Help requested for 1st-time EASY user for 7.5-mo old: Are we doing this right???

[meridot]

Hello there,

I have so many questions!  I thank you all in advance for your help.  I don't have any friends with kids or family where I live, so I'm kind of feeling this whole SAHM thing out on my own.  I'm so mad it took me so long to discover the BW way!  I've been trying to talk our our pediatrician about our 7.5-month-old LO's sleep habits for months, and her response has been, "Well, she's just not a great sleeper."  But that isn't true at all -- we had just fallen into accidental parenting, facilitated by some bad advice from our doctor!

So... Where to begin?  We've been on EASY over a week and have seen near-immediate (and awe-inspiring) results.  But, I think our routine needs to be tweaked, especially when it comes to when to feed solids (we're just getting started -- in our second week).  First, our morning nap went from 45 minutes (or less) to 1.5 hours.  Amazing!  The mid-afternoon nap, however, is still a struggle: she goes down crying, wakes up at 45 minutes, and won't go back to sleep until/unless I nurse her (then she'll go back down for another 1-1.25 hours).  Note: if I nurse her mid-nap, I do NOT nurse her to sleep.  She is definitely awake when she goes back down, then she settles herself back to sleep.  The problem isn't putting herself to sleep -- she definitely understands our sleep rituals (closing the blinds, turning on the white noise machine, getting into her sleep sack) and she knows how to fall asleep on her own (she sucks her thumb to sleep -- but wait, is that a prop?!?).  We bit the bullet and got a video monitor, which I highly recommend.  Most afternoons I watch her wake up, like clockwork, at the 45-minute mark.  She'll rouse, play with her feet or the zipper of her sleep sack, and then try to put herself back to sleep, sucking away on her thumb, closing her eyes... to no avail.  Some days she can do this for up to 45 minutes before beginning to cry.  It just seems like she has trouble staying asleep in the middle of the day... but then, if I nurse her right in the middle and she sleeps, is it an eating problem, a sleep association problem, a too-short wind-down problem, or an overstimulation problem?!?!  (But I also wonder if she needs that 5th feed, since she's not eating much solids-wise and no longer has any middle-of-the-night feedings, either.)  I've tried shorter Activity intervals as well as longer ones and they don't seem to matter.

What else is important to know?  She gets really tired after about 2 hours of wake time, which seems kind of short for her age.  She sleeps 100% through the night, no dream feeds, down between 6:30-7pm and up between 6-6:30am.  She had an ear infection at the 6-month mark, which we treated with amoxycilin.  She has eczema right now, which seems to bother her mainly when we change her diaper (when the skin is exposed and itchy).  One tooth has come in already; she may be gearing up for a second one.  What else?  She just pulled up to standing yesterday (me pulling), which she seemed very pleased about.  As for solid foods, she has not been too interested.  Rice cereal initiated the eczema rash (which now just won't seem to go away!); bananas seemed to seriously constipate her and exacerbate the rash; we tried avocados this morning but she wasn't interested... but then, she is rarely interested in solids in the morning, which makes me wonder if she's eating too much milk in the morning to have any drive for solids before her first nap.  (I wonder this because she usually eats solids at dinner time with relative interest.)  What else?  I had oversupply issues when she was a newborn and so she drank one side a time for months -- probably creating a snacking syndrome, now that I think about it.  She only started sleeping through the night about three weeks ago.  Oh, other things to know: I don't usually go in unless there's at least 5 minutes of continuous crying.  We have tried Ferber, with more success than failure, as she learned how to settle herself and go to sleep on her own.  Before that I was pretty much nursing her on demand, 2-3 times a night and nursing her to sleep.  I have begun the PU/PD method to mixed reviews.  No matter what, though, she stays in the crib for the duration of her nap period, with me leaving her bed until she starts crying continuously and then PU/PD until the nap period is up.  Then we try to keep her up to the next nap slot.  If the next "slot" is bedtime, we put her to bed a little earlier than usual.

