My DD is almost 6 months old, EBF, she goes to bed at 7pm every night, has a solid predictable bedtime routine, and although she used to do 5 - 7 hour stretches at night, she has now got into a pretty regular routine of waking every 4 to 4.5 hours on the dot in the night ! She self settles without much fuss at all for naps in the day time and has recently started waking up a bit after her last feed at bedtime so she's going into her cot semi-awake, and she sometimes cries a tiny bit then goes back to sleep if she wakes at say 5am and we don't go to her....but between 10.30-11.30 she'll wake crying - even if she's had a feed in the evening, some solid food dinner, then big feed again just before bed...surely she can't be ravenously hungry after only 3 or 4 hours asleep? As it's almost the same time every night I feel it may be out of habit...is this possible? Am I supposed to be trying to drop a night feed at this stage? She guzzles down one short-ish feed on one breast (if I try and offer her the other to tank her up she refuses and falls asleep). Then she sleeps until maybe between 3 and 4am when she wakes sometimes chatting for 20mins and then crying...I sometimes try and leave her for a few min to see if she'll fall asleep but she just gets louder and louder ! She sleeps on her front and sometimes she's crying because after all the chatting she's rolled over onto her back and is disorientated and doesn't know how to get back onto her front.
This morning this happened again at 5am after I'd fed her at 3.30am...I turned her over, shhhed and turned on her soothing musical bear (just like I do to resettle her if she wakes too early from a nap) but she just screamed and screamed so I asked my partner to resettle her and that worked for 10 mins...then she was crying again...so then I fed her. Then when she woke again at 7 she was not hungry for her morning feed.
I am just so exhausted and fed up because I know she can do longer sleep stretches and I feel exasperated trying to work out why she's waking up....like if it's something in her environment or what...When we went away recently and she slept in a travel cot she slept really well and didn't wake for this early feed, she went through until 1 or 2 am. And when I went out and my DP babysat, she woke at 9.30pm, he resettled her and she then didn't wake again until 4 am !