Waking at 5am - save my sanity!!

[Coralp]

Please help.

Last couple of weeks my 5 month old has started waking between 4 and 5 am ready to party!! I can't shush pat as she sees it as an invitation to play so I leave her to self settle, chatting in her cot with occasional sleep reminders (turn on tummy, pat back and say 'it,s night nights time' and leave the room. She gets grumpy after about an hour when I try shush out and PU/pd when needed. More often than not this lasts until 6:30 when I give up and take her downstairs ready for 7am feed.

My eldest was on EASY and was sleeping through from 18 weeks so I understand the need for routine but most of the time she's just dragged along after her big Sister (no 2 days are the same) so instead I try to get 1-2 hours sleep between each 4 hourly feed with no more than 2 hours awake time. Still, one nap always never happens due to being out or her refusing to sleep.

Yesterday's timings

4:30 awake chatting, sleep reminders
5:30 grumpy, shush pat and PU/pd until
6:30 bring downstairs
7:00 bf
8:00 bed 8:10 asleep
9:50 awake
10:00 8oz bottle
11:20 bed, chatting, one sleep reminder, then crying, PU/pd once, 12:30 bought down (I was out for this, hubby dealt with)
13:00 bed. Shush pat and PU/pd, occasional quiet periods but no real sleep
14:45 downstairs, 8oz bottle
15:05 bed, 15:15 asleep 2 brief wake ups but self settles straight away
16:50 I wake her up
17:15 'cluster' bf
18:15 bath and massage
18:35 8oz bottle
18:50 bed, 19:05 asleep
1:10 awake, shush pat, asleep by 1:30
4:40 awake chatting, sleep reminders
5:30, grumpy shush pat, PU/pd, almost goes, wakes herself up straight away
6:30 go downstairs
7:00 bf

These early wake ups are ruining our days as we can't plan around her naps (which she only takes in a city as she's a tummy sleeper.  What can I do?? These constant battles are starting to affect our bond.

Thank you in advance!

Coral

[Coralp]

I thought I'd add another's days timings.....

So, from the end of my last posts timings....

7am BF
08:20 bed (asleep by 08:30)
10:00 woke up naturally
11:00 8oz bottle
11:20 bed (asleep by 11:40)
14:15 I woke her up
15:00 8 oz bottle
(At my Dad's birthday celebration, didn't even try and put her down as far too noisy)
18:30 'cluster' BF
18:45 bath, massage
19:10 8oz bottle
19:30 bed and straight to sleep
00:30 awake, chatting, tried a couple of sleep reminders
01:15 grumpy tried shush/pat and PU/pd. Occasionally left the room if she went back to chatty until crying again
02:45 finally managed to shush/pat to sleep
06:00 awake, managed to shush pat back to sleep by 6:10
07:00 awake and bf

Not sure if that helps at all!

I really don't want to be shush patting to sleep during the night as she settles so well the rest of the time but she gets to overtired during her 2-2.5 hours of messing around she doesn't seem able to sleep....

Am I doing too many things with s/p PU/pd sleep reminders, leaving the room......

Anyway, any help would be gratefully received, the lack of sleep is affecting us all!!

Best regards

Coral

[Martini~]

Honey its seems that her routine is really a bit messy and probably it makes her nights so rough for both of you. In general, A times at that age should go towards 2:30, rather than 2:00 hours, and daytime sleep probably shouldn't be more than 3-3.5h. With such a problem with early wakings, I would probably work on:
- too early a first nap - if you want a wakeup at 7am, I would go for first nap arounf 9:30; putting him down at 8 only reinforces his problem with EWU
- too long last A - it can couse OT, which is also one of the reason for bad nights and waking earlier.
In general if you push the first nap later, the second one also will be later, and you will be able to get him down at 7pm after much shorter A.

Does it sounds doable?

[Coralp]

Thank you for the reply!

On a day when she doesn't wake up (and stay awake) from 5/5:30 and I wake her at 7, I normally put her down at 9, any later and she gets overtired and I only get a 45 min nap out of her, at 9 I get 2 hours and I wake her at 11 for a feed. I will extend this first A time but I want to do it gradually over a couple of weeks as we've only JUST resolved she short nap issue.

