Need advice on getting tough tonight - all opinions appreciated

[ragtaggle]

My dd is 21 weeks and has recently started waking at 3.30 and 5.30 after ten days of 'sleeping through' .( For me, this means 7pm until 6am - I dropped the 11pm feed weeks ago as it seemed to make no difference to her waking times) On the occasional night it will just be 5.30 so I know she's capable of sleeping for a ten hour stretch, even now.

My response was to bf her at both times as I can't face a battle in the middle of the night. It's a struggle just getting out of bed at those times(She's in a separate room so I have to galvanise to walk down the corridor - bring her to bed, feed her, wind her and then take her back all of which wakes me up completely )

Five days ago I started giving her baby rice as I felt she must be hungrier ( She weighs c sixteen pounds) She has, in fact, taken to it like a duck to water. But It hasn't made any difference to her sleepas she still keeps waking at these times. These wakings feel like just habit to me- I don't think she can really be hungry - can she?

My dh is off work for the week so we are planning to respond to any pre 5am wakings with an offer of boiled water. (Something I know she'll refuse as she point blank refuses to feed from a bottle) I suppose I'm after reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. It breaks my heart to hear her cry as she's such a contented baby usually.......

Does she have a dummy? My ds2 is fifteen weeks and he sleeps from 7.30pm to 6.30pm most nights and has done for the last three or four weeks. If he wakes during the night I offer him his dummy and he calms down and goes back to sleep.

The odd time he hasn't been pasified with his dummy I've left him to cry and eventually he's gone back to sleep. It seems heartless and listening to them cry when all you want to do is sleep is very difficult.

Has the problem got worse since starting the baby rice? I've been giving ds2 baby rice for a little while, won't say how long incase any HV's are reading ( ). It took him a good week to get back into a routine with his bowels. It could be upsetting her tummy.

I think 1 or even 2 night feeds are not uncommon at this age but maybe you could try to cut out the earlier one first? If she's been able to go through the night in the past then she should be able to manage again. With my dd, when she started to sleep through the night it was often a bit touch and go, she'd go through for a week or so then backslide, then go through again.

Sorry, I should have added that at this age I always fed my dd as I couldn't bear her to cry in the middle of the night as that woke me up more than feeding her. But we were in the same room with her until she was 8 months by which point she never woke in the night anyway.

How long have you left her to resettle before you go in?

Sometimes if you go in too early you can actually wake them when they're just in a light or dreamy sleep. We leave DS for about 5-10mins in the night if he wakes and usually 9/10 he resettles himself. Took a few days, but he soon picked it up. (Not referring to CC, but just listening to their movements/grizzle to see if they are just shifting and moaning at the same time)

at 5 months we put our dd in her own room for nighttime. And I coincided this with dropping the 3am feed (I was bf) after just going into her room and giving her a dummy back instead of a feed she soon got the idea that I was dropping the feed. She started sleeping through the night at 6 months old.

Also give the baby rice time to get into her system, if you only started it 5 days ago. It needs time to bulk her up a bit and might give her pooing probs for about 1 week, then it should start to help. Sounds to me like she's hungry and that is why she is waking. They need to build up a good food/milk supply over the day to be able to sustain themselves over night. Also they get into habits of waking at a certain time.

Just try and gently let her know you don't want to be woken up to feed her anymore in the night.