6 month waking at 4am to play

[chuckmum]

My lb is 6 months old and not slept particularly well since we stopped swaddling him at 3.5 months (this coincided with the 4 month sleep regression and we had a month of waking every hour). Since then things have settled down a bit but he's only ever slept through the entire night 3 times.
The recent pattern is that he wakes up somewhere between 2.30 and 4am (usually 4am but not every night) and wants to play. It tends to take me one to two hours to settle him and he then sleeps until 6.30-7am.
I have tried going in straight away, and leaving him until he starts to cry before going in but he usually turns himself round to the bottom of the cot and starts banging his head and so I go in to stop this. I then try to settle him with two hands in his back (to stop him wriggling) and reassuring words. He'll lie quiet and calm like this for at least 10 minutes but his eyes are wide open! I'll usually end up sitting by his cot until he starts to cry and then doing pupd which eventually get him off to sleep.
He's been on an EASY routine since he was 3.5 months (below) and we have had a good bedtime routine since he was 6 weeks. He mostly goes down for naps reasonably well (he's a spirited baby but as long as we follow the wind down routine he's usually ok). He sometimes wakes 30 minutes into his afternoon nap but usually resettles with a hand on his back.
We started blw about 3 weeks ago and in the last week or so he has started consuming a decent amount of solids. He hasn't reduced his milk intake yet. I know random wake up times are a sign if hunger but he takes so much milk before bed and in the dream feed that I just don't think he can be hungry. I figure I wouldn't be able to get him to settle if he was hungry. We have given him milk at times during the wake ups when we really can't get him to settle but have found he's then not keen for his morning milk and are worried about getting into a cycle of him taking more milk at night than during the day.
Any suggestions to stop the night time waking? I'm gradually extending his first activity time up to 3 hours.

E- 7am (6-7oz formula)
A- 7.30 (including solids for breakfast)
S - 9.15-9.30 (usually sleeps for 1-1hr 15)

E- 10.15-10.30 (6-7oz formula)
A - 11 (including solids for lunch about 12)
S - 1.15-1.30 (usually sleeps for 1 -1 hr 30 with one resettle)

E- 2.30-3 (6-7oz formula)
A- 3.30 (including solids for supper about 4.30)

E - 5.30- 6 (depending on time of waking from last nap) -12oz formula
A - bath, story, song
S - 6 -6.30

Dream feed - 10.30 (6oz formula)

[Kellyjs]

Hi and welcome to BW.

Does he have a cat nap between the 1pm nap and BT or is he fully on 2 naps now? If so, that's quite a long A to BT but if he's not waking up in the early part of the night it could be such a stretch suits him.

I would look at stretching that first A too slightly but it might be that he prefers a shorter A in the morning if he likes a longer one in the afternoon iykwim? That nap does look a little UT so I would extend that first A by 15mins, hold for three days then maybe extending again.

NW's in the latter part of the night tend to signal UT, but tbh your total sleep looks ok unless you feel he's LSN (low sleep needs)? Also, how does he go to sleep? Would you consider him an independent sleeper?

Also, it's great he's doing well at the solids and he's taking a decent amount of milk too. Do remember that 'solids before one is just for fun' so if you do see a dramatic decrease in his milk intake, I'd scale the solids back. Milk has a higher calorie and nutritional value for them before one.

[chuckmum]

Thank you so much for your reply, it's so nice to have another opinion. Good point about his milk being his main nutrition.
He dropped his catnap a few weeks ago and it seems to have reduced the NW from two plus to just one and meant that he sleeps until 7am rather than 6am. I am conscious though that it is a long A before bed. We brought bedtime forward so that he's up for a maximum of 3.5 hours after his afternoon nap (we felt that starting the bedtime routine before 5.30 was too early) but he has been having a few wake ups early evening so it probably is too long for him. I will try to extend his first A and hopefully that will give us a bit more time at the end of the day.
Despite lots of hard work I wouldn't call him an independent sleeper. We do the wind down routine with a very short story, a couple of verses of twinkle twinkle and then hold him still for a minute to two and then put him down. He usually snuggles down and goes to sleep. If we put him down more awake he is head up and on his hands and knees and it's really difficult to get him to lie down and go to sleep.
He's started waking up 20minutes into each nap and bedtime which I think means he's overtired. He settles reasonably quickly with a hand on his back but if you leave him he just escalates. When you go in he's on his hands and knees rocking or on his back flailing (he's a tummy sleeper). I'm maybe pushing his A too quickly  so I'll maybe drop back slightly and then extend more gradually.
Any tips for helping him self soothe?

