Author Topic: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!  (Read 1398 times)

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Offline MommaIzzi

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Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« on: July 01, 2015, 14:31:57 pm »
Our LO is 11 weeks today, and she had been doing great over the last month since I started EASY at 7ish weeks.  Prior to the issues we've been having, she would go down at about 9:15 (bedtime ritual started at 8), and would wake once briefly to eat around 3ish, and would immediately go back down until 6:30am or so.  She tended to be a very noisy sleeper since birth, particularly in that 3 - 6:30am zone, but it wasn't terrible and I could tune it out (she sleeps bedside).

We moved overseas two weeks ago, and I fully expected there to be a bit of a sleep regression.  She had a couple of rough nights in the beginning, but we stuck to the schedule and before we knew it, she was sleeping through the night from 7pm to 5am, with no wakings!  Since the new location is in one time zone over, we kept the bedtime the same, although it was now 7pm here (i.e. her body still thought it was 8pm).  I did this because I noticed it was getting trickier and trickier to time that last catnap of the day with bedtime, and so this just sort of merged that last catnap with bedtime.  So now, we start bedtime routine around 6:30pm and she's down at 7:15 (and she's super tired by then).  She often pops up at 8:30pm, and I use this opportunity to top her up (I exclusively BF), and she goes right back down.  Her naps are very consistent -- she takes a 45 minute nap, then a 2.5 - 3 hour nap, then a 1 hour nap, and finally a 50-ish minute nap (four naps a day).  She's awake about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1.5 hours between each nap, and goes down very easily for each nap.

So here is the issue: in the last week, every single night, she goes down great but then is up around 1am AND WON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP.  If I put her down after a feeding, she starts to kick and thrash and grunt like crazy.  She looks very uncomfortable, arching her back and kicking madly.  It's so strange, because she goes down for all of her naps and for bedtime beautifully, with almost no soothing necessary.  We swaddle, put on the noise machine, give her a pacifier, dim the lights, set her down, and walk away...and she puts herself to sleep 95% of the time.  But at 1am, it's a whole different story. She is just a little fiend, and the pat-shush has absolutely no effect.  If I pick her up, she may arch her back a couple of times, but she eventually will quiet down and fall deep asleep in my arms.  The second I put her down in her bassinet, it starts all over again.  I've tried both keeping the environment super calm and quiet for the feeding, and also changing her diaper/clearing her nasal passages with a bulb syringe, just in case she's uncomfortable from one of those issues.  Neither has any effect.  I end up awake with her, rocking, patting, shushing, for about two hours from 1 - 3am every night, until she finally falls back asleep (and she will still grunt in her sleep from there on out, but she's calmer).  Then, she's up for good at 5am or so.  I am just wrecked with exhaustion. 

My husband thinks we need to move her bedtime back to 9pm or so, and give her a 5th nap in the evening (i.e. unmerge bedtime and her last catnap).  He also thinks we should move her into her own room and just let her grunt it out on her own, once I've fed her and changed her to make sure she's fine (this doesn't feel right to me at all).  I'm hesitant to change anything when she was so recently sleeping AWESOME, wondering if I should just grit my teeth and get through whatever wonder week/growth spurt/adjustment to the new location might be causing this.  Suggestions are very much welcome!! 

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2015, 14:50:48 pm »
Hi I'm sure this is solve able :) I'm not sure from your list how her day goes in terms of A times, can you post your whole EASY?

Does she have reflux?

Offline MommaIzzi

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2015, 15:22:38 pm »
She has trouble spacing out her feedings to three hours, so I admit I've been nursing on demand during the day.  She's probably going about 1.5 - 2.5 hours between feedings.  She nurses for about five minutes per session.  Just a note, our new living location is at 8500 feet above sea level, so I've been letting her nurse more frequently in part to keep her hydrated, as dehydration is  common side effect of the altitude transition.  I've been logging everything, so here was yesterday:

5:30am: Wake and eat, back to sleep at 6:00am (usually in bed with me, as I'm too tired to do shush/pat in her bassinet)
7:15am: Wake, maybe a very quick feed (two minutes, just a snack), activity
8:15am: Eat, diaper change, swaddle and begin nap routine
8:30am: Nap (45 min - 1 hour)
9:30am: Eat, playtime
10:45am: Nap (2.5 - 3 hours)
1:30pm: Eat, playtime
2:45pm: Nap (1 - 1.5 hours)
3:45pm: Eat, playtime
5pm: Nap (30-50 minutes)
5:45pm: Eat, playtime
6:30pm: Bathtime, book, cuddles
7pm: Eat
7:15pm: Bedtime
8:30pm: "Dream Feed" - she wakes up around then (I go to bed around 10pm)
1am: Wake, eat...up until about 3am
3a - 5:30am: Restless sleep

