8mo ongoing NWs

[Rak10]

Hi

I posted in General Sleep Issues forum 5 days ago but didn’t get a reply yet.

I put lots of info in that post. We’ve had NWs & short naps always. Now as 2nd nap is getting longer EMW is creeping in as the once 11.5-12h night ends up 10.5h or less.

Routine:
WU 0645 but past 2 weeks 6.40, 6.20, 6.05 now 5.55 this week creeping earlier
E 0800 solids
A 3h15
E 1000 b/feed
S 10-10.45 = 45m 1sleep cycle wakes happy
E 1230 solids
A 3h15
E 1345 b/feed
S 14.00-15.00 usually 1 sleep cycle can be tired soon after waking
E 1600 may b/feed
E 1700 solids
E 1845 feed
A 4hrs+ if nap 45 mins
S 1900 bed

Then NW around 1230 every night.  Resettle by picking up. Past few nights has gone 9hrs til n/feed & may feed once again around 0530 to try to get lo to stay asleep

Night sleep was good only around 4 months going 7-8hrs then another 3. Maybe 4m sleep regression hit then had virus colds & now just wakes. Usually doesn’t cry but is happy to be awake warbling away getting louder unable to self settle, gets worse the longer you leave him. Think 1 n/feed would be enough most nights.
In cot in same room as one of us as we are up so many times, ends up in bed with me by morning to keep quiet feeding but now isn’t hungry just happy to be awake.

Are awake times ok for age? They are all quite long now as he is refusing CN. Not convinced NWs are OT as he was having 3 naps & no different.
He self settled so quickly at the mo at BT.  I can’t always leave him to be noisy as it wakes DD1.
Any ideas on NWs would be much appreciated, it feels like we are stuck in this cycle.

[becj86]

Hi
Sorry you haven't had a reply as yet.

WU 0645 but past 2 weeks 6.40, 6.20, 6.05 now 5.55 this week creeping earlier

Great that you noticed this trend, this is classic of a need to increase that first A time, as is the 45min length of the nap and the long happy warbling NW in the early hours of the morning. At this age, ideally there'd be one longer nap of ~1.5hr+ and a catnap, so maybe increase by 15min every 3-4 days until you get a long nap that sticks around then work on the next A time.

I wonder if he's unable to resettle himself at night because he's not going to sleep independently - looks like you're feeding him to sleep for naps. I think he's maybe self-settling so quickly at BT because he's crashing after the longest A time following two short naps.

[NattysMom]

Hello,

I totally agree with becj86, increase that first Awake time!

Mine was doing 3-3.25h at 7mo and by 9mo we were at almost 4h In the morning.  Our AT would Be longest in the morning and get shorter (3h) closer to BT. The AT before BT seems quite long. We had 40-45m short naps for so long. Once I realized that I needed to increase the morning AT the first nap finally got longer. I preferred the longer morning nap and afternoon catnap but if the first nap didn’t go long enough sometimes the second nap would be longer. Also the BF before nap probably makes him really sleepy when he really isn’t. It’s hard when your AT and E time is so close.

Night wakings...mines 11mo and we’re still working on night weaning however it’s taken extra long due to sicknesses. Mine for sure was wanting the nurse but not hungry, she’d suck for 10 secs and be back to sleep! But she could self settle some of the time. I think it was just becoming a habit. If she wakes up and it’s been less than 7-8hrs I don’t feed. I just held her while she cried and offered water. The first night it took 2 hours. Second night was faster and after that only 5 mins. If she wakes up again, even if only an hour later and doesn’t settle easily I nurse. Once I reduced the night feedings she ate so much better during the day. Now she only wakes once which is so much better than 3! I totally understand the bringing to bed with you! After waking up so many times it’s just so much easier to be half asleep while they chat away! Hopefully he’s sleepier with an adjusted daytime.

Good luck. 😊

[Rak10]

Hi becj86 & NattysMom

Thank you both for your super quick & helpful replies, very much appreciated.
I’ll work on pushing out 1st awake to try to get one longer nap. With DD1 I ended up cutting back 1st nap to lengthen 2nd. I guess it doesn’t matter which as long as one is longer than 45m.

Becj86 in your 2nd para you sum up the situation precisely! I feed pre a nap & he is so drowsy when put down & yes, exhausted by bt. It’s a bit of a vicious circle when I try to feed him anywhere other than a quite dark bedroom & he is hugely distracted & won’t feed well. If I sorted the NWs ideally i’d Feed soon after waking. He is rapidly dropping feeds, seems to prefer solids.

NattysMom you are right that the feed pre naps makes him super sleepy. Would you feed after naps? Hard to fit it all in! That’s good progress to have 1 NF at 11 months. I have relied on nfs to resettle at night whereas now he doesn’t need many feeds he just thinks it’s play time when I try! I send my OH in for the early NWs like 1230 so we go 7 even 9hrs til the 1st feed but it all deteriorated from there, lots of bad habits to work on! I wouldn’t let him cry & he disturbs DD1 esp in the early morning. I’ll work on awake time & perhaps change a feed to try self settling in the day as I don’t plan to feed perhaps beyond a year.

