Solving the 4-5 am waking

[JessicaFletcher2014]

Hi, my daughter is 6 months old. For a few weeks she was waking at anywhere between 4-5 am & refusing to go back to sleep after getting a bottle. So we moved her into her own room last week. The first night shecried for over an hour so we thoughtshe must be hungry & fed her. She continues to wake anywhere from 3:45 -5 takes a bottle and goes back till 645 or 7. I have read about "wake to sleep" or reducing the amount of formula by 1 oz each night to stop the waking. Has anyone tried these approaches? Do they work?

I dont know how the wake to sleep would work because she varies ths time she wakes. Last night when I tried to take the bottle away to wind her she screamed so not sure how the reducing the formula would work out either. It would be great if she went till her normal wake up time and then took her bottle. She refuses the bottle at 7 when I try.

thanks

When is her last bottle before bed? I would be inclined to feed her at bedtime as usual and then perhaps introduce a dream feed at your own bedtime. Just feed her without waking her (she may wake but is quite likely to just go straight back off). You probably won't even need to wind her.

It worked for my DD, she went straight through to morning when we did the dream feed. When we felt that she didn't really need that either we dropped it ounce by ounce til we got to 3oz- then stopped it altogether with no problems.

Incidentally I have also had some success with wake to sleep, but I reckon changing her feeding times would help initially.

What's her daytime routine? What's her bedtime routine?

I'd suggest an awake time of 2-2.5 hours with 2/3 daytime naps of either 2 hours or 90 minutes. This isn't always possible if you have a cat napper.

I'd try and stick to the following routine for a week and see if you have any success;

7am awake and milk
8am breakfast
9.15 settle to sleep
11.15 wake up and milk
12pm lunch
1.30 settle to sleep
3.30 wake up
5.45 settle to sleep
6.15 wake up and milk
7pm dinner (porridge and banana, nice and stodgy)
7.30 bedtime routine*
8pm settle to sleep

If you're not on 3 meals yet, I'd start with dinner, then breakfast and then lunch as you build up.

*bedtime routine is ideally, bath if needed, pjs, milk, sleeping bag, book and then bed. This removes milk from bedtime.

Re nighttime milk, try a dreamfeed if this doesn't just completely wake them up. If this doesn't work, set a time that you're not willing to feed before. At 6 months, I would say that 2am is reasonable, ie 6 hours without milk.

Depending on how solids go, I would night wean at 9 months if she's still waking up for food.

Sorry I shouldve given her routine:

7 am wake up - attempt bottle but see above
815 breakfast rice cereal & fruit
845 walk
915 nap
1100 bottle
1215 lunch - potato with other veg
1245 sleep usually 1- 1 1\2 hrs
300 bottle
play
415 nap - she wont always take this nap even though shes tired
515 ricecereal
530 bath
615 bottle then story and in bed for 7
1030 dreamfeed
Any suggestions to change the day?

I think that the routine looks quite good. If she is usually refusing the last nap of the day, I would put her to bed very early.

How long are the 9.15 and 4.15 naps for when they both happen?

She might be a little overtired is the only thing.

Naps are usually 40 minutes. A few times she has slept the morning nap for an hour. I would put her to bed at 630 if she wont nap at 4 because she is really tired.

To be honest with you we really struggled at this age because it's a nap transition from 3 to 2. It could be worth pushing back the first nap and to see if you can get 2 90 minute naps out of her. Pushing back the first nap then makes the early waking go away.

If you can get a sleep from 10.00 - 11.30 and again from 2.30 - 4.00 that's a about perfect for a 7-7 routine. She is just a little younger than you might expect.

I know that for DS we then just pushed back the nap time by 30 minutes every time he started waking up early until we went down to 1 nap and again that has been pushed back for the same reason, I expect until we're down to no naps.

I HATE nap transitions though!

Thanks for the replies. She is so tired in the morning I have to try to stretch her till 9

Oops posted too soon. I will

Darn tablet! I will