistent and some nights she would wake and others she would sleep through. She didn't start sleeping through consistently till she was around 9 months or so. If your LO is going back to sleep after a milk feed, I would do that as I think she's doing pretty well to be sleeping from 6.30pm feed until 4am wake up without any milk :-\. If you see that she isn't as hungry for milk in the morning because of the bottle she's had in the early morning, you could try offering her a top up in the morning or reducing how much you're giving her at that EW. I don't think the paci is the issue ... it would be if she was waking up all the time and needing it to get back to sleep, in my opinion.

I would also be careful letting her sleep longer than 1.5hrs in the morning, sometimes too long of a morning nap and if its too close to wake up time can perpetuate the EWs.

What do you think?
« Last Edit: June 20, 2014, 10:44:18 am by Layla »



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline clc4r

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Re: 7 month Persistent Early Waking
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2014, 01:13:38 am »
THANK YOU for your opinion! I went over the last three months of my notes yesterday and your right, I think she genuinely is hungry. I actually told my husband that I wanted to add the dream feed back in yesterday.

The days I gave her 33 oz or more (which included a dream feed) she would sleep through. The days I gave her less, even if it she had a dreemfeed, she would wake early. I know I'm only supposed to give her 32 tops of formula, but that might account for my calculation issues. I fill the water to 8 oz but after the formula is added is read 8.5 oz. So I've always counted that extra .5. So instead of saying she ate 8 oz, I'd write that she ate 8.5oz. Anyways, that might be why she needs "33" cause its really 31oz. Sorry I'm extremely generous with details as you've noticed.

All in all, it sounds like I had two problems when the EW began: Not enough A time and then once the growth spurt happened, hunger issues. Both of them at once made it difficult to diagnose the issue! She wasn't taking very much each bottle before we dropped the dreamfeed, so that's helped that but I guess she still needs a little more. Now that the A time is fixed (we've been on this schedule for about 1.5 weeks) I can see that it really is hunger based on my notes the past few days. I feel horrible now cause I wasn't feeding her! She used to have a night waking that was habitual when she was younger and excessively eating with her reflux issues, and the doc told me to cut it out it out as she didn't need it. Guess I was stuck in that mind frame. Although, I don't get why she won't cry harder for food at the EW if she's hungry. I mean, when I go in there and give her her paci, she just whimpers or hangs out. You'd think if she was hungry she'd let me know. This morning I fed her and she went back to sleep for an hour. So I'll probably continue.

Also, the doc told me to encourage solids for her reflux. However, her spitting up is minimal and she isn't in pain. So I possibly could take dinner solids out. What if she starts taking too much formula due to taking dinner solids out? From what I read, if you give your baby anything over 32oz of formula a day, you should be giving them solids. Maybe I just misinterpreted this? Can you feed a baby too much formula (as long as their not overeating due to reflux)?

I have to mention how much I love this site! You girls and Tracy have been saints to a new mama who has no idea what she's doing!!! :) I can't say thank you enough for taking the time to listen to my issues! I pray blessings are excessively poured on you women because of your helpfulness!

Offline Layla

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Re: 7 month Persistent Early Waking
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2014, 01:54:19 am »
I am not too sure about formula amount as I didn't formula feed but I always did milk first and then a small amount of solids about an hour later so that she wasn't getting full on solids and then not taking in as much. I am happy to get someone else to take a look at her feeds and let you know whether she needs more or less or what or there's the bottle feeding section you can post on if you have specific questions about her feeds ;)

Let me know how things are going.... and if the EW persist  ;D :-*



20/06/2012 - my angel baby