I realise there are a few scheduling issues that I'm working on but at the min I'm desperate to sort out the 'extended night time waking' problem. She WAS waking at 4-5 for 2 and a half hours, now she wakes around midnight. I've managed to get her to go back to sleep after an hour and a half but this is still killing me!! She wakes happy and is chatting, so I've been leaving her to settle herself. After about 45 mins/an hour she gets grumpy and too tired to settle herself so I go in and shush pat to sleep which takes 30-45 mins. Am I doing this right? Should I be going in during her happy period? Should I avoid shush pat so not to get her into bad habits? If you could suggest a step by step plan to reduce this wake up time I'd appreciate it, I'm constantly second guessing myself rather than being consistent!

Thank you!

[creations]

Hi there I popped over here as I saw your other thread about the night waking.

I realise you have a night or weekend coming up where DH and DD are out of the house so you want to tackle the NWs but honestly this is not something you can 'get done' in a night.  As you have said her day time routine is inconsistent and you are often out for family engagements meaning no two days are the same. When there is such unpredictability LO can't really settle into any day time routine or night time routine. The best advice I can offer is to be fully sympathetic regarding her difficulty to sleep and offer your all for her. I know you must be utterly exhausted from broken sleep but the 'fix' for these NWs is to attend to *all* her sleep needs, that means day time sleep needs consistency.

When my DS was young I had 2 non-movable appointments in the week, as his A times and sleep routine altered with age these appointments ended up being at totally the wrong time for him, but as I said they were unmovable so I had to work around it.
Whilst our routine was non-standard it was almost totally predictable.  Yes we had hard times (from 3.5 to 5.5 months I was struggling with 4 or 5 40min naps per day for example) but overall I found ways to offer a consistent routine.  It seems to me this is also what you could consider, to find a predictable routine which fits within the 'no 2 days are the same' commitments of the rest of the family. It may involve some compromise but this is what families do isn't it?
For DS I committed to his first nap of the day, this would be 'protected' if you like, and no matter what baby groups or invites I had from other mums, family etc, I just said "Thanks for the invite, this doesn't fit with what we need to do, perhaps another time", I did my best to protect that nap even when making doctor appointments etc, not *always* possible but 99% of the time.
I wonder if you looked at your non-movable appointments across the week you might find a way to offer predictable naps for your LO every day even if the routine ended up looking non-standard?
It's possible to move to (almost) set nap times to keep the day more predictable and to fit in with the family commitments, I worked A times for the first nap of the day (gradually extending as needed) but for nap 2 and 3 (especially 3) it became a set time to fit a 40 min CN in before out appointment and another nap directly afterwards (regardless of A time, because this A time was considerably shorter than the first A of the day but it was coming off the back of a CN not a full nap and also needed to fit in before BT).  It also meant for mine learning to fall to sleep within 2 mins of being in the car at his set time, that in itself caused me difficulty as he then wouldn't nap at home in his cot for those naps (habit) but as I say it was about compromise and dedicating certain things for LO to enable LO to fit in with the rest of the family.

Just looking at the times of your EASY, your LO is going up to 5hrs between sleep at times, and yet other times after a long nap you try to put her down at only 1hr 20 A time.  Honestly this range of A times would effect any LOs night sleep - it isn't because you are doing something wrong in the middle of the night, quite the opposite, it looks like you are responding well at night, waiting to see if she self settles, going in to shush/pat or reassure when she is calling for attention, this is really all you can do, and keep doing, until such time she has predictable day sleep which will help her relax fully and sleep better at night.

[Coralp]

Thank you for the reply.

I am in the process of currently moving/cancelling all of my elder daughters morning classes, as well as trying to change her pre school, to try and create a schedule where Emily will always at least get her morning nap in. I was thinking if she then had a couple of shorter naps later in the day around classes/pre school pick ups, at least she would have one good sleep a day.

I keep hearing that for her age she should be having an A time of 2:15/2.30, but to be honest, if I keep her up beyond 1:45 (asleep after 2:00) she becomes an overtired nightmare. And that's after her nights sleep, as the day goes on, she has to be back in bed within 1:30!!!

