My son has never been a great sleeper and it is an ongoing work in progress to fix this. One thing that I have not been able to work out is that he will wake exactly 1/2 hour after we put him to bed - you can set your watch to it. He is 7 months old and has done this since he was 2 months old (nb. He was 11 weeks prem so I have used his corrected age throughout this post). At 2 months we started accidental parenting due to reflux (which he is now on medication for) in that we were putting him to sleep in our arms, this progressed to rocking in the pram to finally at 5 months we got on track with putting him in the cot using a modified pu/pd pat/sush method recommended to us by a sleep school.
Up until recently he would only ever have 30 mins naps during the day so I thought this was because he couldn't get past the first sleep cycle and that was our problem, however recently he has started having one longer sleep during the day of 1 hr 15min so I know he can get passed the first sleep cycle.
When he wakes we go in and go through the pu/pd, he then seems to wake every 10 mins or so for the next hour at which time he goes to sleep for good. NB when he wakes it is generally a screaming cry. The number of times we go in is getting better as he gets older.
We did manage to get him not to wake at the 1/2 hr mark for 4 nights in a row however I think this was because he had a bad cold at the time and we were giving him panadol and demazin at bed time.
I have tried (very hard) previously to get him on a 4 hr EASY routine, but have given up due to his short sleeps and generally just go with the flow after deciding my sanity was more important than getting him in a routine.
The 1/2 hr wake up happens whether he is overtired or not, he has even done it on days where I have managed to get him to have 3.5 hrs sleep during the day (this is generally on the days I have taken him to swimming lessons and he is so worn out)
His routine roughly follows this - time varies according to whether he has a long sleep - this one is if he has a long sleep in the morning
b/f somewhere between 5am/7am
wake 7.30/8.30am
solids 9 am
sleep 2 hrs after waking
wake after 1hr 15mins
12.30 solids
1 pm bottle
3/3.30 sleep 30 mins
5.00pm solids
5.45 bath
6 bottle
6.15/6.30 bed (have tried to stretch him to 7pm for bed but he just cant make it)
11pm d/f
Up until recently he would have had a 30 min nap at 1.30 and then 4.30 but he has dropped the 1.30 nap which means he only gets about 1hr 45mins sleep during the day, I know he needs more but am working on modifying his routine to see if I can get him to have another nap.
His activity time is generally floor time, play with me, play in his entertainment centre or visit Grandma/Grandpa or errands.
He is breastfed at night and bottlefed during the day.
We have recently started to wean him from his swaddle as I was getting up to him 3/4 times a night to rewrap - this is going well. He also goes to bed with a dummy but I rarely need to get up during the night to give it back to him since starting to wean from the swaddle.
Any ideas on what is causing this 1/2 hr wake up is appreciated.
thanks
