3.5 mo waking soon after bedtime

[soph259]

Hi,

my little 14 week old used to sleep 7-7 with a feed around 4am. The past couple of weeks she has been more unsettled and now seems to need 2 feeds overnight. If I catch her for a dream feed then then that will count as 1 feed and she just wakes around 3am for the second. However, the past few nights she has started waking 1-2 hours after being put down for the night and takes a while to settle back to sleep so I don't know if she is settled enough by the time dream feed times comes around so I have been skipping this, which means the extra 2 night wakings on top of the initial one. Her awake times have increased a lot during this time too so come evening, it is quite awkward to get her in bed around 7 due to the timing of her last nap and she ends up being awake a bit longer for the last A.

Her EASY for the past few days looks roughly like:

awake 7.15
E: 7.30
A: 7.45
S: 9.10 (1.5-2.5h)
E: 11.00
A: 11.20
S: 1.10 (usually 45min, occasionally 1.5h)
E: 2.00
A: 2.20
S: erratic - between 3.30 and 4.30 and only 30-45min
E: 4.30-5.00
A: 5.00 (play + bath)
E: 6:30
S: 6:45-7:15 (bedtime)

try to do a dreamfeed at 10pm to eradicate the midnight feed so she will go through to 3am.

Any tips on how to manage that last nap better, could this be causing the waking after bedtime?

[weaver]

Waking in the early part of the evening is generally caused by OT. And looks like there are two tweaks that might help

The CN usually falls later in the day - for us it was always around 5, so I would try pushing that later, maybe put it at 4.30? And let her have 40 mins but not much more.  A time to bed is probably a bit too long for her right now.

Is she waking up particularly on those days when she's have a short nap for her second nap (you say it's sometimes 45 mins, sometimes 1.5 hrs)?  I'd keep an eye on what's happening with that nap because the 45 mins nap probably indicates that she could do with a bit more A time, looks like some days she needs some more A to get a longer nap there, and some days it is just right, when she does a 1.5 hr nap.  So have a look at what's happening there and see if you can encourage her towards more consistency in longer naps.  If you're adding on some A time, just add 10 mins and stick with the new time for a few days.  And pushing the CN later in the day may encourage better sleep at that time too.

If you're doing a DF, then I would try to stick with that whatever else is happening.  Perfectly normal to have a DF and a NF at this age.

[soph259]

Yes I think what throws everything out is that short nap in the middle of the day. I don't know how to extend it, she wakes up pretty happy from it so wake to sleep doesn't really work because she doesn't need settling. I guess I could give her longer than 2 hours awake time but feel that is excessive for a baby her age and she is dead on her feet by 2 hours most days anyway.

I also cannot get a handle on her A times. It's frustrating because to get good naps I think she needs around 1:45-2:00 hours, however if she is in the pram or car then I can barely keep her awake even by making very very loud noises at 1:15-1:30 after her last nap.