Sleeping Longer

[Banana]

Hi, I have a 5 and a half month old baby son. He is a gorgeous big baby. He has been on the eat, wake, sleep routine since birth. He is still waking every 4 hours at night. I put him to bed after his last feed at 8.30pm, he then wakes at around 11pm, 2pm, 5am. He is breast fed. I feed him at 5am and at one other wake time during the night. He is also eating two meals of solids a day. He breast feeds 7
times in 24 hours. Any suggestions on how to get him to sleep longer at night?
Thank you from a tired single Mum!!

[Jaime]

hello and welcome!

can you post a slightly more specific routine for us, including nap times in there too?  that may help us spot something.

[CElsemman]

Hi,

When posting your routine details, can youinclude how long roughly he feeds for during the day? It could be that he is not taking enough the required calories during the day and therefore needs to catch up during the night.
Also, do you do any sports/ calory burning activities your self? I found that it lowered my milk quality and made my daughter need to eat more at night. So I stopped the gym (bummer, but better to sleep through!!)

Caroline

[Banana]

Thank you for your replies and questions.

I am a petite woman and walk everywhere as I do not own a car. Even though I don't do any 'specific' exercise, I am always on the go. I am a single mother with a 5 year old daughter and my baby son.

Here's my baby's routine;

5am BF (15 mins in total)

Back to sleep until 7am/7.30am - sometimes goes back to sleep easily, sometimes takes time, sometimes wakes up at 6.30am for the day.

8am BF and fruit and cereal - 10 minutes milk, about three desert spoons of fresh fruit and cereal.

8.45 - 9.45 Activity time

10.00 naps on bed or in cot

11.20/11.40 Wakes up

12.00 BF

Activity time/walk outside

1.50pm nap time

2.30 - 3.00 wakes up, usually go for a walk if he wakes early

4.00 BF and solids, veggie and cereal

5.30 - 6.30 short nap

Bath bedtime routine

7 - 7.30pm Bed

11 pm Dream feed, goes back to sleep

2am Wakes shhhh pat back to sleep can take from 10mins to 40mins

Sometimes wakes at 4am and I do same thing to get him back to sleep

5 - 5.30am BF

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me. My hunch is that his day time naps are not long enough as he mostly wakes up cranky. I do try and pat him back to sleep - I don't pick him up - but after 45 mins I do take him out of bed.
May be I should try the wake to sleep trick for day time naps??

I forgot to mention, he has a dummy. He has three teeth already and the poor man also has exzema on his face. I have been cutting out eggs, citrus fruits, tomatoes and all nuts and it is improving.

Thanks again.

[Jaime]

thanks for posting that.  i think your morning nap might be too late, and it's having a knock-on effect on that afternoon nap.  i would try moving it to 9am; keep the other naptimes the same, and still work really hard on extending that afternoon nap (you're right, that one should definitely be longer!)

you may also want to move the df about a half hour sooner if you can... that might also act as a w2s for the 2am waking.  if the df is too late, you are disturbing the sleep cycle in a way that makes it hard to have restful sleep, and can contribute to further NW - as you are seeing.

HTH a little