What's also weird is that this morning she only took a 45-minute morning nap.  My heart sank!  We've had over a week of good, long morning naps and now this?  She woke up and played in her crib for another 45 minutes and was totally content when I finally gave up on more sleep coming and went in to greet her.  So I guess she wasn't that sleepy.  But she yawned three times before I put her down!  Of course she was cranky until the next nap...  and woke up after 45 minutes into the second nap REALLY cranky... until I nursed her and she settled back down.  Just not sure where to start, really.

Here's our routine:

6-6:30am: wake / bfeed (This feed is LONG... like drains both boobs long -- sometimes almost an hour of feeding.) 

7:30-8am: solids breakfast (or so we try... also, seems awfully close to nap.)

8-8:30am: nap (usually 1.5 hours, until this morning!!)

10-10:30: bf

(we usually go outside for a short walk in the carrier, to the store or around the block, after this)

12-12:30 nap (usually 45 minutes unless I intervene, which I've been trying not to do!)

2-2:30: bf

(we usually go outside for a walk in the stroller after this.  If the 3rd nap happens, it's "allowed" in the stroller.)

4-5: nap if needed

5: solids (so far, sweet potatoes)

6-6:30: bf

bath / book

6:30-7:00 final bf top-off and bedtime

I've been afraid to eliminate that very last top-off for fear that she'll wake up hungry at night.  Am I kidding myself?  I need to cut out that right-before-bed feeding, don't I?

Again, I thank you all in advance for your advice.  I am so grateful to have found this online community!

-meridot

[* Paula *]

Hi and Welcome to the BW Webiste 

With you saying that your lo is waking up after 45 mins, I would say that she is undertired.

45 minute nap = undertired
30 minute nap = overtired

I would personally start trying to increase her A time by about 15 mins.  Perhaps do an extended wind down routine, so that she does not get too stimulated and over tired.  Watch her cues very closly, but I defintley think that she is ready to increase her A time.

You say that you usually leave your lo to cry for about 5 mins before you go in.  Is this a full blown cry, or just a whine, that turns into a cry, and you go in when she is really crying?  Tracy does not suggest leaving your lo to CIO, as it can break the bonds of trust between your lo and you.  It is also important to know your lo's different cries like a mantra, which is a short cry, which helps them settle, as apposed to a full out mummy I need you cry.

You say that your lo has been waking mid nap for a feed, and then happily goes back to sleep.  How long before has she had a feed?  Do you think she may need a top up before her nap, to help see her through until the next feed?

I would not worry too much about solids at the moment.  Up unti the age of 1 milk is your lo's main soruce of nutritian, and solid foods is basically only tasters, to help get them used to different textures and flavours etc.

With regards to thumb sucking, this is not a prop, just your lo's way of self soothing.

With regards to the top up before bed, I would say that this is fine.  A lot of mums cluster feed in the evenings to help their lo's tank up and if your lo sleeps through the night, I would not try to fix something that aint broke.

[meridot]

Hello,

Thanks so much for your help.  It has been a really rough couple of days.  I've been wanting to post but haven't had a second...  Our LO has sprouted her second tooth... so the routine has basically been blown out of the water.  Our beautiful week of 1.50-hour naps is now a thing of the past.  We're back to these 40-minute power naps and I don't have any idea how to improve them.  It just seems like whatever I try to do is just making matters much worse.  I feel really disheartened.  Am I being too close?  She seems to be going through a pretty tough case of separation anxiety with me too (doesn't want me to leave the room, definitely resists being left alone for naps).  She's 7.5-months old.

I'm not sure if this is routine SE or if I have broken her trust in my efforts to encourage her to take longer naps.  And then there's the teething.  The tooth broke through the surface, so shouldn't she be getting back to normal?  I don't have a clue how long a teething episode is supposed to last, so I don't know how to interpret her cries -- is she in pain?  Is she OT?  Is she hungry?  We haven't been too successful in getting to 4 hours between feeds yet...  and of course it's almost impossible with 40-minute naps.  How do you stick to the routine when all this stuff is going on?

