Waking up during dreamfeed and staying awake for 1 hr

[freewheelnat]

Our baby girl is 19 weeks and she's been on EASY for 2 months now.  We have adapted her routine over time and she is now on 4 feeds a day + a dreamfeed, with her routine being a kind of 3.5 hours AEAS.

Here's a typical day this week:

A. 6.30 - 7.00: she wakes up at 6.30 pretty much on the dot, plays in crib, watches her mobile, then nappy change. I don't feed her at 6.30 because I live in hope that she will learn to start her day at 7 and not 6.30!
E. 7.00 - feed
A. 7.15 - 8.15: activity (fairly quiet activities, mostly in her high chair in kitchen watching me empty dishwasher, then on my lap while I eat my breakfast)
   8.15: start naptime routine
S. 8.30 - 10: sleep (1hr 30)
A. 10 - 10.30: active activity (gym etc)
E. 10.30: feed
A. 10.45 - 11.30: quieter activity + nappy change
   11.30: start naptime routine
S. 11.45 - 12.30: sleep (45 mins)
A. 12.30 - 1.45: walk to the park
E. 1.45: feed
A. 2.00 - 2.30: activity incl nappy change
   2.30: start routine
S. 2.45 - 3.30: sleep (45 mins)
A. 3.30 - 5.30: activity (tummy time, gym, a lot of holding and singing songs, also a lot of quieter times just holding her and rocking her as she looks out the window)
E. 5.30: feed
A. 5.45 - 6.15: quiet activity (holding her) + nappy change
    6.15: start routine
S. 6.30: asleep
We sometimes hear her waking up at 7.15 or 8 but she falls back asleep straight away.
E. 10: dreamfeed
She has always had a tendency to wake up during her dreamfeed - I would say she used to wake up for about a third of them - but until last week, she was always falling back asleep quickly (10-20 mins). However, this week, she's been awake for 1 hr each time, and twice for 1 hr 30 mins.
4 or 5 ish: wakes up, settles herself back to sleep (5 - 20 minutes)


As you can see, we have 2 issues:
- only one long nap
- long wake up during/after dreamfeed

Other than that, her sleep is good, she self settles for most of her naps within 5-10 minutes. She always takes naps in her crib, in a darkened room.

One thing I should say is I've gone back to work today and since Monday, we've had a nanny. However, the problem started a couple of days before we had the nanny, but having a nanny has made it trickier to solve so I'm hoping for some suggestions I can try this week-end (nanny is good and happy to follow routine but she's not in position yet to change routine as she's still getting used to it).

Other thing is she is teething - it's not too bad but she is a little fussier than usual.

[lauradj]

Hi there!  Sorry no one has answered your questions yet!  One thing I did notice is that her A times are inconsistent.  In the morning she's awake for 2 hrs but then it looks like she's awake for just under 2 hrs, then awake for almost 3 hrs and then awake for a full 3 hrs just before bed.  That's a lot to ask of your LO so late in the day.  My bet is that she's not tired enough when you're laying her down for her second and third nap and that's why you're only getting 45 minute naps.  She's likely waking up earlier in the evening because she's overtired from being awake for 3 hrs before bed. 
I would push for a consistent A time of 2hrs throughout the day and see if that provides longer day time naps. That should also shorten her day a bit and get rid of the OT wake ups that are happening earlier in the evening.  Something along these lines:

WU/E: 6:30am
A: 6:30 - 8:30
WU/E: 10am
A: 10-12pm
S: 12pm
WU/E: 1:30 (I'm assuming she'll start napping longer with more A time)
A: 1:30-3:30
S: 3:30 - 5:00
WU/E: 5pm
Start bath/bed time routine at 6pm with the aim to have her asleep by 6:30pm

HTH!

[freewheelnat]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I had reached the same conclusion and pushed her 2nd awake time to 2 hrs and we got two long naps (1.5 hours each) + a catnap (45 mins). The awake time before bed was longer (2 hrs 30) but her nighttime was much better, she fell back asleep quickly if she woke up during dreamfeed. This was at the week-end. During the week, it's been a bit mixed because I'm back at work so it's nanny looking after her during the day and I don't think she follows her cues well...

Today was particularly bad, as she's had only 3 short naps! So this evening, she took ages to fall asleep - put her in her crib at 6.30 but took 45 minutes for her to fall asleep as she was OT - she didn't cry, but a lot of banging her legs. So I'm a little worried about how she'll sleep tonight... Anyway, it's the week-end so I can work to put her back on a good nap schedule. It's difficult with a nanny to know exactly why naps are short, because I'm not there to see how nanny reacts to DD's sleep cues...

[lauradj]

Hmmmm, could you give the nanny set times for naps each day, based on when DD wakes in the morning?  That is a challenge because you can say, "I want this done" but she may react differently in the moment.  Could you ask her to write down what happens throughout the day, not telling her you want this done in a specific way but just that you'd like to know how the day shakes down?  It's not a judgement on her, you're just trying to find a solution together....?

[freewheelnat]

Yes, she writes logs, that's part of her duties (I actually put it in the contract!), but when I read the logs, I see a lot of DD being fussy/light crying during wind down, which, with me, only happens when she's been giving me sleep clues for 5/10 minutes before starting wind down.

Last week, I told her "expect to put her in her crib roughly 1 hr 50 minutes after she woke up but follow her cues", to aim for a 2 hours awake time, but the problem is wind down - so not sure if nanny is missing the cues or if DD behaves differently with her. My other thought was that DD may get tired more quickly with nanny as nanny is a louder person than me and she tends to want to entertain DD all the time with toys, whereas DD quite likes to just sit on my lap and look around her at her own pace.

This week, we have a temporary nanny as ours is on a pre-booked holiday. We had her on Friday too and she's a much more chilled person so I'll see if this makes a difference (our nanny is still on probation so I'm actually glad we have this opportunity to have one week with a different nanny).