Our nap routine is to turn on the noise machine, swaddle, turn off the lights, about 30 seconds of rocking and cuddles, and then put her down.  She falls asleep on her own 95% of the time.  If she doesn't, I go in and pat her belly and shush for about 10 minutes.  As a last resort (if she is getting super agitated), I nurse her for a minute and put her right back down.  That always sends her out completely (except at 3am). This routine works like gold for every nap.  At bedtime, we do a bath, a massage, read a story, then nurse.  I hand her to dad, who swaddles and rocks her for a few minutes, before putting her down.  She goes down easily.

Thank you so much!

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2015, 17:50:39 pm »
No problem with nursing on demand, it can take some creative thinking with planning a routine but many breastfeeding experts nowadays would recommend demand feeding as being the best way to ensure that supply meets demand for a growing and changing baby.  We do like to think that Tracy would have updated her books to reflect this updated research had she still been with us :)

So am I right that her A time is about 1h15 right now?  That sounds about right for an average baby of her age......however given you have such a long awake period overnight that may be something we need to look at.  I believe Tracy also thought that long naps of over 2h could potentially steal from night sleep.  So with that in mind, how about slowly trying to stretch her first A time out (5-10 mins extra, then hold for a good few days to observe before changing anything again) and try to get to a first nap of 1.5h or so.  Then if you get to a point that's working well, stretch the second A as well.  This may mean rather than 45 and 3h you end up with two more evenly matched naps.  Then again for third A and keep the 4th nap to a short catnap only.  I wouldn't be adding in extra naps at this age, you'd be looking at dropping to 3 within the next couple of weeks to a month anyway.

So with 1.5h A time:

WU 7.15
Nap 8.45-10.15
Nap 11.45-13.15
Nap 14.45-16.15
Either skip CN and bring BT to 18.45 temporarily until A times increase
Or CN 17.30/45ish for 20-30 mins and temporarily later BT of say 19.45
(Obviously this is just an example, you could for instance let naps go up to 2h as that's what you're aiming for on a 4h EASY once you get there and just wake from 3rd nap if needed to preserve bedtime)

Then once on 2h A time
WU 7.15
Nap 9.15-11.15
Nap 13.15-15.15
CN between 17.15 and 18.15 (30-45 mins)
BT 19.15/45

I think overall you may need just slightly more awake time and a bit less daytime sleep and hopefully that will solve it :). Small changes though at this age rather than big leaps x

Offline MommaIzzi

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2015, 14:34:58 pm »
Thank you so much for the advice!  By coincidence, her two afternoon naps yesterday were seriously truncated, so she got about an hour less daytime sleep than usual.  And she slept from 7pm until 3am with no waking!  It's hard to draw any conclusions from just one night, but that in and of itself is awesome.  It still took me an hour to get her back to sleep after her 3am feeding, but I tried to stay patient through three 20-minute rounds of pat-shush.  She'll calm down while I'm patting, and I'll keep doing it for 15-20 minutes to make sure she's truly asleep, but she wakes up 30 seconds after I stop touching her.  So frustrating! But compared to what we have been doing, this is an improvement. I'm going to work on giving her more awake time during the day today, and not allowing her naps to go past 2 hours, and hopefully the trend will continue.  I really appreciate your reply, and especially the reassurance that it's okay to be nursing her on demand.  Thank you!

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2015, 14:45:43 pm »
No problem let us know how you get on. It might also help you to post over on the breastfeeding board (if you want to) to see how other EBF mummies worked their routine around shorter feed intervals :)

Offline MommaIzzi

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2015, 12:56:03 pm »
Just wanted to let you know that it's been five days, and she's slept 10-11 hours STRAIGHT, every night, without a peep, since I started cutting back on daytime sleep.  It is magical.  THANK YOU!

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Baby Won't Go Down After Night Feeding -- Sleep Rages!
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2015, 17:52:15 pm »
Brilliant!