[Kellyjs]

I think you're doing brilliantly hun, you're watching for all the warning signs and have adapted to his needs.

It's very good to know that the NW's have reduced since cutting his CN. I'm actually thinking the 20mins wu might be slightly UT and the issue about him not being a totally independent sleeper. As he is spirited, your wind down routine looks perfect, I'd just look at putting him down before he hits the drowsy point. You might have to do this gradually so a minute earlier every couple of days. I think gradually extending the first A time will help with this anyway, as he'll be too tired to try to get up on his hands and knees.

Tbh, this is a tricky time for sleep as they do try to learn their new skills at nighttime and nap time, but it usually coincides with a need to push the A times slightly and this resolves it. As long as you give them plenty of time to practise during A times.

Once you extend the first A, you can knock off some of the A time before BT. I'd aim for 3hrs max last thing and see if those OT early NW's resolve.

Do you follow the wonder weeks at all? That has saved my sanity on more than one occasion!

[chuckmum]

Thanks!
I pushed him to nearly 3 hours A first thing and reduced his last A to just over 3 hours by the time he was in bed AND.......he slept from 6.15 until 5.50am!! Not counting our chickens yet but fingers tightly crossed. Hopefully I can continue to push bedtime back a bit so that he doesn't wake so early but for now that is a vast improvement 
The wonder weeks is great. Apparently there is a sunshine coming after what feels like months of storm clouds!
Thank you so much for your help xx

[Kellyjs]

My pleasure hun. I'm so glad we're out of the wonder weeks stuff now. Mind you, except for teething I can't blame NW's on anything anymore   

Pop back if you need to. There's a great link about shifting BT back that I'll post for you in a min x

How to Adjust to Daylight Savings it works in that you shift the entire routine slowly just like we do with daylight savings. Hth

[chuckmum]

Hi again,

Last week we had about 5 nights of nearly 12 hour sleeps (6.30pm to 6am) after lengthening his first A time  but unfortunately things have gone backwards again with several NW. He is desperate to chew on anything and is very snotty so I'm trying not to be too down heartened and hoping that we'll get back on track again when he stops teething and gets over his cold.

I have two further questions which I was wondering if you could help with.

Firstly - the dream feed. We have done this since he was 4m and in the last month or so have gradually been trying to reduce the volume and bring the time forward slightly. We now give 5oz at 10.15pm however the last 4 nights he has woken about 15-30 minutes before the dream feed is due. We don't know whether we should be settling him with pupd or just giving the dream feed early. Our worry with giving him it early is that we are essentially feeding him back to sleep. Although we gave it when he woke up last night and it took an hour to settle him back to sleep. He is not hungry for his morning milk (at 6.30am) and so I don't think he necessarily needs the calories. Do you think it would be worth trying to go cold turkey on the dream feed now? Or would it be better to move it forward to try to pre-empt the wake up by giving it earlier or settle him back down with pupd and they feed a bit later?