I realise there is no one night 'fix' to the nighttime issues, I sleep trained my eldest, but I know that the first night is often the worst so getting through that without worrying about my eldest, then another 2-3 nights of hubby not having work the next day, it seems like the ideal chance to start something.  If you think I am doing the correct thing of leaving her alone while chatting then patting her to sleep once she gets grumpy, then I'll carry on with that until her days get sorted enough that she no longer wakes.

As an example, this morning she woke at 06:25, I fed her a bottle at 7, did the pre school/station drop offs, changed an explosive nappy and had to put her down at 8:20 (asleep by 08:30). She woke at 10:40, bottle at 11:05, rushed to get her weighed, they were short staffed so didn't make it back until 12. She was rubbing her eyes and grumpy so I put her down straight away and it took an hour and 30 mins to get her to sleep!! She was that overtired! And she woke up after 40 mins! All after being awake for an hour and 20 mins!!!! Unless I stay in the house all day I'm constantly at risk of her getting overtired and it affecting her nighttime sleeps. On an average day she gets 3-4 hours napping in which *should* be enough for her age. I know they're not at set times but this should be enough to help with the nighttime wakings surely?? Or should I be aiming for nearer 5 hours?

Thank you for your help, sleep training a 2nd child is so much harder than your 1st!!

[creations]

I keep hearing that for her age she should be having an A time of 2:15/2.30, but to be honest, if I keep her up beyond 1:45 (asleep after 2:00) she becomes an overtired nightmare.

It is often easier for a person to see things from a distance, outside the situation.  I have posted for routine times when my DS was young only to have it pointed out to me that times were not as I had imagined.
The EASYs you posted show 3.5 and 4hr A times followed by a good nap. During that time you have tried to get her to sleep and failed. This was following night sleep, so the first A of the day, an enormous 3.5-4hrs and she napped well.
Your EASY also shows you trying to put her down to sleep after 1hr 30 A time following a good morning nap, she refuses, the result is you ditch the nap and go for more A time, you try again after another 1hr 40 A time and again this attempt is ditched as she won't sleep, a further 2hrs on she naps for just over 1.5hrs and you wake her to allow for A time and BT, that is a total of 5hr+ A time between naps although it will likely feel shorter to her because much of it is in a dark room being shush/patted so it is very low key A time.
I think what may be happening is that she is getting grumpy which you are interpreting as sleepy cues, eye rubbing and yawns can often mean boredom at this age where as when younger it is a sign of needing to nap.  At 5 months when she rubs her eyes and starts complaining it's more likely she needs a change of scene or activity.  The nap resistance in my opinion is not OT but UT, and the example you give above she had 1hr 20 A time before you tried to put her down for nap, because she was travelling to and from the baby weigh she had some stimulation of a trip out but perhaps not much in the way of physical activity (floor time) as you had to travel with her, she was likely rubbing eyes and grumpy because she needed a stretch and a play.  It took 1hr 30 to get her to sleep, total now is 2hr 50 A time and she takes a typical UT nap of 40 mins, one sleep cycle, she is not stimulated or tired enough to transition into another cycle.  Whilst the A time lengthens due to taking a long time for her to fall asleep she has not been getting stimulation in that time, she is in a restful environment being told to sleep which is not going to tire her out the same as being in a bright room with a toy or two or having a kick around on the floor or having a story picture book read to her.
The jump in A times between 4 and 6 months is rapid, faster than most of us are ready for.  I really think your LO is ready for a much longer A than she is getting, more stimulation (ie being up and about rather than in her bedroom for long periods trying to get her to sleep), and will likely sleep much better in the day and night too.  It is exhausting trying to get an UT baby to sleep and putting in all that hard work only for them to wake 40 min or if you're lucky 1.5hr later when you have not had enough time to recharge your own energy.  I really do think you can move directly to a more age appropriate A time and find she will nap better, take less time to put down.  If you feel scared about the longer A times try to consider those 3.5, 4 and 5hr+ A times she has been getting in the EASYs above.