Suddenly waking up a 4:30 a.m. starving

[marcimommy]

Hey everyone! I'm new here!!!
First of all a little bit about us; I just came across Nancy's "The Babywhisperer solves all your problems" book. I am very excited. Our baby boy, Marcello is 15 weeks old and has been on a structured routine since he was just 4 weeks old (I have read "On becoming Babywise", which is good about the routine but the rest is useless  )
He has been sleeping through the night since he was just 7 weeks old. Our routine is a bit different though. The last feeding is between 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. and he basically is up until that time. He takes 2 long and 2 shorter naps during the day. Our routine looks like this:
E: 6:30 a.m.
A: 7:00 a.m.
S: 8:00 a.m.
Y: 

E: 10:00 a.m.
A: 10:30 a.m.
S: 12:00 p.m.
Y: 

E: 1:30 p.m.
A: 2:00 p.m.
S: 3:30 p.m.
Y: 

E: 4:30 p.m.
A: 5:00 p.m.
S: 6:00 p.m.
Y: 

E: 7:00 p.m. (clusterfeed to tank up before night-night)
A: 7:30 p.m.
Bath at around 9:00 p.m.
E: 9:30 p.m.
A: 10:00 p.m.
S: 10:30 p.m.

After reading Nancy's book our evenings look a little bit messed up, but of course she also advised not to create a problem if there is non!  It has worked for us great until last week. One day he suddenly woke up at 4:30 a.m. I have let him stirr a little bit hoping he will go back to sleep, but when he started crying I got him up. He was starving, he just wanted to nurse like there is no tomorrow!!!  I guess we just went through a growth spurt. Well ever since I hear him wake up at 4:30 a.m. He usually can put himself back to sleep without a problem but the last 2 nights he was very restless after 4:30, didn't cry or wake up fully but never really slept deep again. And his wake time is more like 6:00 a.m. now. Questions:
1) Can this be because he sleeps too much during the day? I know that around 6 months they should have only 2 big naps and a catnap in the late afternoon. He is 3.5 months old now. What is the usual napping routine for this age"?
2) He definitely seems very hungry in the morning. Is it possible he doesn't get enough during the day? He would only nurse for about 10 minutes and then either start to nod off  (I try to keep him awake with diaper change and skin 2 skin etc. or he gets very fussy after 10 minutes. 
3) Should we change the routine for the evenings, move the bed time earlier and introduce a dream feeding?
I know it doesn't seem to be such a big problem but I want to adjust his routine or take care of this before it would become a bad habit.

[Samuel's mum]

Welcome to the boards Marcimommy.
I'm going to pop this over to nightwakings if that's OK as it's more about his nightwaking rather than the mechanics of your actual breastfeeding. We have to try and keep this board to the breastfeeding questions as much as possible.
A couple of your points that are about breastfeeding - it's possible to get a full feed in 10 minutes. It's surprising he's falling asleep though if you are using EASY. You must be one of those folks with a lot of oxytocin in your milk. You may want to give him a few more minutes to fully wake up before you feed. You could use breast compression to try and keep him on the breast longer (see the breastfeeding FAQ board).
If he's waking up precisely at 4.30 (rather than say a window of an hour or so) - it's unlikely to be for hunger although at his age it's not that uncommon for some babies to still do the dreamfeed and one other feed. It sounds as though if he was sleeping through before and this developed after the growth spurt this is a habit you need to help him break. Perhaps by using 'wake to sleep' which the sleep boards can tell you more about. If he's going back to sleep though I don't see it as a particular problem - sleeping more lightly as the morning approaches isn't uncommon. He'd be waking fully if he was hungry and not returning to sleep easily.

p.s. Tracy Hogg is the baby whisperer.

[Layla]

Hi there & again, welcome!

Here's a link to sample EASY routines for lo's of your age: - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=10385.0

There is more REM (light sleep) in the earlier hours of the morning, so there is alot more grunting, moving around & making noises. If he is able to settle himself, I would let him be. They only enter deep sleep towards the last hour before they wake.

If you get a chance have a look at the link. I do remember that I had to bring bedtime up to 7ish with #1 when she turned around 4 months, so maybe try shortening the last catnap to 45mins & have him in bed by 7pm.

hth
Layla

[marcimommy]

Thank you ladies! I have checked out the sample EASY schedules. I had to adjust it a little bit to fit our family's lifestyle. I work until 5:00 p.m.
So last night we gave him a bath at around 7:45 and last fed him at 8:00 p.m. He got his second set of vaccines yesterday and had fever so was very cranky. He finally went down around 9:30 p.m. Thank GOD for Tylenol!!! Than I got him up for a df at 11:00 p.m. He ate 5.5 oz and went right back to sleep. He slept pretty restless but didn't wake up or whine or make those grunting hunger sounds. We will stick with this for a week and see how it goes. It actually works out pretty good for me an dh, we have some alone time in the evening.
Question: We are working hard to teach him to go to sleep on his own and he's pretty good about that. He doesn't need the bottle or brest or rocking. If I let him fall asleep right after the df will that screw this up? Should we keep him up a little after the df?

thanks

[Samuel's mum]

The dreamfeed is normally done without actually waking the baby fully. The baby feeds while still very sleepy - may even have eyes closed etc. Hence the name 'dreamfeed'. So going back to sleep immediately afterwards is not a problem. Infact generally babies fall asleep directly after a nightfeed and can still be on EASY happily during the day. You are just seeking to avoid them needing the breast to return to sleep when they wake.

[marcimommy]

Some updates: after checking Tracy's book about swithing to a 4 hrs routine  we have decided to give it a try. His naps were getting shorter and he kept waking up earlier in the morning so we thought he was ready to shift. This is the third day of the new routine. I know that it should be done in increments and slowly, but he took our lead very well and kind of swithed himself over to the new routine. The evenings are still a bit erratic but we are working to fix it as well. We also introduced a dream feeding at 11:00 p.m. He is back now to his normal 6:30 - 7:00 wake time!!!! YAY 

[Layla]

Thats great to hear! Thanks for the update