Author Topic: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?  (Read 5444 times)

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Offline Kellyjs

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2016, 19:28:56 pm »
Yay to the rolling! It's so much fun isn't it?  ;D. Totally fine to keep the post here if you'd like?

We have to get a bit creative with the feeding times around now when the A time lengthens. It's very usual to have an EAEASY around now. A top up feed 15ins before her nap should help her not to wake from hunger. I would just concentrate on not feeding to sleep which wil be difficult as you're lengthening the A times, then just do a quick A before nap.

So very jealous of your sunshine.. wind and rain here  >:( xx



Offline vthatcher

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #16 on: February 06, 2016, 21:59:55 pm »
Aha! The top up makes sense to me and it is what I would do when I was leaving her to nap at my mom's house so she wouldn't wake up hungry.  Well, today she took a 40 minute morning nap and then I tried to do Pu/PD until her feed time which was sort of messed up because I let her nurse and sleep this morning as I was soo tired from yesterday.  And currently as I write I have successfully gotten her past the 45 minute mark by just doing NOTHING!  She started cranky crying and fussing a bit at the 40 minute mark but I just ignored her and she got quiet again and then she fussed on and off for about 10 minutes or so but now she seems like she is fully back asleep again!! Which leads me to the though that I think it's probably time to move her to her crib because it does seem a bit cramped in her co-sleeper these days! Boohoo now I will actually have to get out of bed to soothe or nurse her!

So I shouldn't tell you that I'm currently sitting in a tshirt and shorts and it's about 70 degrees F right now? ;-) Here wind and rain is an exciting novelty!

Offline Kellyjs

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2016, 07:38:33 am »
I'd totally be up for a swap!! Might be a cold sunny day here today which is much better than yesterday, I hate being housebound with a crazy toddler  :P. Apparently it's 45f here today (had to google that from Celsius  :P). Basically freezing!

Yay to the longer nap! When I moved DD it wasn't as bad as I first thought. I think I was actually responding to her too quickly when she was in my room. When she was further away you do use more of tracy's method in that you wake up and listen before you actually get out of bed to see if they need you. Keep me posted xx

 



Offline vthatcher

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2016, 21:30:09 pm »
Well, she napped like a dream in her crib yesterday-2 two hour naps...BUT her nights have been awful again! She is still in the bassinet by our bed since she's been waking up so much but she falls asleep like a dream around 7/730 and stays asleep until I come in to do the DF when she actually wakes completely up right before I pick her up.  After that she starts waking up every 2-3 hours throughout the night fussing and moaning and crying and waving her arms in the air.  Sometimes I can get her back to sleep by holding her hands down or rolling her on her side or tummy but twice last night she was up for almost an hour crying and fussing...it seems like she would almost fall asleep and then I would lay back down and she would start fussing again-this carried on until she finally just started wailing until I fed her because it had been 3.5-4 hours since her last feed.  So for the last 2 nights she's been up from around 1:30/2 for half hour or 45 minutes until I feed her and then around 5ish until 6am until I give up and feed her again. I'm sure this is AP and I should just tough it out but I'm so tired!  Should I be doing PU/PD from the start or trying the Pat on the back, holding hands down, etc first? I feel like she fusses for so long she eventually gets hungry and then starts really crying.  This has happened quite a bit since we unswaddled her and put her in one of those sleep sacks and since she started rolling so I'm not sure if that's what's going on or if it's the fact that I recently started eating dairy again.  I was off dairy for the last 6 months because it made her super gassy and poopy when she was a bitty baby.  The other thing I thought it might be is that the bassinet is getting too small for her and so she's feeling cramped when she tries to roll over.
So many things going on...so many questions!

Offline Kellyjs

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2016, 07:56:23 am »
Yay to the longer naps. Is the CN still there with the longer naps?

I wouldn't worry about her waking fr the DF my bubba always did. I actually like the routine of it, and think she appreciated it too knowing she would be fed. One thing I will say is that it is worth burping them if they do wake for the DF. I know Tracy says you don't have to, but that's when they are taking an actual DF and not awake. I found DD settled much better if I winded her.