Secondly, we are trying really hard to improve his ability to be an independent sleeper but we are really struggling. As I said above he is spirited when it comes to sleep. We therefore put him in his sleeping bag, darken the room, read a very quick story (same one each time) and sing a couple of verses of twinkle twinkle. If we have got the timing right and he's not OT then he will then be very calm and after a couple of minutes of holding we put him down and he rolls on to his tummy, snuggles down and goes to sleep. We have been trying to reduce the length of time we hold him for at naps and bedtime but even if he is calm in your arms if you put him down too early he looks like he's going to snuggle down but is then head up, smiling and starts crawling around in his cot. It then takes a good amount of time to calm him down again (usually taking him out of the cot, calming him down in your arms and trying again). Any tips to help with this process or do you think we should just keep going and hopefully eventually he will learn? I know the aim is to be able to put him in his cot wide awake and leave him but I can't see him ever going from on his hands and knees playing, to settling himself down to sleep. During his NW he will play for a but but then start crying and need settling by hand on his back or pupd.

Any tips or advice is gratefully received. Many thanks,
Katy x

[Kellyjs]

Hi Katy, that's amazing news! Yep, those NW's definitely sound like teething I'm afraid, it's a case of riding that out. Ibuprofen works really well for teething.

Ah the dreamfeed, I went back and forth about this one when DD was 7/8mo. I did as you did and reduced the amount. It was only when she wasn't interested in her morning milk I knew I had to do something. I was so scared to drop it cold turkey but after a couple of glasses of wine and DH saying not to do it that night, it gave me the confidence to drop it! Never looked back. Personally I would give it a go and drop it and see what happens. You may find he'll wake slightly earlier in the morning for a little while, but that usually settles. Wdyt?

Wrt IS, it sounds like what you're doing is perfect. Spirited lo's need the extra time to settle down. If the NW's don't require you to rock back to sleep or anything too long winded, I'm thinking your wind down suits him for now. Again, reducing the time you hold him ever so slowly will help in the long run, even though there will be bumps in the road when they get more mobile etc. Don't doubt yourself hun, you are technically doing everything by the book! Let me know how it goes x

[chuckmum]

Thanks Kelly.
We were very brave and didn't do the dream feed last night! He woke up at 10.30, 11.30 and 12.45 but I managed to settle him back down with a hand. He then woke at 3.45 and I got him back with a bit of rocking. I decided that I wanted to settle him sooner rather than later as he tends to escalate and so some APop wasn't the end of the world. He then slept until 7am when he still wasn't desperate for his morning milk!
We will continue to persevere with the IS. When he wakes at 3/4am he just wants to play and so I'm realising that this has more to do with his daytime sleep rather than his ability to IS. I get the feeling he goes back to sleep when he's ready rather than anything I do to help him but likes a but of company while he's doing it so we need to work on that. Hopefully keeping him up longer in the morning will reduce the NW so it will be less of an issue.
Again thank you very much for your help and reassurance. I'll let you know how we get on!
Xx

[Kellyjs]

Well done you!! Brilliant! I'd try and keep a log of the NW's and see if there's any correlation between those and the daytime sleep as you said. A good week of logging and you can normally see a pattern. Pop back with the logs if you want any help x

[chuckmum]

Hi again.
We're struggling with NW again. I've kept a log for the past 5 days and we've had one good night (wed) but otherwise we've had some long NW and we are both exhausted. I know 5 days isn't really long enough to see a pattern but I would be grateful if you had any initial thoughts as to what to try.
He's pretty much on 2 hrs 50/55 min A but the length of naps is really varied. We usually to get him settled in bed 3 hours after his last nap but last night due to swimming his last map was late so we did a 2 hour A time before bed to see if that made any difference but we were up at 2.30am for 2 hours.
He was snotty at the beginning of the week but that has resolved and no teeth have appeared. We given him Calpol most nights and sometimes again during the night. He is learning to crawl and is now pulling himself up but we give him plenty of time to practice.
I'm really at a loss to know if he is OT or UT or maybe cumulatively OT? Do you think I should be extending his A time (he's now nearly 7.5 months) or trying to get him more daytime sleep? He gets tired after about 2hr 30 A time but goes down well (for a spirited baby!) after just under 3 hours of A time. He's always happy and smiley after his naps.

