LO forgot how to sleep at night

[Doj]

Hello

I have a 3.5 month old who forgot how to fall asleep and stay sleeping at night.

Up until about 4 days ago, she was always a good night time sleeper going down at 7-7 with a DF at 11 and 1 night feeding about 4am. Lately when I put her down she will fall asleep and then be up in 45 minutes crying. I will get her down again and then in about 30 min she is up again. This continues for about 2 hours. After that she will fall asleep and stay sleeping  until her night feed around 4 or so, fall asleep till 6 and then it starts all over again.

Her daytime naps have been a problem for awhile lasting only 45 min or under. I am in the process of trying to work on them with wake to sleep.
Are these nap problems now leading to her night time sleep?
Any suggestions on how to get my lo back to her nighttime routine?

[chell]

Hi Doj. It sounds as though your lo may be overtired, as you say possibly due to her short naps. How much daytime sleep does she get in total? What is her routine like?

[Doj]

She gets about 3-4 naps about 45 minutes each.
This is something new, she used to go down just fine even with the same amount of naps. Her schedule is something like this.

730-Wake up

E-730 (sometimes 5oz othertimes just 1oz)
A-745-9 or so. She really starts to get tired about 1 hour after being up. I tried to extend her A time a bit till 915 or so thinking she would sleep longer, but no such luck
S-9-945 Since shes up only 2 hours after her feeding we do A time again

A 945-1030

E-1030 (usually 4 or  5oz)
A-1045-Noon
S-Noon-12:45

A 12:45-130

E-130
A-145-3 or so
S - 3-345

A345-430

E-430
A-445-530
S-530-615

A-630 Bath

I have tried giving her a bottle before bath time. Does not work well. Usually after bathtime when she eats she will not eat a lot at all. She is exhausted from her bath.
E-7 Usually just 2 oz if we are lucky. Very tired

S-730

DF-1030

E-Anywhere from 3-5 am and will eat 4 or 5 oz. She is hungry.

[chell]

Hi Doj, there are a few things I want to discuss. Has your lo been through a growth spurt recently? Do you think she is taking more milk at the moment?There are 6 main things which can create sleep problems: hunger, overstimulation/overtiredness, pain/illness/discomfort, lack of routine, accidental parenting and inadequate sleep prep. You can have any combination too. Sleep difficulties can arise at any time.
If you try to make any changes, such as increasing awake time, it's best to do it very slowly eg, in 15 minute increments every few days.

Looking at your routine, it sounds as though by the time she has had her bath, she is exhausted and too tired to eat. I am wondering if it might be better to either shift the bath to the morning, or to the 4.45 Activity time instead.(it's not essential that they are bathed daily). What happened when you tried to give her a bottle before her bath, why do you think this didn't work?

[Doj]

Hi Chell,

I have not noticed any growth spurt at all. I mointor all her intake of milk and it has been the same over the last few weeks.
I think I can narrow down some of the things that create sleep problems for her. It's probably a combination of overstimulation/overtiredness, lack of routine, accidental parenting and inadequate sleep prep.
overstimulation/overtiredness- Since she has 45 min naps she tired most of the day. Her temperment is good, but she yawns most of the day and when she goes down for a nap she is down in under 5 minutes so I know that she is tired.
She is usually playing in her jumperoo or exersaucer during her A time. I have been trying to read to her lately, but she just gets upset.

lack of routine- I have been on EAST since she was 7 weeks, she is now 3.5 months and I have been struggling with it. She is on a 3 hour routine, but the timing is off. I know in the BW it mentions that you do not have to be at the exact same time, but her awake time caries so much. Should I be waking her up in the morning at the same time? I have tried really hard to stick to the routine.

accidental parenting I am sure that I do many things wrong here

inadequate sleep prep This is the routine (naps) - I walk around the house for about 5-10 min walking in and and out different rooms, too cold to go outside. I take her out of the room where most of her A time happens we then go to her room, close the blinds, turn on the music, swaddle her, sit in a rocker with her for 5 min and then off to her crib. She usually falls asleep in 5 min.

Nightime-lately its been, give her a bottle, wait about 20 min then give her a bath ( i do it every night just as part of routine), massage, turn on her music, swaddle her, sit in the rocker and off to her crib. Sometimes she is hysterical other times she falls asleep, but then within 45 min she is up .

