more night wakes for 5mo old

[abbysmomma]

Hi all

It seems that frequent night wakings are the hot topic for the 4-5 month old range.. Anyways, here's my moan on it..

Abby has been waking a lot at night (at least 10 times) but the strange thing is, it's really easy to put her back to sleep. Lately, all I have to do is stand beside her crib, and she puts her fingers in her mouth and goes back to sleep. It's like she needs my permission or something    Occasionally, I have to hold her a bit if she gets a bit hysterical (happened twice last night) but generally I can soothe her in the crib. The problem is that she keeps waking up, or can't stay asleep. Often, when she does wake up, all subsequent wake ups are within 30-40 minutes of the previous, until I feed her (between 1-3am). Once she's fed, I can count on at least a couple of hours of sleep, and often she will do this again in the early morning (around 4:30-6). So, does this mean she's hungry and that's why she won't stay asleep? We've just sorted out her daytime routine - she's on 4 hour EASY with 2 two hour naps and a catnap. Fixing the daytime did not help the night at all, like i thought it would! I guess I just don't understand it. She is obviously capable of self-soothing, and goes to sleep on her own without any protest most of the time. So why the wakes? I've tried to be really consistent with everything, and a big step was not feeding her everytime she woke up. I just don't see any improvement, and this has been going on for about a month now. Any suggestions on how to improve the situation? Or should I just keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully it will get better one day? It doesn't seem to milestones (teething, rolling over).

Anyways, thanks for reading. Love this site!

[Colin Macs Mom]

Could she be teething Aeri?

[abbysmomma]

I would have thought that if she was teething, she'd be harder to soothe. She doesn't seem like she's in pain. I've tried Hyland's teething gel, and it doesn't seem to do anything. I've checked her gums, no signs of anything yet.

[Colin Macs Mom]

What's her temperment? Does she have anything going on developmentally?

[abbysmomma]

Textbook temperment, can't really see anything else developmentally, other than the 4 month blues.. 

[Pandkhoy]

I feel your frustration.  My daughter (born in June) did the exact same thing up until a week or so.  This what we did.

1.  Wrapped her up tight. (flailling arms were an issue)
2.  Intro solids and gave more formula. (8oz. at Dream Feed)
3.  Used the wake to sleep method outlined in the book.  She always started her night wakings between 1-1:30  then 3 ,4-4:30, 5-6am, so I went in at 12:30pm just lifted her slightly to re-wrap and re-positioned her slightly.  But didn't fully wake her, and no lights either.  Just enough to break her pattern.  It worked on the first night, but I followed through for 3 nights.  She now sleeps right through until
7-7:30 am.
 
GOOD LUCK!

[abbysmomma]

I haven't swaddled Abby since she was a month old. Should I start again? She's pretty big (20 lbs!) so it's pretty hard to swaddle her. I was going to wait 'til was 6 mo to start solids, and dream feeds make her night wakings worse. I've had some success with w2s during her naps, but haven't tried it with the night wakings as they're kind of unpredictable. For instance, her first waking last night was 10:30. Some nights it's 12am. Did you do w2s for all her wake ups or just her first one?

[abbysmomma]

Well.. here's an update. I tried w2s last night at 10:30, and she woke up again at 11:50 fairly upset. Took a lot of soothing to get her back down. She woke up again 10 minutes later completely awake and looked really hungry so I fed her. Went down, then woke up again around 3:40am. I sat and listened for a bit, then realized that she was probably doing a mantra cry! I never really thought about it before. Sure enough, after a few minutes, she fell back asleep. Then did it again. She started to get upset, so I got up, then it was quiet. Started again really upset, so I got up and fed her. She did the mantra cry on and off from 5:30-6:40, and when we got up to feed her, she was happy in her crib awake at 7:30am. I think in the blur of early morning I was getting up too quickly to go to her, and she was getting used to it - therefore the multiple wakes. Her mantra cry really does sound like a real cry, but now that i've heard (and remembered) what a real upset cry sounds like, I won't go in until I hear it. Tough.. I feel like I'm letting her CIO sometimes but I know the difference now. We were probably upsetting her re-settling process b/c sometimes when we went to soothe her, it made her more upset and cry even harder.

Anyways, thanks for the help gals. Hopefully tonight will be better.

[Colin Macs Mom]

It really can be tough to identify the mantra cry. But trust me, you aren't letting her CIO sweetie! I would yell at you if you were.    You're doing great. There's nothing wrong with giving her a few minutes to try and resettle, or to be sure what sort of a cry she's doing. That's not CIO whatsoever.

But it really is amazing how quickly they get used to you coming in at a certain time. I had the problem with Colin. I would go in too soon in my sleepy haze and he immediately got used to seeing me at a certain time (or times  ) in the night. I was really kicking myself when I finally realized what was going on. So don't be like me and solve that now!

[Pandkhoy]

What time does she have her supper?  With my 15lb girl her supper is between 5:30-6 pm.  Her dream feed is about 10-10:30pm.  If your daughter regularly wakes up around that time late at night she probably is hungry.  Especially if she's 20lbs, maybe liquid food is not enough to hold her all night long.  You could try a little rice cereal at her supper to fill her up more.  Just a thought. But sounds like you are making progress!

[abbysmomma]

I didn't think it was advisable to give them cereal before bed as it can contribute to nighttime gas pains. She certainly shows interest in our food though! Argh... Friday/Saturday night wasn't bad, but last night was awful! I ended up feeding her twice last night, and this morning she had peed through her diaper into her jammies. Ugh. Maybe she is genuinely hungry, but often she wakes up before 4 hours since her last feed, and since she's on a 4 hour EASY during the day, i didn't think she could be so hungry at night. I just don't understand it..
I found that going in and soothing her back to sleep led to me repeatedly going back to soothe her (until I have to feed her!). Maybe there's something wrong with the way i'm soothing her. I'm getting desperate.. 

[Colin Macs Mom]

One of the things about EASY is that since we teach them that they eat every X hours, they will often expect the routine to continue at night. Does that make sense? Once a LO gets settled in their routine we often need to teach them that daytime is for eating, nighttime is not, or if LO is young enough, there is no A time after the E at night.

[abbysmomma]

Ok, that makes sense. I was kind of thinking the same thing. So how do I stop that? Or is that something I'm supposed to stop? I've been trying to make a goal during the night - ie. no feeding until at least 1am, but sooo hard during the night. It feels like I'm just staving her off until that feed since she doesn't really go back to sleep until I feed her. *sigh*..

[Colin Macs Mom]

It's hard since every LO is so different with their night feed needs     But at her age I'm sure she still definitely needs one! The when is the question though....

What exactly do you do in terms of soothing? What does she do? Have you tried PU/PD (sorry If I already asked  )

[abbysmomma]

I know she definitely needs at least one feed during the night.. I'm fine with that. It's all the extra wakings that I don't get.

In terms of soothing.. well, I always try to sooth in the crib first. Almost never works these days. I end up picking her up and she promptly puts her fingers in her mouth. But then proceeds to cry even harder. She is calm when she's asleep. I find it hard to get her down when she's calm but not asleep. I try to make sure she's calm for at least ten seconds before putting her down again. I guess that's kind of PU/PD, but correct me if I'm wrong. I know the bad thing is that she often falls asleep in my arms first. But I get so desperate sometimes.

To top it all off, today is another bad nap day. Ugh. I need more patience.