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SLEEP => General Sleep Issues => Topic started by: madammama on May 01, 2018, 09:23:57 am
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So my madam is nearly 6 months and due to bad habits, loosing track of the months etc etc blah blah she cannot self sooth and has always been rocked or fed to sleep (excl bf). She's not the best night sleeper but neither is she the worst. For a while she would sleep uninterupted for a few hours and be off again with a feed. The last month however I basically became her dummy and she would only fall asleep at night attached to me and often remain so for a good hour, waking if i removed her and not settling again or waking at the slightest movement across to her crib. Then waking time was often between 5-6, very rarely up to 7. (Bed time aimed for 6-6.30)
On top of this she is a cat napper. When she was younger she used to sleep for longer periods but now its more or less 30mins so needing 4 naps a day still. We realised she was getting over tired and manage to tweek the awake times to pretty much dead 2 hours mostly just before she was showing sleepy signs and she would rock off quickly. But still only sleep 30odd min. Shorter and longer awake times were tried but nothing made a difference to the length.
So part of the problem I believe is her not being able to settle herself back. (She has just this last week changed her feeding from every 2 hours to every 3, i try to feed after waking now.)
Night routine of bath (everyother day), feed, massage, bed with background noise.
So sunday night we started PUPD.
An hour battle but asleep by 7.30, great. Out till 11, feed and back into crib, asleep with a couple of minutes shushing and patting, again at 2 and 4. Brilliant. Awake at 5.45.
Yesterday, it crashed. First nap tried and after 1 1/2hours she was back wide awake so basically missed. Next she was out in 5 minutes as so tired, 40min nap. Later nap after an hour 30m. So late in the day by then had to make bed attempt earlier and she was out by 6. Stirred around 7 but settled with some shushing and patting. At her 2am feed however she woke needing a nappy change and wouldn't settle again until nearly 5 after another feed. By then I let her sleep next to me though I didn't let her dummy and up awake at 7.
Today she's managed a 30m nap at 9 so far. (Edit, nap 2 down at 12 after 20m)
So now the problem is she's getting so over tired fighting for so long going down. When trying to get her to sleep she rubs her face so much it disrupts her settling. Also the past week she has learn to roll back to front so is trying to do this when crying. I let her roll to see if she would settle like that but all she did was woke up and ended up 90 degrees peering everywhere. PLUS, i keep wondering if she's teething but no definite signs, the same on and off for months so can't not do anything just on a loose maybe
So aside from bedtime aim, any nap schedule is out the window with the length of time its taking to get her down. Is there anything i can do otherwise? We're going to move her to her cot at the weekend, plus starting weeniing in a couple of weeks. Hopefully once we've seen if PUPD is working.
I guess I just need a little assurance it might work for her. I know its impossible to tell so early, but seeing her so overtired and the shadows under her eyes last night tugged on the strings of doubt.
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Hi and hugs, getting a routine established and changing habits can be tough going on all of you. Well done for the progress you've made so far. Some over tiredness is inevitable when sleep training and often starts working in your favour as LO gets more tired and fights less. That said, I wonder if perhaps you need to think about the routine you are aiming for? 2h awake time sounds very short to me for a nearly 6 month old - I appreciate if she has built up a lot of over tiredness she may be willing to be rocked off for a catnap at that point, but she is probably not tired enough to sleep for a decent length of time. I'd expect most babies by 6 months to manage at least 2h30, up to 3h or so (some will even do a bit more). When you tried longer awake times how long did you try and how long did you stick at it?
I'd be tempted to start by pushing her awake time to 2h30 in a jump (given her routine is disturbed anyway) and see if you can get her down a bit easier for a longer first nap. If it's short you may get more chance at a resettle if she is properly tired? If she has a short nap then don't worry, maybe reduce the next A time to around 2h-2h15, but don't go too short otherwise you just end up in a further short nap cycle. I'd go for 3 naps in the day for now, and expect that to move towards a 3h A time and 2 naps over the next month or so.
Let me know what your thoughts are and we can take it from there :)