Waking up right after bedtime, and then all night long

[Elauriel]

I have another post going, but I have to break this question out because hubby is at his breaking point. After my 7 month old goes to sleep he wakes up about 20 minutes later. Then 40 minutes later. Then 20 minutes later. This repeats until we go to bed and I nurse him around 10-11PM. Then he's fidgety and falls asleep until 2ish when I nurse him again, and then he nurses again around 5ish. He started waking all night long at 4 months, so we cosleep on the floor so I can get some rest and keep the house quiet so my 4 year old can sleep. Our day is pretty good. He has time for good naps but usually wakes once every naptime. I do rock him to sleep. I can't imagine that this would make him wake up all night long, though. Here's our normal day:

Up 6:30
9:30 Nap
10:10 Up, back down until 11
11 Up
2 Nap
3:30 Up
6:30 Bedtime
6:50 Up
7:30 Up
8:30 Up
9:30 Up
10:30 Up, feed
2ish Feed
5ish Feed

He will occasionally wake up and comfort nurse for a minute and then fall back asleep, but that's becoming less common (hooray). Sometimes he takes a 1.5 hour nap without waking. If he takes a broken nap I try to put him down 10 minutes earlier the next time. Today he took a 1.5 hour nap but woke up once and was rocked back to sleep. I put him to bed 20 minutes earlier and he's already been up 3 times. Hubby is ready to snap (although it's me that deals with the baby all day and all night *eyeroll*). Seriously, though, evenings are pretty crappy.

[becj86]

I do rock him to sleep. I can't imagine that this would make him wake up all night long, though.

It can. At this age, they've very in tune with how they fell asleep and if they wake (which everyone does, we adults just don't notice it as much because we've learned to roll over and go back to sleep) they are often wide awake and quite noisy as something's changed from when they fell asleep. This is part of why we suggest working on independent sleep.

Other things that can cause NWs in the early evening:
- overtiredness - routine looks ok though I will say that first A time could do with a small increase of 10-15mins if he's consistently waking after 40mins as that's classically UT. I'd probably not reduce A times if he's had a broken nap. I'd reduce by the amounts you mentioned if he'd slept 30-45mins and not gone back to sleep but if he resettles reasonably quickly and sleeps a full nap, I'd count that as a full nap and crack on with a full A time.
- overstimulation - this is common with families where DH arrives home at 5:30-6pm, sometimes with older siblings and the whole dynamic of the house changes and they want to play with the baby and make him smile and laugh, etc. Very difficult to change but an explanation, perhaps.

[Elauriel]

Thanks for your response! I figured the rocking to sleep would cause him to not be able to resettle when he does wake up, but I didn't think it would cause him to wake up. A few nights he's woken up twice, most nights it's like 4-6 times, and I don't know what I did differently those nights. We do have to work on the rocking to sleep and were going at it really well until teeth/sickness hit. My problem is I run a business from home so nap time is the only time I have to work on my very busy shop, so I've been very selfish and just put him down the fastest way possible. This week son 1 is home from school so I can't get any work done anyways, so we plan to work on the rocking to sleep part.

I did a few searches and read some posts from other people. He is beyond stimulated when he goes to bed!! We never did a wind down routine with son 1 because it didn't matter to him, so I just never started doing one with son 2. He is literally sitting at the dinner table at 5:50 shoving food in his mouth while son 1 runs around yelling, and then dad walks in and says hi and throws him in the air a few times and I run him upstairs, feed him and rock him to sleep starting at 6:05. It's honestly crazy now that I think of it, haha. It never really occurred to me (even though every book tells you not to do that).

We'll work with bedtime (because I do think he's overtired) and I'll try to do a long, calm wind down routine. And see how that works. Thanks!!

[becj86]

I figured the rocking to sleep would cause him to not be able to resettle when he does wake up, but I didn't think it would cause him to wake up.

Well, you're only going to notice the times he wakes and can't resettle, right? Thing is, if he stirs and all is well, he'll go back to sleep if he knows how to. If not, he'll wake fully, yk?

Hope the WD helps, keep us posted