WHAT IS GOING ON!!! Night Wakings are not improving - WHY???

[Rubycino]

Hi Everyone

I have posted previously about DD's erratic night wakings. I will run the details past you again and hopefully you can help me resolve the reason behind her wakings and what i can do....

DD is 7 months this week, she has been able to sleep through the night from about 8 weeks of age with a DF somewhere between 10-11pm. She has 5 bottles a day including the DF averaging about 5-6oz's per bottle. She has also been on solids since 5.5 months and has 3 meals a day. Her EASY plan looks like this:

7am - bottle 160mls
8am - breakfast (rice cereal with poached fruit)
9.30/10am Sleep (lately we have managed 1.5 to 2 hours)
11.30/12 bottle (this seems to be decreasing and often i can only manage 100 - 120 mls)
1.00 lunch (vegies and chicken or just plain veggies and sometimes a little yougurt for desert)
2/2.30 sleep (if the morning sleep was long then this is usually an 1 Hour)
4.00 bottle (lucky to get 100mls)
5.00 Dinner (veggies and chicken or lamb)
6.45 bottle (often in her cot in the dark she is willing to take between 180 and 240mls)
7.00 bed

Ok this is where the problem begins, anywhere between 8pm and 11pm DD is waking. We stopped the DF 1.5 weeks ago thinking this was causing the waking and was also impacting on the morning intake. But no she still is waking. We have sort of taken the approach if she wakes we will try to resettle and then the next waking feed if necessary. What we have been finding is she will wake somewhere between the 8pm and 11 and by 11 we end up feeding her which she takes. It is then straight back to bed, to only wake another hour or so sometimes 40 min! which this process continues through the night.

I know that she is teething (no teeth have cut through yet) some times when she wakes we give her pain releif, but then i get anoyed with myself for giving her drugs if she then wakes another hour later...was there any need for the medication?

DD is a spirited baby and it took me a very long time to get her naps sorted out. She use to only sleep in 45 min bursts. Now that they seem to be working the night time seems to have been distrupted. She use to respond to pat and shush but now gets mad with it. PU/PD just makes her even madder and putting a firm hand on her chest at night does nothing either. I dont know that wake to sleep will work as i have no idea when she is going to wake and sometimes like saturday night she woke at 11pm i fed her and then she woke at 6.45am. There seems to  be no consistency out of her wakings and i am sure she doesnt need the night time feed but it just seems to make it easier knowing she is alteast in bed crying on a full stomach (if you know what i mean).

DD started crawling around 5 3/4 months but this does not seem to afect her sleep. For the day time naps i have reverted to wrapping, we had stopped at 4 months but it appears we get a longer nap from her wrapped than not. However this has no impact on the night sleep, wrapped or not she can make it through the night.

My problem (which sounds very selfish) is i am tired! I am sick of waking at night to a crying baby that does not want anything but i can seem to work out how to get her through this so she sleeps through or at least wakes only once during the night...

The other query is that her 12pm and 4pm bottle seems to be reducing, should i start to combine these two feeds and if so how or should i wait until the night wakings are sorted?

It would be appreciated if anyone has any ideas on the cause and solution to let me know

THanks
Amy

[Mom to M&M]

Sorry things are so rough right now Amy.

Nap-wise, I'd limit the first nap to 1.5 hours and aim to get that second nap the same. That should help her not be overtired at bedtime, which can lead to night wakings. If she takes two 1.5 hour naps starting at 9:45 and 2:15, she should be tired but not overtired by 7pm and hopefully get a solid 11 hours of night sleep.

Food-wise, IMO at her age you should drop a bottle. That might also help her take more at the other bottles and ease things out a bit. I would suggest doing three bottles at 7am, 1:30 pm (do lunch first instead of bottle first) and then 6:30 pm. When we did this our DD starting getting more interested in her bottles again and drinking more.

I would definitely also work on phasing out the DF - keep in mind that it can take a few weeks for that to work but at her age, with three solid meals, she shouldn't need the DF. If she wakes at night for a feed you can try the watering down method described above - you definitely want her taking in those ounces during the day instead of at night.

Also, when did the night wakings start? Was it related to her starting solids or any new foods? Often times one of the only signs of a food allergy or intolerance can be night wakings...

[Rubycino]

Thanks Marisa's Mom

I will try out the dropping the 4pm bottle and see how we go. The night wakings seemed to present them self in April and have been progressively worse. I dont think they are food related i am thinking more maybe seperation anxiety??? often all she wants is a cuddle or to move into our bed. Which i think we have made worse by going with her needs..rather than enforcing her bed and sleep! Also could they be milestone, this also seems around the time she learnt to comando crawl?

Naps today were a bit off as she only slept 45 min this morning as she was tired at 9 from the night waking so hopefully this afternoon will get better

Thanks

[Colin Macs Mom]

I was just going to post everything that Marisa Mom did 

[Rubycino]

Ok, i have just had another thought. Marisa's Mom you mentioned that it could be food related, funny you say that as we are started having some solid issues and as of yesterday DD has refused all solids. Yesterday she only consumed milk, woke for the 10.30 feed and then woke at 3.30 (i think because the dogs were barking). Once settled she slept till 7am.

We had an incidnet last thursday where she was screaming her head off, i had changed her nappy at 5.30pm and it was now 7pm. So i figured it could not be that. She had just had chicken and veggies that i had made (which she has been having for atleast 1 week) and then some yougurt with poached apricots she sounded like she was hyperventilating (SP?). I just put it down to her crying as her cousin who is also the same age was hysterical as we were all being too loud (at grandma and grandpa's). At 7.15 i managed to calm her down and change her nappy ready for bed and she had the most red raw nappy rash that looked like it was on fire. It was definately not there at 5pm. She had also done this tiny liquid poo. Everyone put it down to teething and gave her some pain releif and bonjela. She seemed fine and went to sleep. I never thought much of it as the nappy rash was gone when we changed her at 11pm for the night after we got home.

Now looking back she started rejecting her food since then...so now what? Do i start from scratch with just plain rice cereal again???

I am off to the Dr's today so maybe they can shed some light?

[aidenmc]

I definitely think it could be food related. The diaper symptoms seem to definitely point to that.