PLEASE HELP ME

[AZ]

  My little girl Zoe is now just over 2 months, and she has been the most relaxed thing! Just started with putting her down awake and she does great, goes down wonderfully. I just pat her and she falls asleep. but after ten or so min she wakes up. I try to stay with her that long and keep patting or keep my hand on her back to get her through that first jolt, but without fail she wakes up , so she never goes down for a nap!!!! Help please, I'm going crazy

[marensmama]

Hi there and welcome to BW!  Could you post you routine and we'll see if we can help?  Is she swaddled?  Does she take a paci?  Can you use pat/shh to resettle her after she wakes up 10 minutes in?

[AZ]

I do try to swaddle her, and she does take a paci, but I have only succeeded once in get her back to sleep with sh/pat.
Today she wend down so amazing, no complaints, but she lasted only 20min, I tried again after that and she went down amazing again, but only lasted 10!!!!
Anyway it is difficult to have a routine when she is hardly sleeping much, but I try to have a 3h easy. If she sleeps goos she actually does 4h too. She sleeps good at night though, 11-6 last night, then she falls asleep again till 9, and hen I start with the day. It is just been so erratic that I'm in survival after the first nap dos not even work. I literally sometimes try and put her down till her next feed, although she doesn't really make 3h if it gets that bad.
Today she was lying on the porch  in her stroller just before nap time and she just fell asleep by herself, but just to wake again 10min later!!!!!!(she has done this several times. 

[marensmama]

Do you know what temperament she is?  This 10-20 minutes of sleep and then a waking sometimes indicate OS.  If she is a touchy or spirited LO, you'll need to take certain measures to ensure she's not OS before her naps (ie long wind-down, quiet A time, no mobiles in crib, naps in crib rather than in more interesting places). 

If you post your routine as per my example below for what an entire day looks like, we can maybe see if the routine needs some tweaking and go from there.

Example:
8:00 E, A
9:30 S
11:00 E, A
12:30 S
2:00 E, A
3:30 S
5:00 E, A
6:30 S (catnap)
7:15 Wake, A
7:45 E, bed
include any NWs as well in your routine
Do you do a DF?  How do you do pat/shh?

Sorry for all the questions, but if we have more info we can hopefully get to the root of the trouble for you. 

[AZ]

Hi! Until recently I have thought she was an angel baby, and not really sensitive at all bc she went  to sleep by herself a lot, and her sister is so loud and rough, but it did not seem to bother her. She my first one was spirited, and I dont think Zoe is like that at all.
I think what did not help is that we have had to do some traveling since she was a month old. You see we live in Africa actually, but came here for the birth and we will be here till nov. But we are actually done traveling for now. So you see she had to sleep in my arms a lot etc but I tried to stick to every 3h feed. So I only really started the put down awake etc about 2 weeks ago with succes for 10 min.
I do try abd follow the same routine as you have put there actually, but it gets all screwed up if I dont get her to nap. And then I'm bad at doing the catnap, since the regular nap takes so much effort, and she is usually relaxed, so I just leave it.
It takes a while to get her down at night, but I persist. She is still not regular at night, Most nights she lasts from8 to 1 or 2 and then 6 or 7 again. but there is bad nights too.
I only pat her when I put her down, bc she never really cries, she just goes to sleep.
Does that help?
Remind me again about wind down for such a little one?
What is a DF?
thanks!!

[marensmama]

OK, so you're saying you pat her when you put her down for naps, she goes to sleep no problem but then wakes 10 minutes later?  If that's right, then what do you do when she wakes up?  Pat/shh would be the technique of my choice at that point to get her into a better sleep and then slowly shorten the length of time (and loudness and frequency) of the pat/shh.  If you are not doing a catnap, she definitely would be OT.  If she is up from 5 pm to 8 pm, that's way too long and she's likely to have difficulty settling.  She is probably an angel baby, by the sounds of it.

My DD2 has reflux and for the first two months she would only sleep on me.  It did take some time and effort to break her of that habit once she was feeling better, but pat/shh was the method I used and it really did work wonders.  Consistency is the key.  If you put them in their crib and pat/shh, they start to understand that that means time to sleep and begin to rely less on you holding them.  If they short-nap and you take them out of the crib they think it's time to get up.  Don't forget, if she does have a short nap, the next A time needs to be shorter to make up for it.

DF= Dream feed, usually done at 10:00 pm or thereabouts (I never did one, but lots of people have great success with it).
Regarding the wind-down... it really depends on the baby.  My DD1 liked a longer wind-down, consisting of some quiet play followed by 3 lullabies and some cuddles... DD2 likes to have me turn the blinds in her room and swaddle her and that's it.  Any more and there's a screamfest.

Let me know how it goes or if you have any more questions that I haven't answered.

[AZ]

Well a miracle happened! Since monday she has gone down and not really woken up after 10min! On mon morn she took a 2.30min nap and did a 4h stretch and then another 4h stretch with another 2:30min nap! then I fed her at 4, 6 and 8 to tank up, did catnap in my arms. Same teusday. Today was not as great. Woke at 8. First nap only 30 min. struggled for an hour to get her to go back to sleep, no success. But then she took another nap at 12:30 for only 30min but I managed after a struggle to get her to sleep again, then slept till 3:45. Did not want to wake her, bc myDD2 was also sleeping!!! Anyway hope it stays that way. The funny thing is that the nights were not so good! She woke every 3 hours!! Is that weird or what!!! Why do you think is that.
I do not do dream feed, but she woke at 11 the last two nights.
I want to ask, are you saying that if she wakes early, I should just sh/pat her in her crib, even though she cries a little? Bc that is what i've been doing. For wind down, I take her into the room, swaddle her, sing with her a little in my arms, put the fan on and wait till her eyes droop a little and then put her down, is that Ok? I've realised that she likes to be pat quite firmly, and I stroke the bridge of her nose, it works, Is that OK??  I pat for about 10min.

[marensmama]

By 4 hr stretch, do you mean that she went 4 hrs between feeds?  That includes a nap in there too right?  I think if you went 4 hrs between feeds that's why she woke up so much at night.  During the day she should be eating every three hours and at night she can go until she wakes on her own out of hunger.  At this age, I would definitely wake her from her nap (as long as nap is about 1 hr or more) when it's time to be fed.  Otherwise she'll make up for lost calories at night.

Great news about settling for naps, though!!  Keep up the good work!