Need sleep advice/troubleshooting for almost 4 mo. old (Long)

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

DD#1 was such a great sleeper that I didn't have to deal with many middle of the night wake-ups after 8-10 weeks. However, I believe DD#2 is trying to prove that she is different from her older sister which has thrown me for a loop.

Around 8 weeks, DD#2 started to STTN pretty consistently from about 9pm-7am which was glorious. Then the week before I went back to work (wk 12), she started to sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and so I would BF her and put her back to sleep. For week 12 and 13 she probably woke up on average 4 nights a week. For weeks 14 - 16 (this week), she seems to be waking almost every single night around 3am. Last night she woke up at 2am and 4am.

So, her wake-ups are increasing, not decreasing which is concerning me (and making me very tired). Here are a few notes about the situation:

1. Right now, we put her to bed around 8pm in a miracle blanket. She usually wakes around 3am and breaks out of the swaddle and starts yelping very loud and if we leave her, she starts crying and is somewhat frantic. I get up and BF her. She doesn't seem to drink all that much and falls back asleep. Then I wrap her up again and she usually sleeps until 7am. I've thought about trying not to feed her and just rocking her back to sleep but she seems really frantic and I just feel like that won't work.

2. She drinks plenty of milk at daycare (both BM and formula). I send 5 4oz bottles and she pretty much drinks them all. At night, I BF some and then we offer her a 4 oz bottle of formula around 7pm before she falls asleep (my supply is much lower now since I stopped pumping at work which is why we give her formula). She usually drinks 2-4 oz of formula.

3. She usually takes 3 naps at daycare with two of them being longer naps. I pick her up at 5:30pm and she usually also takes a mini evening snooze (20-30 min) in the swing while we eat dinner.

4. I think she may be teething. She has her hands in her mouth a lot and drools a lot. DD#1 got her first tooth at 3.5 months so a tooth could be popping up any day now.

So, my question is, should I be doing anything differently? Do you have any ideas of things I should try? Should I just wait a few more weeks and see how things go? I don't want to be reinforcing bad habits but at the same time, I know she's still pretty young. Any advice, thoughts, and experiences are welcome.

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

Okay, so I just read the previous post which was on a similar topic and BH suggested the dream feed. I totally forgot about that! So, I'm going to try having DH give her a bottle before he goes to bed between 10pm and 11pm and see if that helps.

tomandcourt · September 2011

I was just going to say that this all sounds--sorry--totally normal. One wakeup per night? And she eats and goes back to sleep? J was right there at that age. She's also probably hitting the 4-month wakeful, and if this is as bad as it gets I'd say you're lucky, and she'll probably be over it soon.

You might try putting her to bed closer to 7:00 (maybe skip the dinnertime snooze?), and I highly recommend the Halo Sleep Sack with swaddle--worked better for us than Miracle Blankets for really keeping J contained.

Oh, and if you're not averse to supplementing, you could maybe at least take turns with the middle of the night feeding. DH and I did that for a while and it did help.

RomeRomance06 · September 2011

Ha ha. Our lack of sleep is probably catching up with us this afternoon since we both wrote similar posts at the same time. Your post sounds like my situation at 3 months. She started waking up around 3-4 am to eat and then back to sleep until 7am. She was almost sleeping straight through up until then most nights.I could handle one wake-up, but now that it seems like her wake-ups are increasing in frequency, I'm concerned too. I'm like, no no, you're supposed to be going the other way!! Anyway, if she's only waking up once at 3 am, she's probably still hungry. I would think she's still pretty young and would need that milk. So, the dreamfeed may help. As for me, over the last couple of weeks DD has woken up on her own a couple times around 10:30-11 and I fed her and it didn't seem to make much of a difference in how long she slept.

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

tomandcourt:

I was just going to say that this all sounds--sorry--totally normal. One wakeup per night? And she eats and goes back to sleep? J was right there at that age. She's also probably hitting the 4-month wakeful, and if this is as bad as it gets I'd say you're lucky, and she'll probably be over it soon.

You might try putting her to bed closer to 7:00 (maybe skip the dinnertime snooze?), and I highly recommend the Halo Sleep Sack with swaddle--worked better for us than Miracle Blankets for really keeping J contained.

Oh, and if you're not averse to supplementing, you could maybe at least take turns with the middle of the night feeding. DH and I did that for a while and it did help.

I know. I guess I was somewhat spoiled with DD#1.

