Sleeping FAQ: 4-6 months – Night Waking

4.5 mth Emma is waking in the night but there’s no pattern to it

My daughter is 4 and a half months old. She is an only child. She weighed 5lb 11oz when born and now weighs 12lb 6oz. She feeds at 7.30am (or when she wakes), 11am and 2.30pm. She usually gets hungry around 5pm and 6.30pm. We have stopped the 10.30pm feed (see below). The time that she feeds for can vary but has increased from 20 minutes in the early days to 30 minutes or more. I have just started weaning her and she is on day 6. I have followed the guide in Gina’s book.
Emma is awake for about 1½ hours from when she wakes up. She sleeps for about 40 minutes. By 12ish she is tired and sleeps up to 1hour 30 mins (it can be less). Recently she has gone without a nap in the early evening. She is mainly very lively and happy at these times but has her off days. Emma is settled to sleep in a variety of ways. I will often put her to sleep to settle by herself. If this doesn’t work I will try a dummy or pick her up. If she doesn’t want to be in bed at all I will bring her back out with me. When my husband returns at 6pm he changes Emma (or baths her on alternate nights) and then I will feed her before putting her to bed. She often settles quite well at this time. However, we have changed this slightly. My husband is finding it more and more difficult to wake and feed her at the 10pm feed (she is on Farley’s formula). He can get very stressed with her because she cries a lot now. So we decided to not wake her up and try to keep her up longer after 7pm. She manages until about 8pm.
The problem is that she wakes 2 or 3 times in the night. I am going back to work in 5 weeks and need to stop this waking. When she wakes I don’t leave her to cry. As soon as I hear her I go in. I have tried to use a dummy. It sometimes works and gives me another hour. If it doesn’t work I pick her up and try and cuddle her to sleep. However she cries a lot during this and as I don’t want to disturb my husband too much I tend to feed her. She often feeds for about 10 minutes and then goes back to sleep.
She went through a stage of waking up just once in the night between 2-4am and then we had to wake her at 7am. How can we get her back to this or even sleeping through the night? There seems to be no consistency with timings of waking up. Last night she woke at 11.40pm fed for 10 minutes then woke again at 1.40am and fed for 10 minutes. She then woke at 6.30am so I fed her and kept her awake from then. Other days we often have to wake her in the morning.

Please help. How can I get some decent sleep before I go back to work?
Michelle

In order to get Emma to sleep through the night, you will have to continue to give her a feed at 10/10.30pm. At her weight she still needs this late feed, but it will help her to push through to 7am without needing breast feeds in the night. I am sure at the moment she is waking from hunger in the night. It is usual for the 10pm feed to be dropped well after solids have been introduced, as by then your daughter will be getting all the calories she needs by day.

I sympathize with you as I know how sleepy some babies are at this time. I suggest you push her bedtime back to 7pm. Make sure you have a quiet bathtime, followed by her final feed in her room. As Emma has dropped her afternoon nap she will be ready for sleep by 7pm but not so exhausted as to fall into a deep sleep. When she has finished feeding, put her in her cot and let her settle alone. By having a good sleep from 7-10pm she should feed better at 10pm which will help her push through the night.

At 10pm turn on her lights and remove any sheet or blanket from Emma. Then let her come round in her own time. This can take 15-20 minutes and the occasional reminder, “time to wake up” will help her come round naturally. Once she is fully awake feed her at least 2/3rds of her feed. She needs a 6oz bottle if possible. Change her and feed her the rest with the lights dimmed so Emma will settle back to sleep easily at the end.

If falling asleep whilst feeding is a problem, remove the bottle and lay Emma down on the floor to stir her. I know this sounds rather harsh but the firm floor will stir her awake again so she can take a full bottle.

If Emma still continues to wake at night try to eliminate one feed of these feeds by offering her water before resorting to the breast. Try to get her to settle back alone without feeding her to sleep as she shows she is capable of this sometimes. If you know she has fed well at 10pm then she is waking more from habit rather than hunger in the night. See the description of a “core” night in The Complete Sleep Guide for Contended Babies and Toddlers. This will help you eliminate the night feeds and help her sleep through, but she also needs to learn how to settle alone, both in the day and night. This may involve some crying at first but it is important for her to be able to settle herself back to sleep when she stirs in a light sleep.

If your husband isn’t keen to help with the 10pm feed then you should try and get an hour or so of quiet rest before 10pm so that it is not so hard to manage this feed by yourself. You could tell him though that once Emma’s feeding routine is a bit better established and solids are working well she won’t need this feed at all and will sleep from 7pm-7am every night. It seems like a long time away when you are going through it but it will be over soon and everything settled down for you all.