4 mo waking 3 times a night, help

[kmetli]

My daughter is 4 months old and is chronically waking 3 times a night or more sometimes. She used to sleep beautifully from 9 to 5:30 with no wakings, but now.....We first thought it might be because of lack of food during the day but we upped her intake and she is still waking. I put her down between 8-9 (we have always done this time) now it is closer to eight every night. Some nights she will wake up 45 mins after and is sometimes hard to get back to sleep, and then her next waking is at 12:30 or 1:30 on the minute. I do a DF at 11 every night and that is the nights she wakes up at 12:30.  Then the next one is at 3:30 or so and then her normal waking at 4:30-5:30 for her night feed.

I get her to go back to sleep by giving her paci back to her. She doesn't wake if I take it from her after she sleeps but will an hour and a half later. Is the paci a problem? I tried to wean her from the paci at 13 weeks and after 6 days of no progress I caved in and gave it back to her. She now only uses it to sleep and sometimes when I am out. We do have a somewhat of a EASY sched. It only varies an hour off track or varies if I have to do anything during the day and even then I keep my errands to early in the day.

I am at a loss. I am getting no sleep and emotionally am drained and at my wits end for one night of at least some consistent sleep. Please help me!!!?????

[albertasweetpea]

Hi there. Can you post what your daily schedule would be like? The one thing that jumped out at me from your post was your LO waking 45 minutes after going down for the night. I find that when Molly is overtired she always wakes at the 45 minute mark at night. She is easily settled back to sleep though. She is still waking 4-6 times a night  :shock:  :shock: so can't really offer any other advice.
How much is your DD eating during the day? Is she bottle or breast fed?? How long have you been doing the DF? We dropped the DF about a month ago when we also found Molly waking an hour or so either before the feed or after. She was only taking 2 or 3 oz. at that time so we just upped her daytime bottles to 8 oz and cut the DF.
4 months may be a little young for that for you though??

[kmetli]

Thanks and here is a rough sched.

8          Wake and Feed
8:30      Activity
9           Nap, can be 45 min or 2 hours
11         Wake and eat within 30 min (trying to get on 4 hr easy)
11:30     Activity
1           Nap, again can be 45 min or 2 hours
2:30       Activity and eat within 30 min
4-5        nap and this one is only 45 min usually sometimes 1.5 hr
6            Eat 
6-8       This is where she probably gets overtired because she has a 
             hard time going down for the cat nap
8           Eat again and bath and in bed by 8:30

I am having a hard time with my sched because of the darn 45 min naps, sometimes she naps great and sometimes not. She in breastfed and bottle fed. I Breastfeed her first and top her off with a bottle of formula. She was eating me out of house and home. I am pretty sure she is getting enough during the day because she won't finish the bottle most times.

I have been doing the dreamfeed for a month now and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the culpret for the waking an hour and a half later. If I don't though she wakes at 1:30 anyway. Habitual waking I think?! I am trying the wake to sleep now though for the 12:30 waking but she just woke at 1:30 so you know kind of frustrating. Thanks for your reply any advice is great!!!!

[albertasweetpea]

Have you tried a wind down routine after her last feed of the night? Have you tried putting her down for the night after her 6 pm feed?? Does that get enough bottles into her during the daytime? That way she would be hungry for her DF, take an entire feed and hopefully ( :roll: ) sleep on through the night!

[kmetli]

Remind me again what a wind down routine might be.Both of my BW books are loaned out to friends.  Isn't 6pm a little early to go down for the night? I don't know, really this is my first child. I just don't want her up at 6am. She wakes right now at 7:30-8 now some times later. Maybe I'll try and shoot for 7-730 bedtime to avoid an overtired baby.. Thank you for all your advice, whenever or whoever I am all ears.