Evening wakings ... how to stop????

[htoews]

Hello,
My 5 mth DS goes to bed quite easily between 7 - 7:30 pm.  But then he wakes up every hour after that.  He has a bottle of formula (6 oz) before he goes to sleep, so if we can't get all his burps out, he usually wakes up for a burp around 8 pm.  But why is he waking up at 8:50, 9:40 and then around 10:20 (give or take 5-10 min here or there)?  When he wakes, we go to him only after he starts to cry and sh/pat or just give him back his paci.  We've never let him cry it out.  But I'm not sure if he is paci dependent though.  He can fall asleep without it sometimes and it's only used to get him to sleep.  IN his sleep he usually spits it out on his own.  We give him a DF between 10:30 - 11:00 every night.  Last week we started him on formula for his supper feed and DF but this evening waking has been going on for at least 3 weeks.  I thought he was maybe overtired but I've monitored his naps for the past 2 days and he is sleeping 1 1/2 hrs in the morning and 1 1/2 hrs for pm nap.  Then he catnaps for 30 min between 5-6 pm.  He is also not sleeping through at night.  He wakes up twice per night.  Anywhere between 1:45 - 2:30 and then around 5 am.  So many issues and I don't know where to start.  We are going to do w2s for the 2 am waking, but could his evening wakings have any effect on his night time sleep.  Could that attribute to why he isn't sleeping through the night?
I know there are a few issues here, but I'm not sure which to work on first ..... his evening wakings .... his 2 am waking or his 5 am waking.  I know by his age he should be sleeping through.  I've read both BW books and am still not sure which problem to tackle first.  I'm thinking the evening waking ....... Any advice would be muchly appreciated.
Thanks
Heidi

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Hi there! My son used to do this too. We found out that he needed more A time during the day to make him cumulatively sleepy to stay asleep at night. How long are your lo's A times?

Also, we just dealt with night wakenings a second time and found out that Gage was not getting enough to eat during the day. Do you monitor your lo's milk consumption? How much is he drinking? How often is he eating? Is he on solids?

[elliotlove]

I am having very similar problems! My lo takes anywhere from 5 - 7 oz per feeding every 3.5 - 4 hours during the day.....
however, 3 or 4 hours after he goes down to bed for the night, he takes another feeding....and sometimes 3 hours after that.

(last night he fed at 9:30 and 12:30)

 Its obvious he isnt getting enough during the day, but he wont take more. He never feeds after 12:30am in the night....so he should be good and hungry the whole next dday.

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

I had this same prob. ladies. Gage would not drink more than 4-6 oz. First, I got a faster nipple as I think Gage had to work to hard at gettting more milk and well he is not in to that The next thing I did was let him drink as much as I could and then let him play for about 10 min and then try again. Both of those things worked great!

Also, because Gage was feasting at night he was not as hungry during the day. To make the transition I feed him a full bottle before 3am and after that I watered it down so that he would be hungry for breakfast. Knock on wood but these things broke the cycle. He went from 18 oz to 30+ oz and sleeping from 7pm to 6:30am Now if I could just solve the early waking mystery.

[htoews]

Thanks for the wise words!  Luke's activity time is about 1 hr in his 4 hr easy routine.  His last A time before he goes to bed is only about 45 minutes though from the time he wakes up from his last catnap till we start the wind down routine for the 7 pm bedtime.  I will try to make this A time longer tonight and see how he does. 
In regards to eating, he only does 2 feed by formula and then rest in by breast, so I'm not totally sure how much he is really taking in.  He only breastfeeds for about 10 minutes when he does feed and in total he takes about 10-12 oz of formula by bottle. I tried tanking him up by having him eat every 2 hrs, but I think he just  became a snacker because his evening and night wakings didn't change.  I don't know how to get him to stay longer on the breast.
I'll let you know how it goes with the more A time for today.
Thanks

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

I am not sure how you can tell when you breast feed? I was also trying to feed Gage more often and that was just making it worse. His tummy was used to getting full and when it got a little empty he wanted more.

[Beam79]

We are also having evening waking problems, no set pattern, sarts about 45 mins or 1 1/2 hours after bedtime (ie 1 or 2 sleep cycles) then he cries and cries every so often (and I mean cries!!) I thought it was teething so I gave him powders and calpol, didn;t work. Now I have finally worked out that it is hunger (silly mummy!) so now he eats 7am, 11.30am, 3pm,and at 5pm (just a snack about 4 oz), and then at 7pm 8 oz (just nbefore bed) and 9.30 or 10pm DF 8 oz. He will then usually settle down for the night....Can;t gewt him to eat much more than 5 oz for the other feeds but at night he eats REALLY well...fristrating but thats how it is 

HTH. x