I would check for teething as well as it could well be discomfort. It could well be the dairy unfortunately  too especially as she's so unsettled after the DF. Rolling over can create havoc with sleep too until they learn to roll back again, it's just one of those things we can to wait out. Dyt you could try the winding after the DF and cutting back on the dairy again to see if tat makes a difference? Also, keep a note of the day and night sleep for me and we'll see if there's a pattern between less day sleep and better night sleep or vice versa xx



Offline vthatcher

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2016, 00:55:33 am »
Ugh having such a hard time cutting the dairy now that I put it back in! She didn't sleep much during the day yesterday and still woke up a ton.  She seems to prefer being on her tummy because every time she wakes up at night she is on her back with her arms flailing in the air and often will go back to sleep if I roll her onto her side or tummy.  Although during her naps she will often sleep her whole nap on her back with her arms behind her head so I don't know what is going on.  I can say that when we put her down for her nap we use one of those Velcro swaddleMe things but with her arms out and at bedtime I've been putting her in a Sleep Sack so perhaps the SwaddleMe keeps her from rolling as much?  Last night when she woke up around 1:30am after her DF she just kept moaning and fussing and seemed uncomfortable. She would seemingly fall back asleep after I put her on her side or tummy and put pressure on her back and tummy, but then maybe a couple minutes later she would be at it again and would have rolled onto her back.  She did this for half an hour until she was full on crying and I decided to just feed her whereupon she fell back asleep until 5:30am where I fed her again and then she fell back asleep until around 6:30am when she woke for the day.  She did pass gas a couple of times but still fussed afterward so not sure if it was gas causing her discomfort or teething.  I may try giving her some Tylenol before bed or at her DF but she isn't fussing during the day at all about gas or teething so not sure why she fusses so much at night. Ugh my hubby and I are both so tired right now! This is worse then when she was a newborn because at least then I could just feed her and go back to sleep but now I'm so wary of training her to expect food every time!

Offline Kellyjs

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #21 on: February 16, 2016, 07:40:53 am »
You're doing everything right hun, These bubbas just like to keep us on our toes! Just keep me posted and if you wanted to let me know the last day or so easy we can take a peek and see if anything stands out xx



Offline vthatcher

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #22 on: February 22, 2016, 21:59:37 pm »
Thank you for all your help! All actually seems to be going pretty well these days...the one question I have is this...she has been waking up about 3-3.5 hours after her DF at night-so anywhere between 1:15 and 1:45am.  She cries some and I do PU/PD until she seems to start settling back into sleep but then she starts just fussing and doing these little moans and cries and she rolls around her crib or rubs her face in the mattress. This goes on and on and on and eventually she will start getting louder and there will be some sharp short cries interspersed in the moans and fussing.  I've tried putting my hand on her back, holding her hands down, keeping her from rolling, sticking my finger in her mouth(she gnaws on it like crazy when I do this) and eventually after 30m min to an hour of her fussing and moaning and occasionally going quiet and tricking us into thinking she's fallen back asleep only to start all over again, I will eventually feed her whereupon she takes a full feed from both sides and then falls asleep until morning around 630 or 7.  My hubby would like me to just feed her right away because he has to work in the morning and cant fall asleep with her fussing and crying while I try to sleep train her.  Do you think this would be ok or should I be trying to get her back to sleep on her own without feeding her at first? I've yet to get her to do that actually-last night I tried for almost an hour. She isn't really full on crying-just fussing like she's uncomfortable. I gave her Tylenol at her DF last night thinking maybe she's teething but she still woke up.
Also, one last question-I still have her taking 3 naps a day albeit 2 short ones of about an hour then a longer one of 1.5 hours in the afternoon because of having to pick up my son from school. It seems to work for us but would that be messing her up at all?  She sometimes is only up for 2hrs and 15 minutes in between but goes to sleep easily on her own and stays asleep until I wake her up.

Offline *Ali*

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #23 on: February 23, 2016, 23:19:26 pm »
I do think she sounds genuinely hungry and a DF and NF is well within the normal range at this age. So I would just feed and hope she sleeps until morning.
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011


Offline Kellyjs

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2016, 07:12:39 am »
I'm so sorry I've been so, so busy as of late, please accept my apologies. How's it going now? Thanks Ali for jumping in xx



Offline vthatcher

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #25 on: February 26, 2016, 17:38:14 pm »
Thanks ladies! WEll we've had one tough night where she woke up several times a night and one great night(last night) where after her DF she slept all the way until 4:20ish this morning and went back to sleep after eating until 7am! wooowoo! So, I'm hoping the off nights are just from teething pain(she has been extra fussy during the day) or she didn't eat enough during the day.
Kellyjs you have been amazing and thank you for talking me through this and thanks Ali for the last reply as well! Wish I could bake you gals cookies or something! ;-)

Offline *Ali*

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Re: 5 month old waking before dreamfeed every night! Hungry or habit?
« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2016, 23:01:55 pm »
FX the good nights become more frequent.
I love cookies!
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011