Falls asleep on his own, just won't *stay* asleep!

[becky1969]

I really appreciate all this information!

MDH Mommy - would you mind posting how much awake time you are having before nap and bed now? I'm curious to see if this would help us too. I recently pushed his naptime LATER so that we could easily do a 1 nap day without a 6 pm bedtime. So, he's going down at 1, and will sleep 2-2.5 hours (if swaddled). If unswaddled, I'm lucky to get about 75 minutes out of him, so overtired may be our issues too.

Stacy (and everyone else) how do you feel about having the FP aquarium in his crib at this age? When he wakes up he immediately stands up and turns it on. That's usually our clue to go in and re-swaddle (because we're idiots) and give a bottle. However, last night DH heard the aquarium go on at 11 pm, but then eventually he heard it go off and LO was quiet. He thought I went in and soothed him, but I slept right thru it! So it seems like he CAN play with the aquarium and put himself to sleep. I think we've been rushing in too quickly. Tonight we'll let him play as long as it takes until he cries.  But that still leaves my question: is it counterproductive to leave the aquarium in there, or will it help him go to sleep sooner?

[MDHmommy]

Sure - he's waking at 6:15/6:30 and is awake until 12:15/12:30 so that's 6 hours. Then a 2 hour nap. Then he's awake from 2:30 until 7 so that's 5.5 hours.

I agree with Stacy, no need to head in there unless he's crying. Playing is fine

Why do you still swaddle at this age? Seems like in your previous post you say that he's able to get himself to sleep, do you think the swaddle might be slowing him down in that area?

[becky1969]

The swaddle is a big boo-boo on my part. I weaned him at 7 months. He really did need it until then - i started trying to wean at 5 months, but he just wasn't ready until 7. We had about 2.5-3 months of successful non-swaddling, adn then he started getting 4 teeth in at once. No one was sleeping. One night out of desperation (after he was awake for over 2 hours), I swaddled, and he went right to sleep! And stayed asleep! I thought of it as a 'temporary' measure, but my LO takes 2 weeks to get in 1 tooth, so those 4 teeth took about 2 months. By then, we were thoroughly addicted to the swaddle again. I'm now weaning. We're doing 1 arm out at naps, which means he's only sleeping about 45 minutes to MAYBE 70 (after getting him to do one 2.5 hour nap in the middle of the day, this is very frustrating for both of us). So, I'm working on getting rid of the swaddle again! It may be the cause of some of the night waking (he comes unswaddled, and that wakes him up), but he just isn't able to go cold turkey, I don't think.

[becky1969]

OK, I feel like crying right now. With joy!!

LO slept thru the night last night!!! It was the talk of being OT that really hit me, and made me change our routine. He only had a 30 minute nap in the afternoon because of the unswaddled thing, so I gave him an hour nap late in the day (4:30-5:30). I thought for sure with such a late nap, he'd be a bear to put down at night. He was in his crib at 7:30, and he rolled around, moaning and groaning for about 30 minutes. I had to go in towards the end of that period for some shushing and soothing. He quickly fell asleep after that, AND SLEPT UNTIL 6:30 THIS MORNING! He did fuss a bit at 4 am (which coincided with when DH was coming to bed -LOs white noise machine had gone off accidentally), but DH just shushed him, and he went back to sleep! The best part is his arms were out of the swaddle for most of the night, including the 4 am shushing!!!

This AM, I put him down at 9:30 for a npa b/c he's really aggitated from teething (felt molar #2 this morning!), and he's still sleeping nearly 2 hours later! Unswaddled!!! I feel hopeful for the first time in weeks. I've been a slave to the swaddle again, knowing it was not good but scared of what life would be without it. Turns out, a lot of our problem is being OT.

My DH teased me this morning, because after months and months of lecturing about the dangers of being OT or overstimulated, I had not recognized LO being OT which was causing us sleep problems. To be fair, they sure are hard to read at this age! He's been cutting down on his daytime sleep drastically, and I've been moving his bedtime up by 30-60 minutes on 1 nap days, but I guess even that wasn't enough! Man, these little guys are just mini-science experiments! 

Let's hope this new trend continues!