4 hour easy and night wakings

[shimmer]

I know I've posted a million times, but I'm just hoping for the eventual magical fix.

My daughter has sever nightwakings... by sever, i mean, almost every hour on the hour ALL NIGHT LONG!  She's a terrible napper, but I have moved them from 30 min. to 45 min. each, and can get her to go for an hour & a 1/2-2hours with pat/sh in the middle (which means she's not actually getting that much sleep)

Her night wakings are ridiculous but the amount of time it takes to get her back to sleep has lessened since I've begun messing with her naps.  Here's my schedule:

6:00-8 try to extend night sleep using pat/sh
8:00 - wake/feed
10:00 - Nap 1 (extend to 11:30/11:50 using pat/sh)
12:00 - feed
2:00 - nap 2 (same methods as nap 1)
4:00 - feed
5:45 - catnap (45 minutes)
7:00 - bath
7:45 - feed
8:00 - TRY to get to sleep (takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour)

Lately, she has gotten extremely fussy starting at 7pm.  I've considered trying to put her to bed at this time but wouldn't know what to do as she would take it like a nap.  Plus, wouldn't the catnap interfere with this?  Her night wakings are usually at 9:30, 10:30, midnight, 2:30, 4:00, 6:30.  I feed her at midnight and at 4.  She is 5 months old, and dealing with constipation as we have had to change from BF to formula due to poor weight gain.

Please help.  She has never been a good sleeper, which means I don't get sleep.  I'm tired. LOL

[Kimberly®]

Put her to bed at 6:30-7pm and she'll probably stop the excessive wakings. She's overtired and thats whats waking her. Contrary to what you may thin, keeping her up later will NOT make her sleep longer in the AM.
Expecting her to sleep till 8am is not going to work, by 9 your LO is overtired and your at the start of a vicious cycle. 

Try starting your day earlier and then having her first nap at 9 instead of ten, then catch a nap yourself (thats what I do) Your naps and bedtime are to later after her wake time and she's becoming chronically overtired. Don't be afraid to change EASY to AEASY it still fits into the 4 hour easy and its easier on your child as she wont be overtired.

As I said move wake time to 7am, first nap at 9, Move the second nap to 1, and the cat nap to 5, bedtime routine at 6, bed by 7.

TRY IT!! You'll be surprised by what you get

Remember nothing works overnight and there is no magic cure, but you can make it better and these are some ways to do it.

[The Vern]

Karita, those are really great pointers! I have a question though, as I'm dealing with a similar situation.  The average / expected sleep duration at this age is around 10 hours, but if we put our los to bed at 7, we can expect them to be up at around 5 am I guess, which seems like a really early start for the day.  Is that what I can expect for now?

Right now I'm arguing with dh about bedtimes - he's convinced that having her go to bed later, say around 8, will let her sleep longer and better.  We tried it his way for the last two nights, but wakenings got worse, so hopefully he'll be convinced now! Either way, I'm the one getting up at night so I think I'll just make an excecutive decision on this one and move bedtime back to 7ish. At least then, she slept through until 3 or 4, though the early morning hours were a bit of a struggle to get her back to sleep.  Do you have any specific ideas why the early morning hours are difficult? To me, it almost seems like she's had enough night time sleep and is wide awake after her 8 hours.

[Kimberly®]

5 am is to early to start your day thats true. At 5 try settling with pat/shh, or pu/p0d, or even a paci if you like, but if that doesn't work feed and them back to bed. Expecting 2 more hours out of them is not unreasonable, my LO still wakes at 5 the odd time and I feed her and she goes back to bed. Sometimes  she goes right to sleep sometimes she plays for a little.
I think morening are hard because they expect after sleeping to go play, you need to teach them that no its time to sleep. After a while they'll sleep longer and longer. the more consistent you are the better the results. It took us about 2 weeks before she would settle herself and now most days she wakes at about 7. Anytime after 6:30 is a good time to start your day.

HTH

[The Vern]

Thanks again Karita. So last night we were back to earlier bedtime. She was in bed and asleep by 7:10. She slept soundly until 3, when paci got her back to sleep in an instant. Her next wake-up was predictably just before 5am.  After that all she was able to do was 20 min at a time; she just could not get into deep sleep. And at 5:50 she was wide awake babbling. I got her up at 6:15 and fed her at 6:30.  All in all I'd call that a pretty good night! 

When you say to feed her if all else fails, I'm not quite sure I understand the reasoning. She doesn't usually show signs of hunger at night.  Also if I started feeding her at night again like that, won't that revert back to her wanting to eat at night all the time?  Also, I'm afraid that will mess up her daytime routine, as she likely won't be as hungry when I wake her at 7 for the day, so she'll eat less, and then won't be able to go for four hours without eating again.  Obviously if she were to show hunger signs I'd feed her but otherwise I don't see a reason. 

[Kimberly®]

if she is waking that offten and unable to reah a deep sleep its very possable that its hunger. Feeding her if nothing else works will give you and her the sleep you need.
My DD gets the odd feed at night if she wakes too. It helps her sleep better on a full tummy. All I'm saying is try it. She may need it after all. She may just not be ready to go 12 hours without a feed. Many children can't untill 1 or even 2 years.

[The Vern]

I could give it a try. The reason I figure she's not hungry is that she's not fully awake, takes the paci more than happily, and does nod off right away. She just can't transition at the 20-min mark.  She really doesn't seem hungry to me.  Do you think my fears are unfounded if I were to feed her?

[Kimberly®]

its also possible that the paci is the calprit. Have you considered weaning?

[The Vern]

Oh, I never considered that the paci could actually prevent her from sleeping???  How is that???  I guess maybe the fact that it falls out wakes her up sometimes.  I have introduced a lovey for when we do take the leap to wean the paci. For now though I think I'd like her to keep it.

[Kimberly®]

Yes I think its starting to become a prop for her, waking her when it falls out. If you don't have a problem getting up to replug then thats all you'll probably have to do. If that becomes to much then you can try the gental removal plan to wean her from it.

I'd suggest you try a feeding tonight and see if that makes a difference, if it does she's waking from hunger, if not then its probably a paci problem. Either way you'll know.

HTH