What if baby doesn't cry but awake after 45mins, what to do?

[newbie_momsie]

Hello!

I am new to the BW forum and read both of Tracey's book for infants. We started to teach our baby to sleep at 5 weeks old and she is now 4 months old. She is a great sleeper most of the time and she is usually pretty good at falling asleep And back to sleep. We always swaddle her awake in the crib and she goes to sleep on her own.

I have 2 issues:
1. My baby is pretty happy baby who doesn't cry. She babbles a lot though especially to let us know she is awake with loud squeals and yelps. Sometimes she wakes up after the first 1 hr of her sleep (she usually naps for 100-120 mins) and wont fall back to sleep. What should I do? We don't do pu/pd cuz she isnt crying. We end up rock and pat until she gets drowsy again since leaving her alone to fall back to sleep doesnt work in these rare occasions. But i really prefer to fall back to sleep on her own and not make this a habit/prop.


2. we are on a 3.5 hr routine usually to keep her 6 feeds at 100ml per feed. I cant see how 4 hr routine would work because my bb will lose a feeding from 6 to 5 and there is no way i can get bb to consume more than 100 ml if i have to increase the amount to cover the one missing feeding. Is it ok to stay on the 3.5 hr routine as the book scared me about bb having sleep issues if bb doesnt move to a 4 hr routine.

Looking forward to some help! Thanks so much!

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

Your DD sounds lovely, so happy.
It may be that she is in need of an A (activity) time increase. An UT (under tired) baby can wake at the 45 mark and be unable to self settle back to sleep even if they have successfully done so for a long time.
Could you post your EAS times so we can have a look at her routine?  Like this (post the actual times whatever they are, rather than what you hope for)
WU 7.00
E 7.00
A 1hr
S 8.00-8.45
E 9.45
A 1hr 30
S 10.15 - 11.00
...and so on through the day. Don't worry if the order is not EAS, it may be more like EASAEAS if she is short napping for example. That's fine.

WRT the 4hr routine. There are babies who cannot manage to move to a 4hr E at 4 months, Tracy mentions this in one of her books. It is possible to increase her A time and move towards a sleep pattern which looks like the 4hr routine but keeping E times more like 3 or 3.5 if that's what you need. The EASY may look a bit messy but it will suit your LO.  A LO would get sleep issues (from not moving to the 4hr EASY) if their A time was left too short rather than because they are eating at 3.5hrs.  We can help you work this out.
My own DS could not go beyond 3hr E until he was 6 months old when he took to solids in a big way and the solids naturally extended his milk E times without any reduction in how much milk he took across the day.

Hope this helps some. We'll have a look at your routine when you are ready to post it

[newbie_momsie]

Thanks so much for your quick reply! Truly appreciate it!

Our 3.5 hr routine looks like this:

E/WU  5:30AM
A  1.5 HRS
S  1.5-2HRS
E  9:00AM
A  1.5 HRS
S  1.5-2 HRS
E  12:30PM
A  1.5 HRS
S  2:00PM
E  4:00PM
A  1.5 HRS
S  5:30PM
E /BEDTIME  7:30PM
Dreamfeed  between 10-11PM

If we extend the A time 30 mins the routine will be 4 hrs and baby will lose a feeding. Her little tummy won't eat more to make up for tbe loss feeding. She will refuse the bottle If we try to get her to eat more. She eats 100 ml breast milk 6 times a day. She can't eat 120 ml 5 times a day. The extra 20 ml per feeding is too much for her.

I think she can do a longer A time but I dont want to reduce her feeding to 5 times a day since she cant consume more milk. This is my dilemma

Also, today she woke after 1 hr nap with an escalating whimper. These are rare occasions and pu/pd wpuld make her more upset. So I helped soothed her by holding, patting and rocking in tge chair until she was drowsy. I put her back in the crib and her eyes opened but she fell back to sleep on her own for almost 1 hr. Because she knows how to fall back to sleep that was the reason I held and soothed her. She just needed a bit of reassurance. This is ok right? I wouldnt turn into a prop because she usually falls asleep on her own, right?

[creations]

She just needed a bit of reassurance. This is ok right? I wouldnt turn into a prop because she usually falls asleep on her own, right?

This is wonderful
My LO has been able to self settle since under 10wks old but there are still many many times he has needed help just like you gave to your DD. Through illness, teething, developmental leaps, routine changes (like when an A time increase is needed), all sorts of things.  Responding to your baby's needs is exactly what BW is about   The great thing is that as soon as they can possibly return to independent sleep, they generally do on their own or with minimal help.

