What am I missing here...

[rinajack]

I have an independant sleeper.  Maybe had is a better word.

Cause I am up to her for the third night in a row. (and that is just the unexplained nights, but I have been getting up to her for more than 2 weeks due to travel and illness).

But these wakeups are taking hours for her to go back to sleep.  Dont' know why.

She is a tummy sleeper and finds it very difficult to resettle if she rolls on her back, which she is doing.  But she isn't going back to sleep when I go in and flip her back over.  Nor when I put the dummy in (which I havne't had to do in a really long time - and she can also do this herself anyway).  I have tried panadol, bonjella, and a drink of juice (she won't drink water and hasn't had a night feed since 4.5 months old, but she is taking a good 100ml of juice.

She is a spirited baby. And is recovering from yet another illness (but normally once recovered she goes straight back to sleeping through, I don't know what is different this time).

She does not appear to be in pain, although I do know she is teething, but the bonjella and panadol did not help anyway.

She cries out, then is happy when I come in there, then cries out when I leave etc.  That was the last two nights - I sort of ended up doing wi/wo.

Tonight I went to her at teh first stir to see if I could stop her waking right up - it didn't, but it did prevent some crying.  But it has been 1 hr now and she still isn't back asleep, and keeps rolling to her back.

I know she is very capable of resettling, she has slept through without a DF since 4.5 months.  She is now 7 mo 3 wks.

I thought it may be habit, but tonight she woke an hour earlier than the last two nights.

Her approx routine (although we are pretty flex with this cause she short naps often) is

5/5:30 wakeup
6/6:30 breakfast - solids and bottle
8/8:30ish nap - usually 1-2 hrs (if shorter has a second nap before lunch - unless at daycare)
11/11:30ish lunch - solids and bottle
1ish Nap 1-2 hrs
3/3:30 dinner - solids and little bottle if seems hungry
5:30 bottle
6pm bed time

Her day sleep varies anywhere from 1.5 - 5 hrs.  This has been the case the last few days and has no impact on the night waking.  1st day of these long wakeups, I thought she got too much day sleep (5 hrs), but next day she only got 3, and it was same, and yesterday only 2 hrs so it can't be that.

No matter how much sleep she gets in the day, a switch in her flips at 6pm and we have to put her to bed otherwise she cries and cries til we do.

Re her being ill recently, Dr has given her the all clear.  She lost a fair bit of weight, but she doesn't seem hungry and is now eating quite well during the day.

What am I missing here?  Why is she waking up? And refusing to go back to sleep for a couple of hours?

[Colin Macs Mom]

If she's taking that much juice, I wonder if she's having a growth spurt?

[rinajack]

Thanks guys.

I am going to do a DF tonight to see if it eliminates the waking.  I don't think growth spurt as such, but she lost about 400g (1 pound) during her last illness, so maybe she is playing catchup?

With the juice issue - she will not take water, never has.  And because when she was ill she also wouldn't take her formula, Dr told me to get liquid into her any way I could, and juice was the only way I could.  It is very diluted juice.  But juice nonetheless.

I have NEVER been able to settle Zara on her back.  She did not start sleeping well at all until we started her tummy sleeping.  To this day she is unable to sleep in the car or the pram (both of which require sleeping on her back) for any more than 30 mins at a time.  She just cannot keep her arms and legs still enough.  And we are absolutely unable to swaddle as it makes her absolutely furious.


Last night by going to her at the first stir, the waking was about half as long as the previous wakings.

Hopefully the DF will help, I watched her eating closely today - and she consumed every thing offered, so maybe she is still hungry.  Tomorrow I will keep offering food until she refuses it.  That could help.

[Deb_in_oz]

Rina, just wanted to say that after li's recent bout with gastro she also lost a fair bit of weight and had eaten very little for 5+ days and once she decided she was ready to eat again she went on a feeding frenzy for almost 2 weeks. since she is older, and speaks, she was able to go to the pantry and beg for crackers and ask for more food when she wanted it and actually added in a morning milk feed that had not been there for a while (she woudl literally go to the fridge and whinge and ask for milk until i gave it to her, so we went from 2 to 3 feeds for about 2-3 weeks  )  I would never have guessed that 6 days of illness could cause such a change but it did and boy was she hungry!!!

i hope the DF helps and i woudl also try adding some small extra solids at 5pm (like a mini meal) if she is interested.

hope she is sleeping better soon - hugs hon
Deb 

[rinajack]

Thanks Deb.  I will add the DF in, to help her get through the night, and maybe go back to 4 hr feeds for a bit, cause she is currently a 5 hr feeder.  That way I can get more in during the day.

Fingers crossed cause mummy is really tired tonight!

[rinajack]

Well, we did the DF at 10pm, she drank 180ml. She had one waking at 3am but went right back to sleep when we gave her the dummy (and we had a huge day yesterday - we did a day trip to a town 2.5 hrs drive each way, so she only had 3x30min naps all day - she was probably overtired.

So it seems hunger was the problem.

Thanks for the tips re rolling stacy, I will tuck them away for future use if needed.  Currently she usually rolls when she wakes up and is ready to get up.  Like last night when she woke, she did not roll just cried.

Thanks for your help everyone.  One question though....

How long should I add the DF back in for - just a couple of nights, or a couple of weeks?