As you can see I am having more than just the problems with her sleep at night.
I want to start preping her for the 4-hr EASY, but since I cant get her to nap well at all, I dont know what to do.

Any suggestions you have with regards to anything here, would be more than helpful

Thanks

[chell]

Ok, so it does sound as though there are a few problems to resolve.

Overtiredness/overstimulation - 4 - 5 hours of daytime sleep is about right amount for your los age. I would limit the time she spends in  the jumperoo, or exersaucer and keep activities really low key, with quiet relaxed interaction only from you. Really begin to study her behaviour, watch her like a hawk, so that you pick up on her sleepy cues yawning can be a sign of overtiredness in some los. Base her nap times on this information, rather than timing.

Opps my lo has woken, will get back to you later.

Getting her down within 5 mins is really very good, often when they are overtired, it is actually harder to get them to go to sleep, but I hear what you are saying - that you feel she must be exhausted and therefore sleeping straight away. I think it would be good to stick to the same bedtime and wake up time too.

Sleep prep - what you are doing sounds ok.....especially as she falls asleep so quickley, I presume she is quite relaxed and happy when you are doing this? What makes you think it is not working well? - do you just mean the night time bit?

Accidental parenting - could you tell me more about this?

One thing I am wondering , is that sometimes around the 4 month mark, they are ready to make the change to 4 hour EASY, and if they haven't been transitioned, they can start night waking - (see p.35-36  The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems). This possibly could be the reason for the 45 min naps too, their ability to stay awake increases (2-2.5 hours for a 4 month old), so if they are not up for long, they don't need so much sleep. You can then get caught in a trap - a vicious circle, they haven't had much sleep, so they then get tired again.

I am wondering whether some adjustments in her routine, may help to solve the problem, let me know what you think. 

[Doj]

Hi Chell,

Thanks for responding.
I am going to start watching her as you say. I notice that from the time she wakes up in the morning she is yawning all the way to her nap time which is about 1.5 hours later. (probably too long) I guess I get caught up in the whole timing thing, but of course not all lo's are alike.
She only get if I am luck 3 hours a day of nap time (not enough)

I haven't stuck to the same wake up time at all. I let her wake up on her own when she gets up. Normally around 7 or so, but its not consistent. I think it might be best if I set my alarm and just get her up at the same time everyday.

Sleep prep- well by the time we get to the rocker she is starting to get a little fussy, she just wants to go to her crib, so sometimes we are only in the rocker for about 1 min before she goes to her crib. Usually once in her crib she closes her eyes and off she goes.
The problem is at night after her bath, i do the same routine, but now she becomes hysterically. She always goes to sleep at night crying and I think completely over tired. I might need to change her bath time to earlier. Would this confuse her though? I mean after she has her bath she might take a catnap before her next feeding, will she think that after her bath its time to go to sleep?

I want to transition her to the 4 HR EASY. I read it last night, but the goal is to extend her wake time. I don't think that this is a good idea for my lo as she is what I believe already overtired and extending it could make an ugly situation. Do you have any suggestions on how to transition her to 4 hr without really extending her wake time. Could I just feed her 15 min later every 3 days? I like to think that the naps would just start to work themselves out, but I am not sure if they will.
I have tried wake to sleep, but it doesn't really work with her because when she wakes up she is smiling at me and wants to get up. She almost never wakes up crying.
I feel I need a mentor for this program. We have been on it for about 9 weeks, and if anything I feel that I am just getting more frustrated.

Thanks

[chell]

Hi, I think to start with you need to focus on trying to extend her nap times to 2 x 1.5 hours, plus a catnap later in the afternoon.
I wouldn't worry about confusing her with changing the time of the bath, as long as you keep the other bit of her windown routine. If she goes down without much intervention, then that is fine.
So your routine to aim for would be:
Activity - 1.5 hours
Nap      - 1.5 hours
Activity - 2 hours (she could probably handle this after having an extended nap)
Nap      - 1.5 hours
Activity -  2 hours
catnap  -  45mins
Activity - 1.5-2 hours
Bed.

Also the feed you give her at 4am, may be the reason for her taking very little first thing in the morning at 7am.  So it may be an idea to look at this as well.

To get her down for her naps check out the 4-s wind down, then try using pat/sshh, this may be enough for her, otherwise you will need to do pu/pd.

[Doj]

Thanks!