Thanks again for your help & sharing experiences!

[becj86]

I'd probably try feeding still in his room when he just wakes and see if that helps. Sometimes with LOs who get distracted while having milk, it can be good to do a topup - in your case, you could probably offer milk as a drink with solids. Just some suggestions if you want to move away from feeding just before sleep.

[Rak10]

Thanks for these ideas which I will try as I’ve just about ended up with 3 feeds pre naps/bt + night feeds 2 maybe 3 to resettle around 5am so am keen to break up this pattern.

[Rak10]

Hi again

As an update when I pushed out the 1st nap it’s nicely dealt with EMW & while he may wake at 5.30 he will go back to sleep again. It’s also cut out the hours of night warblings/ no more cot party. We get 11.5-12 hr nights. 

We did get a few longer naps but not consistently. Then they tailed off & for the past week back to 40min naps, 2 a day evenly spaced out. He is tired & definitely needs 1 longer but has never consolidated naps just now & again.

The past few days we’ve had 30m OT naps as he is stretched so much. I can’t resettle him.

This is quite typical:

Wu 6.30
A 3 & 3/4hrs
S 10.15- 11.00
A 3.5 hrs
S 2.30 - 3.15
A 3.5 hrs
S 6.45

A few times I’ve done a baby grp & stretched 1st awake to 4h / 4h30 & often got a longer nap, again not always.

At 8.5 months should I push 1st awake more? He’s quite tired after 3.5hrs esp as we always get various NWs.

The hardest NW ( for us) is around 12.30. My  OH usually resettles him. It’s slightly improved and we’ve gone a few times from 6.45 bt to 1am or 2am, the past few nights wake ups all evening but I suspect teeth. Then I’ll feed 2 times. I don’t think he needs it. It seems quite habitual after he’s had a good block of sleep that he wakes.

I am mixing up feeds before & after naps mostly, he prefers solids.

Nap wise I’ll feed him then always pick him up & shhhh ‘time to sleep’ put him down. He is so sleepy it’s remains a prop. We can hold him for a short spell to get him to sleep if he isn’t fed eg my OH. I’ve tried 5-6 times to put him down awake & he can’t self settle. He messes around in the cot warbling away for 10, 20, 30 mins as long as I’ve left him. When I go in he will grin overexcited completely OT. So I don’t see how I can do PU/PD for naps as he doesn’t cry just thinks it’s a funny game.

So I guess he isn’t self settling for naps still & they have always been too short which might cause the ongoing NWs. We are surviving thanks only to increased awake times. Any more advice on what I could work on or try next would be really appreciated.

[becj86]

I am mixing up feeds before & after naps mostly, he prefers solids.

Sorry, I haven't read through properly and will do later today if I can. Just this leaps out at me - how much milk is he having during the day?

[Rak10]

Hi

Feeds before both naps. Maybe after both. Also bed time then 2-3 in the night. He is nearly impossible to feed anywhere now apart from dark room as so distracted. He loves his food. He used to go 5.6 once 9 hrs before feeds in the night. I am sure he is not hungry & he’s 10kg.
The past 5 nights he’s woken every 2.5hrs!

Thanks x

[becj86]

At this age, milk really should still be his main sustenance - its much higher in calories than the solids he'd be eating. What volume of milk is he having or are you BFing?

Being 10kg doesn't make him any more or less likely to be hungry than a 7kg baby of the same age.

If he's going from 6:45 BT to 12:30 first waking, I'd just feed and get back to bed. I'd also try to get milk into him first thing when he wakes in the morning, after each nap and at BT as a minimum, with milk as a drink at mealtimes. That will help get lots of calories into him in the day.

Here's a link with info re: why LOs wake in the night:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52878.0

I can't get past breastfeeding to sleep as a prop causing your short naps and your frequent NWs to be honest. I think that working on independent sleep is going to be the way forward for your family.

[Rak10]

Thank you for your quick & honest reply.

He is EBF & I can’t stomach expressing this time so have done all the feeds. I was planning on a year so might introduce formula in the day as I did with DD1, he could have it with meals too. On reflection I think he has dropped too many feeds since introducing solids.

I know we’ve reached a point where I need to break the feed to sleep cycle. I just don’t know how. Our plan is to move the feeds around & do some holding to calm pre sleep then PU/PD. Could I try with naps & bt & early NWs or do I need to be consistent as he will need at least 1 night feed.

Is there any likely timescale for improvement like 1 week or 10 days or just stick at it?

Thanks again for your advice

[becj86]

He may well need a couple of night feeds until he's consistently moved his calories back to daytime.