Your idea of putting her to bed at 7 is definitely worth a try (and then we can do the dream feed a bit later).

DH actually did get up with her last night for the first time. He has major insomnia problems so I've pretty much taken on the burden of getting up with her at night.

Thanks for the idea of the sleep sack. We didn't swaddle DD#1 so once fall hit, we just put her in footed pjs. However, since DD#2 has always been swaddled, we may need to transition her to the sleep sack once it starts getting colder.

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

RomeRomance06:

Ha ha. Our lack of sleep is probably catching up with us this afternoon since we both wrote similar posts at the same time. Your post sounds like my situation at 3 months. She started waking up around 3-4 am to eat and then back to sleep until 7am. She was almost sleeping straight through up until then most nights.I could handle one wake-up, but now that it seems like her wake-ups are increasing in frequency, I'm concerned too. I'm like, no no, you're supposed to be going the other way!! Anyway, if she's only waking up once at 3 am, she's probably still hungry. I would think she's still pretty young and would need that milk. So, the dreamfeed may help. As for me, over the last couple of weeks DD has woken up on her own a couple times around 10:30-11 and I fed her and it didn't seem to make much of a difference in how long she slept.

I know! Around 2:30 in the afternoon, I start hitting a wall and I'm so tired. I thought to myself, "I need to see if the bumpies have an ideas."

Good luck with your situation and I hope you get some suggestions that will help. I know it's super exhausting.

hsbbride · September 2011

Since she is breaking out of the swaddle, perhaps that is what is leading her to wake up. Mightbe time to get rid of the swaddle. Just a thought.

kafunder · September 2011

I agree that an earlier bedtime might help. Around 4 months (which was 3 months adjusted for us), our LOs needed an earlier bedtime, We had been doing 7:45pm, and had to move it up to 7pm.

Sofka · September 2011

try getting rid of the dinner time cat nap and putting her down earlier

it could also be that she's missing you and has finally realized you are not home w/ her 24/7 and is waking up at night to spend time w/ you

I have horrible sleepers who did not STTN til almost 1 (DD) and 14mo (DS), so I don't have much advice but good luck

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

Thanks ladies for the ideas! I'm definitely going to try for an earlier bed time and a dream feed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Artslvr · September 2011

vtkendra:
Thanks ladies for the ideas! I'm definitely going to try for an earlier bed time and a dream feed. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Yes

pixieprincss · September 2011

It sounds sooo normal. (Honestly, better than normal.) I was prepared to come in and blame the 4 month wakeful where sleep changes from deep to light cycles of a NB to the normal light and then deep. But, this would be a very mild 4-month wakeful. Still, that might be it. Once the wakeful is over, then comes normal increasingly interupted sleep as babies deal with teething, development, wanting private mommy time, growth spurts, etc. Whenever I need encouragement that night waking is very normal, I read this https://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html.

HikerBride07 · September 2011

It's so hard not to compare our 2nd children to our first, huh? My DD slept much more often and much sounder than DS. :yawn: He still doesn't take naps at the same time every day and he's sporadic at what time he's ready to go down for the night too. :-/ I'm surprised either of your babies can go so long at night without eating, especially at such a young age. DD woke to nurse at least once until she was 9 or 10 months old. DS still wakes every night at 1 and 3am. I read about a baby's physical ability to go longer around 6 months but I can't see that happening for us anytime soon.

Thanks to pp who posted the sleep study link. It's interesting to see that it is normal to have an increase in night wakings as they get older (prob due to all the big milestones). And first borns waking less. I guess my kids are normal. ;-)

umdbride · September 2011

That doesn't sound too bad to me because DS has always woken up a lot, but I understand your exhaustion! Have you tried giving her cereal a little before bed? Our pedi said we could introduce it at 4 months and when we added food to the mix DS slept a little longer in between wakeups. We also just tried the dream-feed last night and it worked like a charm! GL!

vtkgirl77 · September 2011

pixieprincss:

It sounds sooo normal. (Honestly, better than normal.) I was prepared to come in and blame the 4 month wakeful where sleep changes from deep to light cycles of a NB to the normal light and then deep. But, this would be a very mild 4-month wakeful. Still, that might be it. Once the wakeful is over, then comes normal increasingly interupted sleep as babies deal with teething, development, wanting private mommy time, growth spurts, etc. Whenever I need encouragement that night waking is very normal, I read this https://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html.

Those research studies are very informative. Thanks for sharing.

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