Mon
WU - 5.30
E - 6.30
A - 5.30 - 8.20
S - 8.20 - 11 (woke after 40 mins but resettled by holding/rocking)
E - 11
A - 11- 1.50
S - 1.50 - 3.30
E - 3.30
A - 3.30 - 6.30
E - 6
BT - 6.30
(No dream feed)
NW - 8.30, 10.30 - 11.30, 12.45, 3.45-4.15

Tues
WU - 7
E - 7
A - 7 - 9.50
S - 10-11.30
E - 11.30
A - 11.30 - 2.30
S - 2.30-3.45
E - 4
A - 3.45 - 6.45
E - 6
BT- 6.45

NW - 8.30 (snot!), 10.30-11.30, 4.15-5.45

Wed
WU - 7.10
E - 7.15
A - 7.10 - 10
S - 10 - 11
E - 11
A - 11 - 1.50
S - 1.50 - 2.20 ( 25 mins pupd - 3.30)
E - 3.30
A  3.30 - 6.30
E - 6
BT - 6.30

NW - 7.15, 10.30

Thurs
WU 6.45
E - 7
A - 6.45 - 9.40
S - 9.40 - 10.40
E - 11
A - 10.40 - 1.35
S - 1.35 - 2.40
E - 3
A - 2.40 - 6
E - 5.30
BT - 6

NW - 6.15-6.35, 10.30, 12 - 12.30, 2,30 (wet nappy) - 4, 5-5.30 (given 5oz milk)

Fri
WU 7.15 (woken up)
E - 7.30
A - 7.15 - 9.50 (earlier nap due to swimming)
S - 9.50 - 10.45
E - 10.45
A - 10.45 - 12.30
S - 12.30 - 1   (Fell asleep in car on way home from swimming)
A - 1 - 3.15
S - 3.15 - 4.10
E - 4.15
A - 4.10 - 6.20
E - 5.45
BT - 6.20

NW - 7.15, 1-3 (given Calpol and 5oz milk)

Sat
WU 6.10

I'll keep logging but am grateful for any initial thoughts xx

[Kellyjs]

I'm so sorry for the late reply hun, I completely missed your post. 

How's things going now? Nothing jumps out immediately to me wrt your routine if I'm honest. It may just be purely developmental with all the new skills he's learning. Ibuprofen tends to be better for teething rather than paracetamol so I would try that in future.

It is very interesting to see that the NW's were worse after a shorter A to BT. That day it looked like he had 3 naps if I'm right? I know one of them was short.. Hmmm. Generally they look like OT WU's after BT to me, but as that happened after only 2hrs A to BT, it can't be the case. I'm going to lean towards developmental issues in this case. Is he in a wonder week at all? Xx

[chuckmum]

Don't worry, thanks for your reply! We had a rubbish weekend with lots of long NW and early starts. On Sunday we decided he was completely OT due to losing a lot of sleep overnight and short naps and did one session of  pupd during his afternoon nap and he went back to sleep for another 1hr and 25 mins. We  then did a 2.5h A to BT and we had one wake up at 10.30 for 45 mins but then he slept until 6am.
The last couple of days I've been APoping a cat nap as he's had early and short afternoon naps. I can't settle him in his cot at this time so I've just been letting him sleep on me for about 30 mins. Last night we did BT about 2h 15 after wake from cat nap and had no NW at all!!
I know it's wrong to let him sleep on me but figure the extra sleep is better overall.
For the first time ever today he settled himself down to sleep from wriggling around his cot so fingers tightly crossed he's starting to learn to self soothe!
He has got a lot going on as he's just learnt to crawl and is now pulling himself up. Apparently we are in the sunshiny bit between leaps at the moment!
Fingers crossed for a few more good nights. I'll let you know how we get on and thanks again for your help.
Xx

[Kellyjs]

Fingers crossed for you hun. That might be a good thing to know about the shorter A to BT. I wouldn't worry about a bit of apop when they're OT. We all think it's best for them to catch up on sleep any way they can x

[chuckmum]

Aaaarrrgghhhh! It's all gone pear shaped again 
We had some really good nights last week with no NW at all. I really thought I had cracked it with a short A time until BT.  Unfortunately something unsettled him on Friday and he had a short morning nap and I was unable to settle him back down. We then seem to have spiralled in to OT with long NW and EMW.
I was hoping that a long morning nap yesterday morning with some APoping would sort him out but we really struggled to get him down for a late afternoon nap. He was still really tired when he woke up but despite starting bedtime half an hour later he was still really difficult to settle.

