Baby no longer in routine?

scaredycat

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any info on my situation. I have an almost 5 month old (he'll be 5 months in 11 days) and for some reason the last 4 nights have been exhausting.
I'm a first time mum and not sure if I'm the reason he's not sleeping? He only sleeps twice during the day for about 30 mins each and maybe 10 mins in evening time. He goes down to sleep at night between 11pm and 12 and wakes up about 6 or 7am, (I then bring him into my bed) or so he had been for a few weeks. Now he goes to bed at the same time and wakes up about 2 or so and is starving for food. I have started him on baby rice last week giving it to him at lunch time once a day and he's doing great. I am still breastfeeding him with one formula feed last one before night.
Has anyone else experienced this? I am a bit worried cos everyone else I talk to, their babies go down to sleep way earlier than mine and sleep right through? I tried putting him down about 8 or 9 but he wakes up again 30 mins later and is buzzing.
He is very good other than that, never really cries and is a very happy baby, but just wondering if I'm doing something wrong with his routine and will it affect him later on?

bp

each baby is different but below are a few ideas:

Is he going through a developmental leap? They affect sleep.

Could he be too young for food - they do say 26 weeks, that could be upsetting his tummy (I waited for 22 weeks and it went well so only a thought.

Could you try a more relaxed and earlier bed time - I know you said he wakes within 30 mins but that seems very late. My 2 year old goes to bed by 8pm at the latest, sleeps until around 7 and naps for two hours. At that age they were having three hour long naps during the day and a good 12 hours at night (excluding a 2am wake up for a feed). How quickly you forget those!!!

Does he wake looking for mammy knowing he will get into your bed?

Now each child is very different so I am only basing the above on my one - all my mammy friends have different routines and sleep patterns but do look into the wonder weeks app, could be a leap

seamus

Don't worry too much about what everyone else appears to be doing, you'll drive yourself mad. My daughter didn't reliably sleep through the night until about a year old. Every child has their own routine and will mix it up a little every now and again.

Sudden night waking though, nine times out of ten for us it was teething. At that age, a small drink (doesn't have to be milk, could be water), rub some teetha on the gums, fresh soother and a five-minute cuddle and she was back to sleep.

LegacyUser

Hi I'm also a first time mum to an almost 6 month old. I have a daytime catnapper too (fecking exhausting, I thought all babies slept 2-3 hours during the day!!!), but she's very good at night. She hits the bed around 7 or so, and we usually don't hear from her again until at least 5:30am (bar the odd squeak now and then, usually rectified with her soother).

I know that sounds wonderful, but I will say that from about 15 weeks until about 18/19 weeks we were in the absolute horrors. She went from sleeping most of the night to being awake every hour, for no apparent reason. I stopped feeding at night from about 12 weeks - so we would feed her at bedtime of 7pm, feed her again around 10pm, and then she was ok until about 4:30. (I gradually pushed that time out as the weeks passed). So when she suddenly started waking at 1am, 2am, 3am , 3:30am, I had no clue why. I still don't. I actually remember practically crying at 4am some mornings, wondering when I'd get to sleep - knowing that she only sleeps about 40 mins at a time in the day, so that was no good!

I will say I persevered. I just didn't give myself a feed as an option. I was happy that she wasn't hungry, so I just kept putting her soother in.Again, and again and again and again. And suddenly one night she slept through. I have since read that they seem to have "wonder weeks" around the 4 month mark, and it can be marked by a lot of waking up during the night, because they learn so much during the day. She did learn to roll over etc during this time, so I'm thinking maybe that was it.

For you, I just don't exactly know. I know this is a really stupid question, but are you sure he's actually hungry? And if he is, I guess all you can do is make sure he gets a really big feed last thing, then start stretching out the time by 15 mins a go, each night he wakes, and maybe see how that goes. Oh I actually remember one thing - we upped her last feed so it was bigger than her usual daytime feeds. So say she was on 150 ml feeds during the day, we'd give a 180ml feed last thing. And then when she moved to 180ml, we'd give her a 210ml feed last thing. That seemed to help a bit, but it also made me happy that she wasn't ravenously hungry. Maybe you could try that? We'd top her up then in her sleep around 10pm, but she never took more than a couple of ounces then. (I'm assuming you're bottle feeding here, apologies if you're not)

As for the bedtime, maybe you could try moving it forward by degrees too. A couple of nights at 10:30, then the next ones at 10pm, then the next at 9:30 etc. See how that goes?? I know every baby is different but they seem to need a lot of sleep at night. It may resolve over time though, because I do know an 11 month old that had a bedtime routine exactly like that and it gradually moved forward to about 9pm almost naturally after about 6/7 months (almost - there was a little parental help there!!)

If you manage to solve the short naps during the day thing, please let me know!! I've tried so many different things, and none of them have worked yet!!! Hang on in there on the nights, he'll come round again.