5 m/o waking every two hours? Help!

[headinoz]

Hi, Ladies!

I'm relatively new to this site but have been an avid follower (and recommender!) of the BW philosophy since my DD was born.  EASY was a godsend when she was newborn and has been extremely helpful for us in maintaining a good routine. 

When DD was 3 months old we went to Australia for a month and since we've returned (a month ago) we have had some real challenges with sleep.  While we were in Australia we changed DD to 4 hour EASY and she was doing well on it, with a dream feed and one night waking to eat.  We stuck with the 4 hour EASY after we got back home, but as we got her back onto our local time zone we had some challenges with 45 minute naps and the night wakings.  We worked really hard and got past the 45 minute naps about 10 days ago.  However, with those gone we really need to get our night sleep back on track! 

I've gone back to the three hour EASY (sort of between 3 and 3.5 I should say) in the hopes of increasing her calorie intake during the day to reduce her huner at night.  DD is b/f with one bottle per day that is 75% formula 25% EBM. 

She usually gets up at about 630am, her feeds are about 10 - 12 minutes each and her A is about 60 - 75 minutes.  She will have three 90 minute naps and one very short cat nap (about 20 - 30 minutes) during the day, and she is back in bed between 615 and 645 at night.  She goes to sleep independently (though she does use a pacifier for sleep) and she will sleep from bedtime until her dream feed without waking.  However, from 11pm to 630am she wakes up about every two hours!  Last night was fairly typical:

Bed at 630
Dream feed 1045 (she wakes up for her dream feed)
Back to bed at 1100, settled immediately to sleep.
Woke at 100, replaced pacifier, replaced her blankets and used her sleep words, all quiet for 20 minutes, then repeated the cycle, all quiet for 20 more minutes, then she woke again.  At 145 I fed her again, and she went right back to sleep.
Woke at 400, replaced pacifier and used her sleep words, but she started crying.  Used PU/PD for 45 minutes but she was just getting more and more upset. At 450 I fed her again and she resettled by 510 and slept until 615. 

I stop feeding her as soon as her sucking slows down, but she is taking a full feed at least once a night.  The night before last I was able to get her to go from 145 to 645 without a feeding, but she still woke up at 345 and was awake for an hour before she settled down again. 

We had swaddled DD from birth, but about two months ago she started breaking out of the swaddle. Since it didn't affect her sleeping at the time, we decided to slowly wean her off swaddling, and as of two weeks ago she is no longer swaddled for sleep.  She has always slept on her side, but since she started becoming more physically capable (and breaking out of the swaddle) she will often end up on her back.  However, we do still put her to sleep on her side, because on her side she is able to put her pacifier back in her mouth if she needs it.

I am so frustrated with the broken sleep and VERY concerned that I am creating (or have already created) bad habits that will be difficult to break.  I'm considering starting solids to help increase her calories during the day, so I will know for sure that she is not hungry in the night.  However, I would really appreciate any tricks and tips on how to get past these wakings in the night and get our DD back on track!

TIA,

Heather

[Colin Macs Mom]

Hi Heather, welcome to the site.   

Could you please post your entire day's routine? That would help as well.

[headinoz]

HI Jessica:

Thanks!  Our days do vary a bit but yesterday was relatively typical:

645am wake and feed
700 (ish) to 800 - playtime - on her play mat and in our room on the floor with two or three toys
800 - 815 - wind down for nap (change, story, into bed)
815 sleep
945 wake and feed
10am - 1130 - playtime
1130 - 1145 wind down for nap
1145 sleep
115 wake and feed
130 - 230 out to run errands
230 - 245 wind down for nap
245 sleep
415 wake and feed
430 - 500 playtime
500 - 530 cat nap
530 - 600 walk
600 - 620 bath time
620 - 630 feed
630 story and to bed by 635

If DD has a short nap (which she does still do sometimes) then we will keep her up for 90 minutes or so before putting her down again.  If that is close to feeding time then I will feed her, read a story, and put her into bed.

I've found that by the time she is exhibiting sleepy signs (rubbing eyes, yawning) she is 'past it' already... so we try to take her upstairs based on time (or when she starts to lose interest in her toys) rather than based on sleep signs.  Usually she starts to exhibit the sleep signs just before we put her to bed.  If we get to her room too late, then she takes a fair while (usually 20 - 30 minutes) to settle down.  During that time we will usually go in 3 or 4 times to replace her pacifier and tuck her in again.

Hope this helps!

Heather

[Colin Macs Mom]

I know what you mean about the sleepy signs, my DS was the same way, and only recently started giving signs before it was too late.    We were obsessive clock watchers for everything. That makes it tough, I know.

A few thoughts for you....

At 5 months I would think that she would be able to stay awake longer than a couple of hours. She might be ready for more A time - unless you have tried this recently already. If she is ready to be awake longer, then I would push her bedtime back to sometime between 7 and 8 pm. 6:35 is a pretty early bedtime for a 5 month old, but some do need it.

Also, I suspect that the pacifier has become a prop. You might want to take a look at the props board if you want to consider getting rid of it. If you don't that's fine, but then be prepared to be replacing it at night.

[headinoz]

Hi Jessica:

Thanks for getting back so quick!  I agree, I think DD is ready for more A time, but I also suspect she is over tired from being awake so much at night so it's a bad combination!  I'm not sure where to start with extending her A time, especially since she seems to need to eat more often than every 4 hours.  We had been doing 7pm bedtime but these days she is REALLY showing tired signs by 600. Like sometimes she is really 'past it' and we have trouble getting her down even at 615.  I would rather have her up a bit later but am worried that if I do that I might be creating more problems for myself LOL.  Any thoughts on how we could go about extending her A times and get her to bed later, without creating an overtired or overstimulated baby?  Then we would all be happier I think...

