9 month old early waking and DF-please help!

[Annie34]

Hi,

I have posted on here before but feel a little lost off with my daughter's routine.

At around 5/6 months she started sleeping right through until 7am but since then has gradually started waking earlier and now always wakes between 4.30/5am where I feed her and she usually goes back to sleep until 7ish.

We still give her a feed at 10.30pm and she takes a bottle of formula and usually takes a full 7oz! I wanted to drop this feed but it seems like she still needs it?

Usually she goes down for her first nap after 2.20-2.5 hrs awake time and sleep length is hit and miss each day, her second nap i put her down after 2.75 hrs activity and she usually drops off around 3 HR mark and again this is hit and miss. Yesterday though she slept for 30 mins until 10.30am and then I out her down at 2.75 activity mark and she slept for 2 hrs in the afternoon.

We have only recently transitioned to 2 naps as although I think bedtime can sometimes be a stretch-from 3pm until bed at 6.30, she was fighting this last nap.

Do you think I just need to increase awake times and hat would help, and do I need to gradually phase out the dream feed?

Many thanks in advance!

[anna*]

She's under-tired hun, needs a boost in A times. Look here: Average A times- BOOKMARK ME! at 9 months most need a good 3.5 or even 4 hrs A time to get a decent nap.

For the dream feed, you can go a couple of ways: first, you can stop waking her for it and just see when she wakes. Then you can start diluting her milk more, so keeping the same amount of water but fewer scoops of powder, and see if she stops waking for it. Or, you can bring it earlier by 20 mins every few nights until it is at like 9pm, and then just drop it and settling her using shush-pat or PUPD when she wakes.

[Annie34]

Thanks Anna! She's way off the mark then with activity times isn't she?! She's 9 months next Thursday but I should be aiming for these activity times now?

From your experience does the first awake time and second one, tend to be the same length or is the first one shorter?

We wake her for the feed at 10.30 and sometimes when I've let her sleep through, when she's been impossible to wake, she wakes at 2am starving (or acting like it!). She doesn't tend to stir and is usually difficult to wake at that time, I think we'll do what you say and bring it forward by 20 mins for a few nights and see what happens. Would you still advise waking fully for this feed or trying it as a 'dreamfeed'?

Thanks again

[anna*]

Yeh, way off
You wouldn't jump all the way to 4hrs A in one go, extend it by 15 mins every few days and see how she goes.

If you do an earlier dreamfeed and even after she has extended her A times is still waking early for a feed, I'd consider just letting her sleep and then feeding when she wakes. So she'd only be feeding once at night instead of twice. Once she's on an age appropriate routine, if she's still waking for a feed later, the dreamfeed isn't really serving a purpose, yk? It's only worth keeping if it does actually mean she sleeps through.

[Annie34]

Thank you and that makes sense-just one last question (I think!), should I continue to feed her at 5am while she is stills waking?

I worry that if I try to get her off this then she will just wake and kick off at 5am and then that's our day totally out of routine.

Thanks

[anna*]

Personally since my first EWer I have had a morbid fear of 5am so speaking for myself I would always feed back to sleep at that time if it works. In fact with my second I actually did a 4-5am 'dream feed' until she was about 15 months old just to secure that lovely 7am wake up (would rather be up for a short feed at 5am than up for the day at5.30am).

[Annie34]

Thanks, yes usually the 4/5am feed works and she goes back down until we tend to have to wake her to keep her on track.

Thanks for your advice and fingers crossed!