[Deb_in_oz]

i would work towards increasing her meal amounts now that you are sure it is hunger.  i woudl add a little to her meals and add snacks  - she will only eat what she wamnts but will at least have a greater supply offered. then i would give the mini meal at 5ish since you do "dinner" so early.  i woudl then only do the DF if she did not increase her foods IYKWIM.  we haven't had night wakings but we have had earlier starts when she has not added enough (or ate less at dinner which is usually liv's biggest meal).

i do think you need to be careful about relying on the DF too long. if you want to play catch up for yourself to get some good sleep i woudl do it for a few days and see if you can all get out of being overtired, then try without and just having more daytime foods (also think moving from 5 to 4hr feeds woudl be a good way to up the calories)  HTH

[rinajack]

thanks deb.  I have just discovered that I will have to do it during the day, not using the DF because the DF has impacted her breakfast, she has not eaten all that much this morning.  So snacks and offering more food it is.

Not sure how a late snack will go, I will try it, but normally we do dinner that early because she won't eat when she is tired, and is therefore very difficult to give solids to at 5pm, but maybe since she is hungrier than normal she will be better at it.

Thanks again

[rinajack]

Thanks for the tips guys.  She is getting actually increasingly harder to feed as she gets older, cause she won't eat if her teething is bad, or if she feels even slightly unwell, or if she is too tired, or if there is too many people around and therefore too much other stuff to do/look at.  Most success we have is with finger foods, maybe it isn't so boring or something.  Is this normal for spirited babies? to be so hard to feed?

Good news is that I offered her a snack this morning, I gave her two fresh peach halves.  She ate almost all of it (the rest ended up all over her LOL). I point to mama.

Bad news is she has a temp again today, so feeding is gonna be hard.  I will persevere.

[rinajack]

Nope stacy, she won't do anything when she is tired, except have a bath and go to bed!  I have never seen anything like it.  When she gets tired, she actually doesn't stop whinging crying until I take her in her room (or run the bath - but she starts again if she doesn't get to go to bed after that).  Sometimes she will take a small amount of milk when she is tired, but certainly not a full feed.

[rinajack]

Yeah she eats usually quite well for breakfast and lunch, dinner is the hardest one, that is why I have to do it so early.  Particularly on daycare days cause she doesn't nap very much there, and is absolutley exhausted when I bring her home at 5pm.  Sometimes she doesn't even make it to aa 6pm bedtime, if she is too tired I have to put her down early

[rinajack]

OK. What now?

Today our day went like this...

5:15am wake up
6:20am solids - about 3T of porridge with apples
7ish bottle - only took 40ml
8:15 nap for 45 mins - nap ends 9am
9:30 1 peach (cut peach in half remove seeds, give all to her - she managed to actually consume about 2/3)
11:20 lunch - 4T Mango followed by 3 serves of rockmelon in safe feeder.  Followed immediately by bottle - drank 140ml
Nap 12:00pm to 2:35pm.
2:45pm snack - yoghurt 2T
4:20 Dinner - 5T of chicken and vegies
6:10 Bottle - 180ml

Although this seems like a small amount of formula for the day it is the best day for bottles she has had in over 2 weeks!!!

After that last bottle - she will NOT go to sleep, playing, laughing totally on the go.

So what is it now?

[rinajack]

It is 2 hrs past her bedtime and she is still not asleep?

[rinajack]

OK, I ended up feeding her 2 hrs past her normal bedtime.  And she took another 140ml, and I think she is going to sleep finally now, but that took another 20mins after that late feed time.

 

[rinajack]

Stacy

She has been doing 3 + hr A times for ages, this is done with following cues.  If I try to put her down earlier, she does not go to sleep anyway. And it was working excellently previously.  The short naps have started coming back in now, makes me wonder if she is even tired enough to sleep longer, cause she easily did a full A time after the short AM nap?

With the bottle first thing on rising, we have tried this also, she wasn't taking that much either and she definitely takes more total food if she has solids first.  We make her cereal with formula to make up for this. I have only just started adding the snacks in  - this was the first day - becuase she needs to eat more, and won't take more than she is having at each meal.  Even if I stick to only 3 meal times per day, she never shows any hungry signs.  If I wait til she knows she is hungry, it takes about 6 hrs (I tried it out just once to see).

She does not have a bottle on wakeup (nor solids immediately either) because she will not eat as soon as she has woken up.

She used to take 250ml+ bottles 3x per day.  Now she just WILL NOT drink that much, she is not even finishing 180ml the majority of the time, regardless of when we offer it to her.  The Dr and CHN said not to force her, to give her solids if that is what she will take, and make sure I offer a full and varied diet.

Do you think I should take the snacks back out?  I just don't think she will eat more at each meal - yesterday, with the snacks added in, she took the most of everything that she has taken in several weeks! Including meals and bottles.

The only other things we should note - she is really starting to try and move alot.  Yesterday she managed a little bit of backwards commando crawling.  This morning she tried to pull herself up on her toy basket (and only succeeded in pulling it over and falling backwards and hitting her head).  Also in the cot this morning, instead of rolling over she had her head at the foot of the bed.  She was unable to move much at all until the last 24 hours.  This could be why she is extra hungry? And not sleeping?

I feel so lost, and because she is in daycare, it is very difficult to give them appropriate instructions for her routine.  And with no instructions, life gets very messy, like forgetting feeds, and naps and stuff!!!