I'm not seeing the 45 mins or short naps on your EASY so it is difficult to suggest exactly where or how much of an A increase is needed, so some general guidance.  If A time increases from 1hr 30 to 1hr 45 and E stays at 3.5hrs then your day might look something like this:

WU 5.30
E 5.30
A 1hr 45
S 7.15 - 8.45/9.00
E 9.00
A 1hr 45
S 10.45 - 12.15/12.30
E 12.30
A 1hr 45
S 2.15 - 3.45/4.00
E 4.00
A 1hr 45
S 5.45 - 6.30
A BT routine/bath
E 7.00/7.30
BT 7.30
DF 10-11

Still 6 feeds.  Naps capped at 1hr30 - 1hr 45 rather than 2 hrs to maintain the routine, especially the 3.5hr E
You may also find there is a possibility of a cluster feed in the evening, for example E after the CN then again at BT (top up), this may be more the case if/when her A time needs another increase so you may be able to go for the 2hr nap.
As I said, my LO was on 3hr E until 6 months, it is possible.  Some people drop in a top up feed before a nap if needed (we didn't) as the A and S times extend with E staying shorter. This is actually quite common for an older baby when the routine is not really EAS anymore simply because of the times extending (fewer naps but more E times due to solids E and milk E times) and from 6 months (or older) many see the milk E times extend to 5hrs too.

The 1hr nap WU you describe sound UT to me, although she didn't wake at the sleep cycle transition she likely couldn't get into a deep sleep because she was no tired enough. If you increase the first A time by 15 mins (low key activity to delay the nap) you should see an improvement in a few days or so.  Some LOs like each A time to be a slightly different length. We could look again at your routine with the exact S times if you think this might be the case.

What do you think of the guidance routine?
Does it sound doable to you?

[newbie_momsie]

Thank you for your reply, creations!

I didn't indicate where the 45-60 min nap wakings are in the routine because it can happen during any of the S times. She only occasionally wakes up.

Yes! I can try to follow the EASY routine you suggested above. I can give it a try! It was a bit challenging to follow today because she woke at 5am and was already rubbing her eyes several times by 6am so I put her to sleep. She woke up after 2.5 hrs of napping. I fed her around 8:45am and after 1 hr she was rubbing her eyes a lot so I put her down at 9:55am and she napped for 1.5 hrs. Not sure why she is so tired today as last night she ate at 730pm, had a bath and was in her crib by 830pm.

I will work on activity time to be 1 hr 45 mins so long as she doesnt show sleepy cues. So hard to keep her nap time under 2 hrs as sometimes she wants to sleep more especially when she wakes up after 45-60 mins and whimpers so i go in to soothe her and she falls back to sleep. When she falls back to sleep she can sometimes sleep more than another hour! Should i wake her if she is still sleeping past the 1 hr 45 min mark or keep letting her sleep a little longer? I notice when I wake her before she is ready she will be kind of groggy and less alert during A time and show sleepy cues earlier.

Thanks sooooo much for your help. I am so grateful for it!

[newbie_momsie]

Sorry, one more question about your suggested EASY. How come you suggest Activity time at 6:30 pm and tgen Eat at 7pm? Why not let her nap until 7pm and then eat? Just wondering why she needs Activity time before she eats at 7pm.

Thanks for clarifying!

[creations]

If she's sleeping well with 1hr 30 A time then I would continue with that, it's just that you said she was waking at 45-60min which would indicate a slightly longer A time is needed. A times can increase quite rapidly at this point and the danger is that if you stay too short the naps get short and LO gets OT which can effect night sleep too.
You know her best though so with the information you have and knowing you can fit the feeds and the longer A time in you will be able to judge where to go from here.

Is 5 - 5.30am her usually WU time? It sounds like she hadn't finished her night sleep if she was tired again so quickly.  One cause of EW is the first nap coming too early which becomes a sort of extension of the night sleep. You might want to tackle this by teaching her to sleep later in the morning.  If she needs a feed at that time you can feed as you would a NF in dim light, no chat etc, straight back into bed and let her sleep until a more reasonable WU time.

Should i wake her if she is still sleeping past the 1 hr 45 min mark or keep letting her sleep a little longer?

