Breaking the wake up patterns?

[hawalkden]

Just wondering if there are any tips to stop Matilda from being either wide awake and playful or stressed and getting overtired between the hours of 4-6am. I don't mind her when she's playful she'll happily be sorted and be placed back in her cot and play with a teddy before falling asleep but when she's stressing e.g. now she'll pull her dummy out, kick her blanket off her (she sweats like a beast now in sleeping bags) do a fair few screaming blue murder tones. She's 8months nearly.

She usually wakes at 3.30 due to a wet nappy and depending on her last meal/feed from the night before I'll give her between 5-7oz of milk. Sometime she drinks it some times she'll kick off e.g. this morning, her nappy was changed, tried her with some milk, tried playing her with, telly on, the usual things to get her settled. Nothing has settled her.

Shes no temp only hot due to the stress rashes/sweats and just overtired now but it's 9/10 nearly every morning between these hours she's just uncontrollable to settle. When/if she finally goes to sleep she'll wake at 6-8am for breakfast and then sleep most of the morning if we're not out and about and she's looking around.

I'm getting fairly hacked off by it all now. I'm not sleeping my health isn't going great because of it and OH was in car crash so he's off work with a sore back. He can't do anything at all due to it at the moment so he can't get up with her and sort her.

 

[Ganton]

I'm afraid I'm in a similar situation but I hope someone else can help. The last few days I've been getting him up and giving a bit of milk, but if he's obviously still tired (rubbing eyes, grumpy) then I put him back in his cot. It's taken about 10 minutes of crying / moaning for him to go back off this morning, so not too bad. Sounds like you've already tried this though, so I hope someone else can give better advice.

 

[August79]

What time is she going down for the night? Also have you tried sizing up her diaper at night so maybe she won't need to be changed?

I personally do not change at night due to the fact that it wakes Aiden up too much and he is a bear to get back down. I also think it is sending mixed signals to play with her or let her play at night. Night is for sleeping. We keep night time interactions very minimal;lights are not turned on, no leaving the nursery, shushing and patting, maybe a lullaby on rougher nights.

Do you have a good bedtime routine? We have one that is working for us and has helped to get rid of night time wakings.

I hope these might help. I know how it feels to be dragging all the time and cranky from lack of sleep. Sorry to hear about your OH, hope he recovers quickly!

 

[Clucky as]

we are goingthru similar. if he is happily making noises I don't get out of bed but the minute he starts crying I go check. first I try and re settle in crib. if that doesn't work I re settle in my arms within the room. If not then I will have minimal lights on and walk him etc ( trying to break that habbit it's very hard) . Try a larger nappy like pp said. so don't change unless it's massively full. try resettle without the milk. And keep as quiet as u can. I whisper or don't speak at all ( mainly due to being so friggen tired) good luck. my lo is eight months too and wakes up between 4and 6 and hardly ever goes back down

 

[Clucky as]

Also how are the solid feeds going thru the day? does ur lo need extra meal maybe. Or snack?

 

[Zephram]

I agree with what the others are saying - absolutely do not play with her, night is for sleeping. Keep lights low if you have to have them on, otherwise lights off and whispering voices, interactions to a minimum, she stays in her room, definitely no telly! Do only what you absolutely have to to calm her if she's starting to cry.

My baby is 7 months and also hard to settle at that time. I actually just put him to bed very early. So if he is going to wake up at sometime before 6am every day the he is going to bed before 6pm every day. Today he was asleep at 5:50pm. This means he gets a long enough sleep and isn't overtired all day, as I can't get him to sleep later than that if he goes to bed later. I think early awakenings are another phase and hopefully it will be over soon!

 

[izzlesnizzle]

What works well for us is going on a 2,3,4 schedule (or 3,3,3 works just as well). So if she wakes at 6.30am then shes back down at 8.30 until 10 then shes goes for the next nap at 1/1.30 until 2/2.30, then we start the bedtime routine at 6.30 with bath, bottle, bed at 7pm.

It wasn't until we got on top of naps that the night times started to get better. Around 8 mths there is a big sleep regression which lasted 8 wks for us which was to do with crawling and pulling up to standing and she was wanting to practice pulling herself up in her cot as much as she could! She had a spate of early morning waking around this time and was up for the day at 5am every day which was a killer and would result in a very grumpy, tired baby by nap time.

I don't change nappies at night unless shes dirty. Like PP says its a good idea to go up a size in nappy so if you're using a size 4, then go up to 4+ which is what worked for us as we were having the problem around that age of her wetting right through her gro bag onto the sheet. Not what you want at 4am, stripping her down, full change of clothes and a sheet change aswell!

I would also up her solids if you haven't already to make sure shes well tanked up during the day. Some babies love their milk but my LO dropped the mid afternoon bottle at 7 mths and the mid morning at 9 mths but she loves her solids and horses as much as she can which meant her milk intake dropped significantly (I just made sure she had plenty of yogurts, cheese etc instead). It is normal for them to drop their milk intake and up on solids around this age but im not advocating you drop any bottles, just saying how it went with my LO.

Like PP says aswell, try to re settle without feeding first. Stay in the dark, no talking, no eye contact, no nappy changes (unless you really need to). And also trying not to go straight away as there could be a chance she might doze off again without you needing to go. I would give it 5 mins of fussing unless shes screaming of course then I would go, could be teething etc.

Also getting them to learn self settling but that's a whole other story!