7m/o frequent night wakings.

[MiniNs]

Reading through your earlier posts on this thread my first thought was that he sounds hungry when he won't settle later in the night. I'd definitely try feeding when he wakes. Most babies are having night feeds at this age. Even if they've slept without nfs before, growth spurts, developmental leaps or a particularly active day can mean they need feeding at night again.

How is his solids intake? Could any food be cause discomfort or gas do you think?

You see, I was told by 7-8months he should be looking to drop the nightfeed AND dream feed, which is why they’ve been stressing me out so much!

His solids intake is good - he’s a big boy and enjoys his food. He’s struggled with gas in the past, when we first started weaning, but my gut instinct is that it’s not bothering him currently.

[*Ali*]

It's the biological norm for nannies to eat little and often including through the night. Society often pushes for longer stretches of sleep but it's actually health for babies to wake to eat at night.  It's this frequent rousing that's thought contribute to reduced risk of SIDS.

[MiniNs]

So yesterday’s EASY ended up as:

WU 6:00
S: 9:00-11:00
S: 14:30-15:45
BT: 18:35 (had aimed for 18:45 but everything ran a little early)

I decided to try without a DF, as he doesn’t always want it and I think I’m just disturbing his sleep. I decided that if he woke up and wouldn’t resettle/woke frequently within a certain timeframe then I would night feed instead.

NWs:
21:30 (resettled quickly with ssh Pat)
23:00 (resettled quickly with ssh Pat)
4:45 ( considered a feed here but wasn’t sure if it was almost just too late/would reinforce EW? He also resettled pretty quickly with ssh pat)
5:30 -  (took a little longer with ssh Pat, but I was aware he was now probably hungry and wanted to keep him going until 6 if possible)
5:50 - unable to resettle, even with APOP so we got up at 5:55 and he had his bottle at 6:00

Does this mean that he probably still needs a DF, even though he doesn’t drink it very well anymore/still wakes frequently and sometimes EWs when he *does* have one.
I’ll give it a couple more nights and see if the same pattern happens I guess.

[MiniNs]

I think this thread has petered out but just wanted to post and day we are still struggling.

Last couple of nights he’s been waking every 1-2hours again and has stopped self settling for most naps - particularly the afternoon one.

He has started with a cold and a really sniffly Nose in the last 48hrs but things were bad before that anyway.

Our approx current EASY is

WU 6:00-6:15
S: 9:00/9:15 - 10:30 (sometimes 11:00 but that is less often now)
S: 13:30-14:45
^^^ this is where we struggle, I have tried pushing the nap to 14:00 and sometimes can get to 13:45 but in those cases he often wakes after 45mins. I do resettle but often he wakes again after 30mins or so and this pattern repeats until 15:15 at the latest, because I think by then he is also hungry.
BT: 18:15

[newkidontheblock]

Hey. I'm so sorry for disappearing. Had a lot going on. So I just looked at your last day - with a second nap ending that early, I would definitely squeeze in another nap before bedtime. How was the night though? Do you think you could post your routine with the E included? Just in case it helps. Also, from one mum of a 7 month old to another, we are still very much getting NWs and we do have NFs as well. My son was waking up for the DF every single day until very recently and  even now if sporadically doing so. One night out of three, we have a NW at either 1.30 a.m. or somewhere between 5 & 6 a.m at which I feed. I know it doesn't help exactly but I just thought it might ease your mind that it is normal

[MiniNs]

I’m sorry - I didn’t want to sound like I was cross about the thread dying...I understand everyone had their own children to keep alive! I think the last few days have been a real low point for me.

Little man has now developed a horrendous cold and a bit of a cough so we are up every hour of the night, doing some APOPing and  co-sleeping and as he’s struggling to nap very long with his congestion we are also back to 3 naps rather than 2. I’m doing what I need to do to survive and hopefully it will clear in a few days and we can try and get back on track, without me having built a rod for mine own back too much.

Before he was ill, this is what our full EASY looked like (approx, obviously):

WU 6:15 (sometimes 6:00, we were also sometimes getting an EW of 5:45)
E: 7:00 bottle (sometimes earlier if he showed hunger  signs, but I try to otherwise hold out)
E: 7:30 breakfast solids (I know this would be ideally done later on but we all eat together before the school run with DS1 at this time)
S: 9:00-10:30

E: 11:00 bottle
E: 12:00 lunch solids
S: 13:45/14:00 - 15:00

E: 15:00 bottle
E: 17:00 dinner solids

17:45/18:00 bath and bed routine
E: 18:00/18:15 bottle (he has started losing interest in this bottle, presumably because I’ve jad to bring BT forward and it’s too close to dinner?)
BT: 18:15 (18:30 if he’s slept a little later than 15:00 on his nap)

I used to DF at 22:00 but I’ve experimented with not disturbing his sleep and just doing a NF at around 12/1am. But this has clashed with him being ill so I’m unsure which has worked better.

We were then getting several NWs - a few in the couple of hours after BT (OT?) and then every couple of hours from midnight onwards.

I had dropped him from 3 naps to 2, because he was fighting the catnap and I was having to spend 10mins rocking him and it was getting later and later. But he’s also not coping well with 2?

Sorry for the essay!!!