It really is your call. You were concerned about fitting in her feeds so in that sense waking her is the only option. However I wouldn't have woken mine, a hungry baby will wake for food, they are pretty good at telling you they are hungry.  A tired baby will likely choose to continue to sleep a bit longer, even past a feed time, because they know they can get the food when they wake up.

How come you suggest Activity time at 6:30 pm and tgen Eat at 7pm? Why not let her nap until 7pm and then eat? Just wondering why she needs Activity time before she eats at 7pm.

The last nap is a CN, shorter than a full nap. It is intended to just tide LO over so they can make it through the bed time routine and have enough energy to take a feed and get through to BT without becoming OT.
If that nap continues to 7pm you either only have 30 mins before BT or BT moves later.  Her night is pretty short already, making it shorter could perpetuate the EW as LOs who are OT can EW.  My DS always did short nights but even then it was 10.5 - 11hrs, not only 10 which your LO is doing. That is a short night.
In other circumstances I might have suggested the 5.45pm nap becomes instead BT giving her a 12 hr night but you were asking for a routine which allowed for 5 day time feeds plus a DF so I didn't suggest this.

hope that helps. Do ask again if anything is unclear.

[newbie_momsie]

Hi creations!

Thank you for clarifying! You are so wonderful and helpful. I really appreciate your help SO MUCH!

For the entire month of April so far so wakes up by 530am every day. In March she was on a medication which required waking her in the middle of the night for it so her wake up time varied.

We bathe her every 3 days instead of every day because her skin is very dry. So we can definitely try to do other low key activities during A time before bed on non-bath days. So this means even though she is napping, I will need to go wake her up? Just for this particular A time before the 7pm feeding?

Thank you!

[newbie_momsie]

One more question,

This morning baby was put right back to sleep after 530am feeding. She will likely wake in 2 hrs so she will wake up before her next feeding. Should I just do A time until the next feeding and the rest of the day will be more like AEAS?

[creations]

Hi. I think these sample routines may help you to see what others have done at this age. There is a 3.5 and a 4hr EASY with 5 day feeds (not all of them have recorded the DF but that is the 6th feed).
chronological EASY samples, 4-6 months

There's only an hour between the CN and BT anyway so I would imagine most of it is taken up with a top and tail (I also didn't bathe mine, he hated it), nappy change, pjs, snuggles,eating and wind down for sleep. The time just rushes by doesn't it.

As you have treated the 5.30 WU as a NF/NW then I would offer the the first E at morning WU. This lets her know that there is always going to be the offer of food at morning WU time. It is different as it is 'day' and the lights are on. She may not take a full feed, that's ok. If you continue with your EAS records/logs you may begin to see a pattern (or we can help) as to whether the 5.30 feed would be better as a smaller feed to encourage a full feed at WU (say 7.30am) or something else.  The day then will set out on an EAS routine as usual.
As she is waking later today you will need to alter the routine times to accommodate this.  I suggest writing it out so you know when to begin WD for nap.

Hope you have a nice day

[newbie_momsie]

Thank you again!

What does NF/NW and WD stand for?

From your suggestions I will try the following:

1. I can try A time before bed time to extend morning wake up time to 6am or later.

2. If that doesnt work and she still wakes up at 530am and not appear tired then I will treat 530am as the first E of the day.

3. If she shows sleepy cues soon after the feed at 530am  then I will put her back to sleep and offer smaller feed 2 hrs later when she wakes and start EAS as usual.

Great to have a plan! thank you!

[creations]

NF = night feed
NW = night wake (same thing really but a NW isn't always a feed)
WD = wind down for sleep

This may help you settle in
Site Acronyms/Abbreviations - What they are, and what they mean.
It's in the 'welcome please visit here first' section if you need to find it again at a later date

[newbie_momsie]

Thank you!

I will check out the link you gave me!

[creations]

No problem
Always feel free to post, whatever your question, there will always be a response to help you out even if it's just to find the acronyms/abbreviations link again

[newbie_momsie]

Hi Creations,

Today DD woke up after napping for 1 hr but wasn't crying. She was wide awake and had 30 mins left in her S time. I left her in her crib until it is the next E time. What should I do as I know you said to extend A time so she won't be under tired, however she rubbed her eyes a few time after being awake for 1 hr 30 mins and probably couldn't make it to staying awake for the total 1 hr 45mins so I put her to nap. Then she woke up 1 hr later but not crying.

Should I had still extended her A time despite seeing sleepy cues?

TIA!