There are a few ways to wean feed to sleep. None are easy or quick. Consider that for his entire life, this is how he's gone to sleep. Depending upon his temperament, it will take around a week probably before you see improvement, then just as you think you've succeeded, he will probably regress (babies are little scientists, experimenting to see if this new world order is here to stay) and the key is to be consistent through the regression with the same methods you used for training in the first place and you'll be through that in 2-3 days usually. Things will still go off the rails occasionally with development but should be smoother within a fortnight to a month.

Here's a link with some information re: gentle removal of breast feeding to sleep: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0

Here is a link to "teaching sleep to babies over 6 months": https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85498.0

Our plan is to move the feeds around & do some holding to calm pre sleep then PU/PD. Could I try with naps & bt & early NWs or do I need to be consistent as he will need at least 1 night feed.

This is certainly a reasonable plan, made by sensible parents who know their baby best. You can try shush/pat before PUPD - PUPD is a method of last resort when shush/pat or a suitable variant has been used for at least 2 weeks with NO improvement. It can necessitate more night feeds as it takes a lot of energy for LO. WRT night feeds, I would suggest deciding before you go in at each NW whether you will feed or not. Feed immediately and get back to bed if you're going to feed. If you're not, don't feed until he's fallen asleep. This is incredibly hard but it will mean he has less reason to keep protesting and will learn faster that if mum doesn't feed straight away, he won't be fed and might as well sleep. I'd base feeding or not decision on two things:
1. Has it been 4hr since last feed? If yes, feed. - This timeframe you can increase for the long stretch of sleep as you get further through the process.
2. Can I stick at it? If you are exhausted and think you may well feed if he's awake still after 30mins, 1hr, 2hr, just feed - that is how you are most likely to be consistent.
When I did this with my DS, he was older than your DS and we'd fallen slowly into more NFs than I care to remember and he screamed for 3hr. He is an extremely persistent spirited child though. It only happened once and we did wean the NFs (he was >1yr old). I say this not to discourage, but to say I've been there, its tough and can be emotionally draining in the moment. That's why I say the "Can I stick at it" caveat to your decision re: whether to feed or not.

I'm happy to hold your hand as you go through this process. I think your routine is reasonable and everything else is in place so it should go relatively well.

[Rak10]

Thank you so much for this much detail. I’ve just re-read it & had a long conversation with OH to talk strategy.

Interestingly last night OH settled him to sleep and did so tonight very easily, I fed earlier before change, books, song etc. Also today for both naps I fed before then he settled within minutes me holding him. I only got 30m then 47m so he is probably falling asleep easily due to exhaustion. But tonight is the first night in about 5 that he hasn’t woken after the 1st sleep cycle or for a few hours yet.

With DD1 I followed BW so carefully but would get upset if things didn’t go the way I wanted. That said she is a super sleeper. With DS1 he had such bad wind I didn’t put him down for the 1st 14 weeks & DD1 was so jealous, but I am still disappointed we have fallen into such bad habits. All everyone says is how tired he looks. Getting him to transition from 1 sleep cycle to the next for naps will be the challenge. Unlike DD1 He has an easy going temperament hence we’ve got away with him being this tired all the time.

We can split the night and try it over the weekend and see how things go. I can’t stand him crying plus the main concern is he will wake DD1 but I think he may respond well to shh/pat as he likes being on his side and it stops the arm flapping.

Thanks for the on-going support. The advice from the Health Visitor was that he is having a growth spurt hence feeding so much at night. I don’t think it’s that simple! I’ll read the links and about shh/pat again and do anything but feed to sleep with a view to slowly getting him to self settle, and post some updates. So far so good this evening! X

[becj86]

Every baby is different, you do your best by each one you're given, that's all they can ask of you.

Great that OH can get him off to sleep so easily, that's a nice gentle way to get him used to a new routine without feeding to sleep.

Hope all is going swimmingly for your family

[Rak10]

Hi again

It’s been a week since I stopped feeding to sleep. Not as bad as I expected as we had a good routine and the awake times are ok. I started holding him and have moved to putting him down on his side calm and doing shh/pat, so we are getting there even if he isn’t entirely self settling, it never takes long.

NWs have improved! 1st night no better, most nights waking around 1am and I feed as it’s been long enough if the previous feed was around 6pm. One 11pm wake but easily resettled til 3am. OH will do the 1st part of the night then I take over after the 1st feed when I think I need to tackle another wake.

This is quite usual:
6pm feed
6.30-7 bt
1am bfeed one side settles immediately
3.30am wakes always after 2.5hrs, feed other side
5.15am wakes B’feed to resettle then wu 6.10 or 6.30

So it would be good to knock out the middle feed or is that reasonable? One night I tried and he was awake for 2hrs not crying just awake. Even if I left it 30min he would be very awake.

Naps.
Initially the naps stayed at 40mins. Then I tried wake to sleep at exactly 30min for 1st nap and have been getting naps of 2h, 2h20, 1h30 the past few days. He is waking happy not crying, it’s amazing! Do I need to do wake to sleep every time or could he get the hang of the longer nap himself?

So, some good progress, probably some more could be made x