Waking up lots after bedtime, and early morning wakings...5 month old

[mads2014]

Hi Everyone

This is my first post. So my daughter is 5 months old and 4 days, or 22 weeks. I was wondering how everyone is calculating age on here, do you call 20 weeks the same as 5 months?

Anyway my LO has never been a great sleeper, she has NEVER done a 2 hour nap since she was like 1 month old. Started sleep training with PU/PD at exactly 3 months and she can self soothe with her thumb) We struggled with naps, but increased A times and things went a little better. Since 4 months things have been getting steadily worse, I blamed the 4 month regression but at 5 months things are still not working out. She is EBF, sleeps in a cot pulled next to my bed, not swaddled, no props. During an A time I feed at the beginning and also 1 hour later so can rule out hunger as an issue.

My target A time at the moment is 2 hours 15 mins.

Example day:

WU 6.15
Nap 8.30
Wake 9.40 (happy)
Nap 11.55
Wake 12.45 (crying)
Resettle 12.55
Wake 1.30 (happy)
Nap 3.50
Wake 4.20
Bedtime 6.30

Wake 7.10 (crying)
Resettle 7.25
Wake 8.10 (crying)
Resettle 8.15
Wake 8.20 (crying)
Resettle 8.25
Wake 8.55 (crying, gave up with PU/PD and breastfed as scared she was hungry)

Wake 11.30 (moaning, self settled)
Wake 12.15 (moaning, self settled)
Wake 1 (moaning, self settled)
Wake 2 (feed)
Wake 4 (moaning, moved to her side, fell asleep again)
Wake 4.30 (crying, self settled)
Wake 5.15 (crying, then chatting gurgling until 6)
WU 6.40

Now that I have written it down it looks horrendous!

If anyone could help me I would be so grateful. Regarding A times, I always ALWAYS struggle with the second A time, and can never get a long nap even though I heard this is usually the longer nap. What should I be aiming for?

Many Thanks!

[newkidontheblock]

Hi there. We went through something similar at 5 months. We were also doing 2.20   A and everything suddenly went wonky. Basically, she needed a way longer A. We went from 2.30 to 2.45 to 3 and finally settled at 3.20 at 6 months! With the increased A time, we also moved from 3 naps to 2 naps. This led to a lot of OT for a while, which BTW is probably the cause of those wakings after bedtime. Ditto same thing happened with us. After a lot of observation, we found that DD needed 3 hours unbroken day sleep and then we wouldn't get any night wakings. so we did Apop quite a bit to get ahead of the OT and also did early bedtime for a while and slowly it sorted itself out

[mads2014]

Thanks so much for the reply i really appreciate it.

Taken on board your advice and pushed first A time to 2 hours 30 mins. Today went like this:

6.15 WU
8.45 nap
9.15 wake
11.15 nap
11.45 wake
1.35 nap
2 wake
2.05  resettle
3 wake
5.10 nap
5.40 wake
7.10 bedtime

Its now 10pm and shes been waking up pretty much every 30 mins since bedtime. I know this to be expected at first but can anyone tell me where i went wrong today? Or things they would have done differently? Not sure whether A time after 30 min nap should be 2 hours or 1.45? Also what is the ideal length of A before bed? I can never get that one right.

Please help!!!

[newkidontheblock]

Oh. Poor you and poor baby. She sounds really OT. When she wakes from the nap, what do you do to try to extend it? Sh/pat etc? basically, she is getting more and more OT through the day due to the short naps. After a bad nap, I reduce the time by 10- 15 minutes tops but you would have to see what works for you. Even before bed, DD needs a shorter time.. She can fall asleep after 2 hours A even. But most babies need the longest time before bed. You could try early bedtime for a few days, especially on days when naps have been so bad. Also, APOP a few naps to catch up on OT

[mads2014]

Thanks newkidontheblock. Yes I do PU/PD for a round 15 mins to try and extend naps.

The problem is today is the second day of 2 hours 30 mins A time and the first nap has again been 30 minutes, however in both cases she woke up happy and babbling so can't extend. I left her to it to self settle but 20 minutes later she is still babbling and then begins to starts crying for me. Does this indicate A time needs to be bumped to 2 hours 45 mins? So confusing!

[newkidontheblock]

You could try pushing it by 10 minutes and see