On the topic of the LO's trust.  I have been trying PU/PD and I guess I have to say it feels totally wrong.  It has seriously confused the LO and it has been pretty difficult on me too.  How does it work, exactly?  When I pick the LO up, there's no end to the crying.  Today I held her for almost 30 minutes of crying -- hard-core crying, with big crocodile tears running down her face.  I had to give her the pacifier to calm her down, and I've never had to do that.  Are you supposed to hold her, no matter how long she cries, even if it means an entire nap period?  I'm just not sure how you get out of it once you start.  Now I'm worried that I'm messing up her ability to put herself to sleep, too!  She usually sucks her thumb to fall asleep, but I've seen on the video monitor that basically when she wakes up at the 40-minute mark in her nap, she wakes right up and starts playing with her feet.  When she settles back down to suck her thumb again, it seems like too much time has elapsed for her to feel drowsy, so she plays with her feet some more until she gets bored and then calls out for me.  I try to wait until it's a real call for mommy before I go in there, but it seems like a fine line between maybe her needing to push through to settle back into sleep and her becoming fearful that she has been abandoned.  Our LO has always slept in her crib, so we don't have co-sleeping issues.  But there is definitely an aversion to naptime (the only one she goes down easy for is the 1st morning nap).  She knows it's naptime the minute we go into her room.  When I pull the shade, she starts to whimper.  I've been trying to address this by playing in her crib more, trying to establish positive associations with the crib. 

Like Renee'smommy, when my DH is home on the weekends it's like chaos theory put to practice.  He wants to go bananas with her on the two days he gets with her, but she's either crying for me (due to the SE) or she's OT because of the insufficient nap, it ends up making me feel resentful because I feel like he gets to have all the fun while I have to do all the hard stuff, like fixing her sleep problems.  And he doesn't really understand the problem, he thinks I should just leave her in there to CIO.  I listened to him before, when she was 4-6 months, and I hated every minute of it but felt like I had no other choice because nothing was working.  So CIO taught her to fall asleep on her own but not to stay asleep.  If she weren't so quick to cry during the day I'd think she just had a short sleep requirement.  But we had this wonderful week of 1.5-hour morning naps!  She laughed more, just seemed so much happier!  It brings me to tears because I want so much for her to be happy, healthy, and able to experience her little world the way she should experience it, well-rested.  It just seems like it's all my fault that she can't rest more and I just don't know what to do!

Sorry for the ranting and raving but I just have nowhere else to go...  no family where I live and no friends with children, so it's just me!

[meridot]

So sorry -- I realized I didn't answer your questions.  It's tough, not being able to see them while trying to respond.

If 30 min is OT and 45 is undertired, what's 40 min?  That's what my LO averages for naps!

As for nursing mid-nap, that is no longer working either.  I've tried nursing her before the nap and it makes no difference -- still up at 40 minutes. 

As for how long / how she cries, I don't let her go more than 5 minutes of true crying.  I think I read in the book that if there's a break in the 5 minutes, you start over.  That's kind of hard, but it has worked. 

Please note that this only relates to daytime sleep.  She is still sleeping through the night -- or at least, not crying / calling out if/when she wakes in the night.  She woke once the night before her second tooth broke through, but we didn't go in for fear that it would cause a night waking regression.

Thanks!

[* Paula *]

Seperation Anxiety can be difficult on both mum and baby.

If your lo is truly upset when you put her down for her nap and starts crying due to seperation anxiety, I would suggest staying in there with her for the nap.  Perhaps sitting by her cot, not making any eye contact at all.  You can put your hand on her to try and settler her and perhaps try pat / shhh.  I am sorry I don't know a lot about PU / PD to give you advice on this.

My DS went through a bad case of SA when he was younger, and I stayed in his room until he fell asleep, and every day,I moved a little further away from the cot, until I was able to just put him down and walk out.

You say your lo is waking at the 40 min mark.  I would personally consider W2S.  I would go into her room at around the 30 min mark and gently stirr her, so that she moves, and then goes into the next phase of sleep.  Try not to let her see you as she may open her eyes, and see you and then it is all over.  We did w2s with DD, but I kept a blanket over the rail of the cot so she could not see me, I would put my hand under the blanket, stirr her a bit and then leave.  I did this for 3 days of naps and it sorted out the waking.  It also seemed to work for our Habitual Early morning wake ups.