TIA!

Heather 

[headinoz]

PS Re the pacifier, I don't think it is a prop because she will both fall asleep and resettle without it... and she does spit it out when she falls asleep, and continue sleeping.  But in any case I don't mind getting up once in awhile to replace the paci if she falls right back to sleep!  It's just these awake times that last for an hour when she won't resettle even with the dummy, that are really killing both of us.  If we still can't sort out her sleep after working out some of the other things that may be an issue, then I will consider trying to wean her off it... but I'd rather start elsewhere first if we can. 

[Colin Macs Mom]

That's great that she will settle and sleep without the paci - try and keep it that way!

When my DS was 5 mo this is pretty much what we were doing... I would suggest trying to move toward something similar. If she's overtired, it will take a bit of time to get her there, so shifting by 5 or ten minutes at a time would probably work the best.

8:00 wake and bottle (he's FF)
9:45/10 naptime
12:00 wake and bottle
1:00 rice cereal (we started solids at 4.5 mo, but I assume you haven't so if so forget this)
2:00ish nap
4:00 wake and bottle
6:00 cat nap
6:30/6:45 wake
8:00 bed

However, there was a stretch of time for us too where he needed to eat more often than every 4 hours so our routine was AEAS rather than EAS. If that's what you need to do then it's totally fine, don't feel like you need to "fix" that.

[headinoz]

Thanks again!  We'll try that for a week or two and see how we go.  Hopefully we can get back on track.

One more question for you... what would be considered "normal" variation on a routine like that?  I'm trying to work out whether we are "too" flexible with her routine and whether perhaps we need to be a bit more strict about time for things etc.

Thanks for your help again!

Heather

[Colin Macs Mom]

Welcome   

Do you know what personality type your lo is? A touchy or spirited one might not be able to handle too much variation. Angel, textbook, maybe grumpy would generally be able to handle more. Some los just need more structure than others, that's for sure. Even if you have a lo that is 100% angel, he/she might still need quite a bit of structure. So as far as normal variation goes, I would just make sure that you have time between feeds so that your DD doesn't associate feeding with sleeping. 

[headinoz]

From Tracy's little quizzes, I think she is mostly textbook with the occasional bit of angel thrown in.  Though my DH might disagree some days.

From what I can see, she is ok with SOME variation of routine but she does like to have structure to her days.  We have used the routine to introduce new things as well (eg. when we started introducing a bottle, we always did it at the same feeding) and that has helped us enormously.  So if the big thing is not to associate eating with sleeping and other variances are "sort of" ok, then we're golden... she DEFINITELY doesn't eat to sleep (like not even if I want her to LOL).

Without planning it, she has gone to bed at 730 instead of 630pm tonight, so we'll see how the night goes!  She had one long nap (90 mins) and three short ones (45 mins each) so should be fairly well rested but not over-rested.  Fingers are crossed!

I'll post another update tomorrow.

 

[Colin Macs Mom]

Sounds like you're golden then! I love that the EASY routine is designed to be flexible. It's really helped us a lot too. So anyway if you do A time and then feed in the middle, and then more A time, it's fine. Keep me posted!

[headinoz]

Hi, Jessica:

A quick update - we had another rough night last night BUT we did make a bit of progress.  She fed at 645, went down at 730, woke at 1015 for a feed (full feed).  Then she woke at 1245 and was up and down until I fed her at 230 (only a partial feed). She went straight back to sleep at that point and slept through until 600am this morning.  She was restless from 5am onward but I was able to use sh/pat and the dummy to keep her sleeping.  She was very cheery when she got up, and was awake for 2 hours before going down for 90 minutes of sleep.  She was awake for another 2 1/2 hours with no problem, with another 90 minute nap.  She just went down again after another 2 hours of A... so I am hopeful that we might be getting somewhere!! We'll see how we go tonight, my aim is to get her to bed by 7 or 715 tonight and cross my fingers.  I'm sleeping in the nursery on the floor beside the crib for a few nights, hoping that I might be able to catch her awake times early enough (as I did at 5am today) and keep her sleeping so she learns to settle herself. 

Thanks again for all your help yesterday.  I'll update in a few days and let you know how things are going.

Heather
 

[Colin Macs Mom]

Good for you Heather! The first day or two of making changes can be bumpy, but that's wonderful that you're seeing some improvements already. 

[headinoz]

HI, Jessica:

Help again?   

I think we are getting somewhere with the early morning wake-ups, as she has settled herself back to sleep for another hour to 90 minutes at 5am the last two mornings without my help.  But I have determined that her 130 (ish) wake up is a habitual waking - she has woken up between 115 and 145 each night for the last three nights, despite the fact that she has had her late night feed at different times each night.  Last night her last feed was at 1130 (she wakes up for the late evening feed) but she still woke at 130!  I tried her paci, which didn't work, so did pu/pd from 150 to 300 when I finally fed her, figuring it had been 3.5 hours since the last feed and that's about how long she goes during the day.  She did have a full feed but it took her about 30 minutes to fall asleep afterward.  So we were up for over 2 hours!

I have a few questions:

1. Should I try wake to sleep for the 130 habitual waking? Or just keep doing pu/pd for a few more nights to see if we can break the habit that way? 
2. I'm concerned that she is going to get overtired because she is not getting nearly enough sleep at night, and we are going to create a vicious cycle.  She has been waking up 45 minutes after going to bed the last two nights, which I know is a sign of overtiredness.  And she is yawning already this morning though she has only been awake for 90 minutes.  How should I handle this so we don't make things worse?

TIA!!

Heather

[Colin Macs Mom]

I would go for wake to sleep. You're right, you don't want to create a vicious cycle. They are so hard to get out of and no fun for anyone. w2s should clear things right up!