Here are our logs from last week but I am really struggling to see a pattern. We've been dosing him up with Calpol and Nurofen as he is desperate to chew but there are no signs of any teeth.

Sun
WU- 6.10
S - 8.55 - 10.45
S - started nap routine at 1.30, wriggled around cot with pupd couple of times then self settled at 2
Woke at 3 crying. Cuddle and singing went back to sleep until 4.25!
A - 4.30 - 7
BT - 7

NW - 10.30- 11.15

Mon
WU - 5.45 (stopped crying when in room so unable to do pupd, milk and tried to resettle but unable to - up at 6.45)
S - 8.55 - 9.55 (tried to resettle by pops/singing & rocking)
S - 1-1.30 (20 mins of pupd then rocking for further 25 mins sleep -2.15)
S - 4-4.30 (APop - rocked to sleep in my arms and slept on me)
BT - 6.40 but 7.15 by the time he settled

NW - none!!

Tues
WU 6.30
S - 9.20 - 10.50
S - 2-2.30 (in pram on way to sensory)
S - 4.20-4.50    (APop on me!)
BT - 6.50 (asleep by 7.15 after some controlled crying)

NW - none!!

Wed
WU - 6am
S - 9.05- 10.20
S - 1-3.10
BT - 6 (asleep by 6.15)

NW - 7.15, 11.30-1, 5-6.20

Thurs
WU - 7.30
S - 10.05 - 11.15
S - 2.15 - 4.15
BT - 6.15 (settled by 6.40)

NW - 7.20

Fri
WU - 6am
S - 9.05 - 9.35 (tried to resettle but screamed for 15 mins then gave milk and still not settling down)
S - 12.45 - 1.15 (car on the way home from swimming)
S- 3.10-3.30 settled on Pete until 4
BT - 6.15

NW - 9.15, 1-2.30 (given calpol and 6oz milk)

Sat
WU - 6.30
S - 9.30-10.30
S- 1.30 - 2.30 (tried to put down at 1.15 but took a while to settle)
S - 4,45 - 5.10    (APop on me with lots of rocking and singing)
BT - 6.50 but 7.30 by time settled

NW - 11, 3-5 (given 6oz milk and nurofen)

Sun
WU - 7.25
S - 10.30 - 11.20 (rocked and cuddled for 20 mins) then slept until 1.15
S - tried to out down at 4.15 but unable to settle despite rocking. 4.45-5.10
(Still very tired therefore started BT at 5.40)
BT - difficult to settle but asleep by 6.40

NW - 2-3.30

Mon
WU - 5.30
S - 8.40- 9.15 (resettled with 20 mins hand/pupd -

We are really struggling to know what to do with him during his long NW. We've used pupd in the past (not as religiously as we should have and some AP with rocking and singing has sneaked in) but now he is too heavy and we've had to drop his cot so pu is really hard on our backs. The nights that I have given him milk he's guzzled it but it doesn't seem to send him back to sleep unless he is ready to go anyway (usually after about 90mins) so I don't think he is hungry. He wriggles or gets frustrated with a firm hand on his back and if you leave him alone and sit with him he pulls himself up on the bars (but then can't lie back down). If you leave the room he screams instantly.

We have really trusted the BW techniques up to now but we are starting to lose faith as we don't know how to settle him which means we are usually up for 1.5-2 hours if he wakes in the night. We are seriously considering controlled crying as the gentle approach doesn't seem to be working.

As always, any advice will be gratefully received xx