Schedule at 5 months

I thought I'd share where we were a few weeks ago at 5 months and what we are doing differently in the last week or two. At five months, we were pretty much still on a 3 hour schedule with a dream feed.

8:15 nurse
9:15 nap (60 min. after waking)
11:15-11:30 nurse (she was napping really well and long so I often let her sleep a few extra minutes)
12:30 nap
2:15 nurse
3:15-3:30 nap (watching for sleep cues)
5-5:15 nurse (often waking around 4:30 or 4:45)
6-6:30 nap
7:45 wake if still sleeping
8 nurse
8:30 bedtime
10-11 dream feed

I realized that I was almost always waking her for the second and third feeds of the day. She really can go longer than 3 hours in the earlier part of the day. I also had been thinking about dropping the dream feed for many weeks but different things kept coming up. Then she started waking in the night and I thought perhaps either the fourth nap or the dream feed were causing sleep disruption in the night. Over the last several days we have moved to this schedule. Unfortunately, she had two vaccines Monday and has been teething as well but I decided to push ahead and hopefully get it all over at once.

8:15 nurse
9:20 nap
11:45 nurse
12:50 nap
3 nurse
4-4:30 nap (watching for sleep cues; the length of this nap is still variable depending on earlier naps and errands, etc)
6 nurse
8 nurse
8:30 bedtime

I have to admit that dropping the dream feed has been bittersweet. I loved that time snuggling her while she slept and I do miss it a bit. The last two nights I haven't fed her but I've gone in to kiss her one last time. Both nights she has stirred and cried for a minute or two just after I've left her room so tonight I'm not going to go in. It is also nice, however, to put her in bed at 8:30 and be able to do whatever I want with the rest of the night without needing to worry about stopping to feed her one last time.

Last night, she fussed for a few minutes around midnight and then woke up crying around 2:30. I knew from her cry that she was in pain but I wasn't sure if she was hungry as well. I gave her Tylenol, put a little Orajel on her gums, and tried for a few minutes to settle her back down. When she clearly wasn't going to fall back asleep, I decided to nurse her for a few minutes. She was still awake when I put her down about 8 minutes later but she went back to sleep relatively easily after I left her. I think it was just the teething that woke her so tonight I gave her some Motrin before bed to try to cover that preemptively.