My daughter is 4.5 months old and used to be a great night sleeper. Before she hit her growth spurt around 4 months she slept from her dream feed at 11.30 p.m. to 7.30 but usualy 8 a.m. Then she hit her growth spurt and the time change and now she wakes at 6 am (sometimes even before) but is not really hungry (she cries if she's hungry in the middle of the night). I feed her at 7 am because I don't want her getting used to eating at 6 a.m. She has learned to put herself to sleep at night and for most naps without us patting her.
I have been watching her on the monitor and was with her the past 2 nights and here is what's happening.
She wakes up after a deep sleep cycle and goes into light sleep and REM. She sort of wakes up (starts moving around more, moving head etc more so then just the normal twitching and head moving she does when dreaming). Then she'll stop and is back in REM as her breathing starts getting irregular. This cycle repeats itself. Last night it went on for 45 minutes with me lightly patting her until she went back into deep sleep. 45 minutes later she was making noises again, I went in and started patting her, she ended up having a dream, started to cry and that was that - she did not go back to sleep after that.
The night before (after she went back into deep sleep) she slept until 6.20 a.m. The nights before when I just watched her she'd basically just be still for a few minutes, then move and repeat the pattern described above until 6 am when she wakes up babbling. Not sure if she'd even went into deep sleep as I was doozing of myself too.
She does not cry or fuss but it's clear she's not really sleeping just sort of in some sort of state between wake and light sleep.
At first I thought I would leave her be like always - unless she cried we did not go in. But realizing that she is really not sleeping I started to get worried about her not getting enough sleep.
She really is not doing anything new developmentally and is not trying to practice any skills. We have not changed her routine. She is a somewhat short napper but we are working on it. Every day is different, yesterday her morning nap was 40 minutes - today 1 1/2 hours, sometimes only 30 mintues. Her afternoon nap is usually 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
I don't know how to help her get better quality sleep in the mornign. I am running on vapors because I wake up at 4 ish every morning because I'm worried about her. The last 2 nights I did not sleep from 4 am on since I was with her. Please any and all advice is much appreciated. I just don't know what to do. Thank you.
