Hi there, I am nearing my wits end and would be so grateful for any advice. My lg is nearly 6.5 mo (28 weeks) and in a vicious cycle of bad sleeping in both day and night and is constantly tired
We moved her into her own room about 3 weeks ago, and started putting her down for naps in her cot just before that. Before that she was doing ok at night, waking once to feed (bf) somewhere between 2-4am and going back down ok, maybe waking once more before morning. But ever since moving she has been waking every 1 or 2 hours after bedtime until her NF (which is consequently getting earlier!). If I get to her quickly she usually settles readily but if not she gets quite worked up, she can't seem to ss once she's fully awake.
After the NF she tends to settle for longer - sometimes til morning - but has just started waking earlier in the mornings so her nights are getting shorter
In the day, her naps are 30-35 minutes without fail if in her cot, so she never completes a sleep cycle. She doesn't necessarily jolt awake but just opens her eyes and stretches and wants to chat. So she won't go back to sleep on her own, and sometimes I can rock her back to sleep but this only lasts 10 mins or so once I put her down. She will sleep longer in the car, and used to sleep longer when I let her sleep on my chest or in the sling but not always.
So the poor thing is in an overtired vicious cycle - she is happy in the mornings but rarely seems refreshed after a nap and gets grumpy later in the day. She also sometimes tries to fall asleep on the boob so obviously needs more. I know from this sitethat short naps and early NW mean OT but just don't know where to start to break this cycle! Any advice or suggestions would be so very appreciated.
Some relevant info:
LG is ebf but we recently started solids - BLW so she's not swallowing a huge amount yet.
She is rolling (and often rolls over when she wakes then gets frustrated) but not crawling yet. Maybe teething, lots of drool and chewing, but I can't see anything yet.
She is an unbelievably light sleeper (wakes at e.g. floorboard, door opening, toilet flush) and has very active dreams (lots of moving limbs and making noises) and I think this also wakes her up a lot.
Props - we're working on this. She used to feed to sleep at BT but I am keeping her awake and using a modified shh-pat in her cot - instead of patting I hold her arms as otherwise she flails around and can't seem to relax, however tired she is. I am gradually stopping the shhing and letting go of her arms sooner - is that right? For naps she still needs rocking until drowsy then I do the same. No swaddle or pacifier. We play white noise for every nap and night.
I am quite new to BW and our routine is a bit messy but this is our rough EASY recently:
7:00 WU/E (last 2 days she has woken at 5:30 and 6 but hoping that is temporary)
A inc solids
9:30 S (wakes after 30-35 min, sometimes can rock back to sleep for 10 ish min but then wide awake)
11:00 E
A inc solids, although often too tired to be very interested
12:30 ish S (same as before but on occasion has done 40 mins after first wake up and rocking - if we're out she'll sleep in the car for up to 1hr 15)
2pm E
A
4/5pm S somewhere in the afternoon, depends how tired she is and what we're doing - this is often in the car as I can't handle another battle. I'm getting very familiar with random back roads in my area from aimlessly driving around! :S Again depending on earlier this can be 30 min to 1hr 15 to try and catch up. Normally I wake her at 5:15pm at the latest but the other day she'd had so little sleep I put her down 5:30-6 and she slept a bit better that night!?
5/5:30 E
A (hubby gets home from work 6-6:20)
6:30 bedtime routine - bath, sleeping bag, white noise, bf (big feed), sleepy song, shhing
7:30 ish S (sometimes takes a while to settle)
NW about 9/9:30, 10:30, 11:30/12:30
NF about 1am
NW sometimes about 4:30, 5:30am
If anyone has any advice or suggestions onb where I should start I'd be so grateful! We just can't carry on like this. Thank you so much in advance.
Erica
