Early waking to poo!

[TeamEponine]

I was wondering if anyone had ideas for how to sort a sleep problem we have with our DD, she's just over four months old.

Since about three weeks she's had a great natural routine of being ready to sleep for the night at 7pm and wakes around 7am. She wakes 5-8 times through the night to feed, but has always gone straight back to sleep after.

The frequency of feeding through the night is obviously an issue, but over the past week or so she has been tired and wanting to go to sleep around 6pm and then waking between 4am and 5am to do a mega poo (she only does one a day). This wakes her up, and she is then wide awake and wanting to play noisily.

I think the two issues are linked, if she didn't wake so early she might not want to go to bed early. So does anyone have any ideas as to how to make her poo later in the day?

Over the past month she has moved from being EBF to being on bottles only and I am tracking her feeding now due to some weight gain issues. From this I know that she has at least half of her milk through the night. What I'm wondering is whether this might be part of the problem? Yesterday I tried to get her to feed more during the day by frequently offering her the bottle, but she just had the same amount of milk split over many one oz feeds. Today I might try feeding her while she is asleep during the day to see if I can trick her into having more.

In case it is relevant, she mainly co-sleeps in with us, but usually does the first couple of hours in her Moses basket. After this she thrashes about loads in her sleep. If I leave her in her basket she wakes herself is she comes in with me and she sleeps cuddled up to try to manually swaddle her. Actual swaddling is very unpopular and leads to tantrums and no sleep at all!

During the day she is quite difficult to get to sleep. It either takes lots of rocking, out for a walk in the pram or in the car. She always cries and objects to going to sleep.

Sorry for this being so long, I've tried to include all of the information that might be relevant! Thanks if you've read this far, and I'm really hoping you have some ideas as I'm beyond exhausted!

[nyldn]

No ideas.... my DS, 5.5 mo, poos every morning between 6-6:30 so there's no getting him back down after that. interested in the coming responses!

it IS nice to go out for the day knowing he's already had his big poo though!!

[TeamEponine]

That is true! She's gone from having three poos a day that require a total clothing change to just one a day. So that's great. I just wish it didn't mean she is awake from 4.30 til 7.00!

Hoping some wonderful people come up with some ideas still...

[juneau]

Do you really think that someone on MN is going to be able to change the time of day that your baby poos?

I've heard some odd stuff on here over the years, but I think this one might take the prize.

[juneau]

TBH I think your time might be better spent working out why she is waking so much in the night - 5-8 times is a lot. Is she properly waking and crying 5-8 times, or do you go to her every time you hear her stir? If its the latter I would practice 'the pause', which means you don't go to her every time she makes a sound and give her time to self-settle. If you leap out of bed every time she whimpers she probably isn't properly awake, but you will wake her by getting up and going to her.

[TeamEponine]

I really wasn't expecting a direct solution to the pooing times! But I did think that other people may have had similar experiences or might have some ideas.

I know our routine is not great, and I think we need to work on two things. Less waking in the night and shifting the feeding to being more in the day. These might help with the early morning pooing.

She does wake often, and I agree with you that I'm probably attending to her too much. I have tried to leave her a bit to see if she settles, but she thrashes around so much she totally wakes herself up. So I'm not sure what to do next with that.

I have tried to squeeze more milk into her during the day today, so let's see if that helps at all.

Any ideas gratefully received!