[MiniNs]

Also, from one mum of a 7 month old to another, we are still very much getting NWs and we do have NFs as well. My son was waking up for the DF every single day until very recently and  even now if sporadically doing so. One night out of three, we have a NW at either 1.30 a.m. or somewhere between 5 & 6 a.m at which I feed. I know it doesn't help exactly but I just thought it might ease your mind that it is normal

Ps: Thanks - I see so much online and from friends about babies who don’t NF at this age, it does help to hear that. Especially seems how DS1 dropped DF and NF by 6 months!

[MiniNs]

So the last 2 nights, I’ve given him a catnap between 4-5pm, as his other naps (in particular the afternoon) were broken/short and I knew he wouldn’t last until BT. On those 2 nights he has slept much better. Obviously I know he’s been ill and is also now starting to feel better which helps. But on both these days he had only 2hours A until BT (at 18:45), and I’m not sure if that made the difference?

[MiniNs]

Just as an update, today I didn’t manage to fit an early evening catnap in because his afternoon nap finished at 15:45 (slept 1:30-2:15 and then resettled 2:30-3:45)

I did BT at 18:30 and he was rubbing eyes on his bottle at 18:20 and then woke up crying at 19:10 and needed ssh pat.

He *is* still a little sniffly from his cold and has now devloped  a cough but this is no different to last night where he slept much better.

Perhaps I’ve been trying to cut him down from 3-2 naps too early? But he is 7months now and a lot of days I can’t fit the third catnap in - I only manage it on days where one of his other 2 naps has been cut short and therefore timings all move earlier.

Any suggestions?

He seems to cope better on 2hrs maybe 2.5hrs before BT. When I push to 2h45-3h I seems to be getting OT wake ups.

[Katet]

I seriously think it took both my boys 2-3 months to transition to 2 naps, in part because teething and illness got in the way and because they are more mentally alert and so sometimes got tired earlier than others.
I was never one for an exact bedtime, in part because DH didn't come home at exactly the same time and he liked to spend time with them, so we erred on three naps and later bedtime. With DS2 he did catnaps either side of a big nap from being a small baby (which was great with a toddler) so I think he was about 9 months before he went to 2 naps and he was LSN and mostly only went 8pm to 5.30pm at night until he was 7years old when he started doing more like 9pm to 6am... He was so different to his brother who also was at 3 naps until past 8mo, but slept 7 or 8pm to about 6.30am )woke 6.30 ish even if he went to bed at 6pm or 8pm.

My point is 2 naps at around 6mo is an 'average' so it's I'm to look at his needs more than the 'books' and as someone who volunteers with a hospital centre for babies and sleep (run over 10 centres across our State and just opened a centre in China) babies in the second 6months of life *do* wake at night even with textbook routines, the waking at night is actually the 'normal'behaviour, the western expectations that they won't is the problem. So even if you get the day working to an ideal it quite possibly won't be a perfect fix for the night sleep.

[MiniNs]

Thanks, I think he works better on 3 naps - seems to wake less (I’m not expecting him to STTN- DS1 didn’t until 15months  , but I’m sure most would agree that waking 6+ times a night isn’t normal) but im struggling with the timings from a 6:00-6:30 WU (which by the way is totally fine, well  6:30 is fine) I dropped to 2 naps because he was waking from his second nap at 3ish and then not wanting a CN at 4-4:30 and was fighting it. We had a couple of successful days/nights on 2 naps but seem to be suffering with a lot of OT now. I’ll keep working on it I guess.

Maybe I’ll try:

6:00/6:30 WU
S 9:00-10:30 (he’ll sometimes sleep 2hours here. Maybe I should cap it at 1.5hours to allow time for the third nap later/stop him consolidate an EW - we are sometimes seeing 5:15/30/45 lately too)
S: 13:00-14:30
CN: 16:30-17:00
BT 18:45/19:00

[Katet]

6+ waking says to me it's not a routine problem, rather hes uncomfortable at night, teeth moving or fluid in ears or solids upsetting him.
If he settles on his own for naps and at bedtime and can do 2 hours he has the skills but something is causing him to fully wake at night. With my DS1 we discovered later on he had mild sleep apnoea and fluid in his ears... GP never saw it but an ENT said he had fluid without infection so the classic redness wasn't there....it's speculation that it was there at a younger age as it was found at 5yo but the ENT said it was likely as he had spells of poor sleep then reasonable sleep, then poor sleep until he got tubes and he was a champion sleeper after that. 

[MiniNs]

Well, I tried the routine above, with a CN today and he totally refused the CN - he didn’t even fight it, he just wasn’t tired and was playing with his comforter and smiling at me and when I tried to apop he just was too difficult. So second nap was 13:00-14:15 and I ended up doing early BT at 18:00 to compensate - and he yet again barely drank any milk, like 1oz.

This is what was happening before, hence why I tried to drop to 2 naps. But he struggles to even get to 2h45 A time really and we were finding he was going to bed OT and we were getting much more NWs.

I feel like I’m stuck in a complete limbo with this transition. I’m not sure what timings to aim for or what to do.

[Katet]

Yep sounds like what I remember, you kind of spend 2+ months with every day being different and it was then I reached the conclusion some babies aren't clock watchers and they don't get broken by having changes.
For the first 3 years of my DS2s life I said it felt like he needed 23 hours in the day, he was (is) LSN but only coped with textbook awake times, so a 24 hour cycle never seemed to work.

[Mum2lucy]

I just wanted to say that my 7 (nearly 8 month old) still has a night feed between 3am-5am whenever she wakes - I figure she’ll grow out it when she needs to. x