Naps were great - now they are not...what happened? LONG SORRY!

[Leia and Sabrina's Mom - Jessica]

So - I am upset and confused. My LO (just about 10 weeks) was doing amazingly well since we put her on BW at about 6 weeks. Naps: great, Eating: great NW: Just one so... GREAT! Well these last three days have been very strange. Her naps have gotten pretty crappy and she is cranky...she hasn't been cranky since she was 5 weeks and had really bad reflux...she is on Zantac and it has worked great for her. Here is her schedule and some of the things that have happened these last few days:

about a 7 am wake up time (sometimes 6/6:30/7:30)
E - 7 (so she eats now in about 10 minutes flat. she seems to have drained me but that seems really fast....maybe she is fast...maybe I don't have enough milk for her???)
A - 15 minutes tops in the morning so she is back in bed relatively quick...
S - 7:45 (she typically does NOT wake up during this nap but has lately). I really watch all of her cues before I put her down and when she yawns it is time to go! Otherwise OT happens and I am really cautious of that.
E - 10
A - usually we change her outfit and she stares at her Black and White pics I have at the changing table for like 15 minutes...
S - 11 / 11:15 (I have tried stretching this but sh gets obviously tired and cranky)
E - 1 (again she is super quick!)
A - same as earlier (tummy time etc)
S - 2:15 / 2:30 (not getting through these the way she used to)
E - 4
A - very short 15 minutes with her dad before a catnap is needed
S - catnap 45 mins tops
E - 6
A - bath and bed routine
E - 7 top off feed
S - 7:15

so - last night she slept from 7-5 (that was her first 10 hour stretch ever! However, I did feed her extra from a bottle because I was testing a new method of giving her the zantac which she hates the taste of - obviously this worked so I will continue to do this)

she woke again then at 5 to eat and back to sleep until 7:30 this morning. I should mention that she is most upset when she is eating which makes me think that she is having reflux issues again and that maybe the dose of her meds isn't strong enough for her bigger body size (this is 5 weeks after the first prescription and she is on the same dose)

my biggest concern though is that her naps used to be great and now she wakes up constantly during them. Is she UT, OS or OT? I feed her and she is upset toward the end and her cries sound like reflux issues. So - I don't force her to eat more. We start A time and she has been pretty cranky during her A time. Not all of it but a good portion of it. She is typically a happy baby and I know this is out of character. So - I think she probably is ready for her nap (cause that is usually what it means) and I put her to sleep. Yet - she has not had an easy time of getting to sleep or staying asleep. Two things that she used to be great at.

So her napping is spastic and that probably just exacerbates the issue of me not being able to read her cues.

Maybe she is having reflux problems and she is upset during A time because of the reflux...which I in turn read as "tired" cues and I am putting her to bed way too early which then creates a UT situation where is not ready to sleep.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I am upset because I was so great at reading her before and she was so happy. She seemed so satisfied and even started to smile a lot lately. It felt fantastic. Now she is back to being cranky and I hate that I can't help her.

Thanks in advance....

[brenda2]

hi
sorry i am not an expert on reflux...

just wanted to quickly comment and also bump you up the board.

from the routine you posted i am unclear as to how long her naps are and when/if she is waking during them.  can you post sleep times with beginning and end times?  post what happened yesterday if it's different every day. i assume she is short napping but can't tell from what you posted. 

how is she falling asleep now?  you mentioned she used to go independently.  is she still?

at 10 weeks her A time should be about 1 hour 20 min to 1.5 hours.  often the first a time lags behind but 45 min is really way too short for her age.  i'd say she may be UT after just 45 min for that first nap for sure.  then depending on length of naps she may be UT or OT after this.

repost your routine and i'll take a look.

[Leia and Sabrina's Mom - Jessica]

well honestly - I really think it was her reflux. I was mistaking her crankiness for sleep cues and she was UT. She is a very sleepy baby so 45 minutes of A is not atypical for her. She has extended more now a bit but is waking slightly more during her naps than she used to. Here is the new info you asked for...


and yes - she does sleep on her own

about a 7 am wake up time (sometimes 6/6:30/7:30)
E - 7 (so she eats now in about 10 minutes flat. she seems to have drained me but that seems really fast....maybe she is fast...maybe I don't have enough milk for her???)
A - 15 - 25 minutes tops in the morning so she is back in bed relatively quick...
S - 8 / 8:15 (she typically does NOT wake up during this nap but has lately). I really watch all of her cues before I put her down and when she yawns it is time to go! Otherwise OT happens and I am really cautious of that. She typically sleeps right through this one...she did some yelping this morning at the 9 mark but went right back to bed NAP IS ABOUT 1.5 - 2 hrs
E - 10
A - usually we change her outfit and she stares at her Black and White pics I have at the changing table for like 15 minutes...total A time 45-1 hr
S - 11 / 11:15 (I have tried stretching this but sh gets obviously tired and cranky) NAP IS 1.5 - 2 HRS
E - 1 (again she is super quick!)
A - same as earlier (tummy time etc)
S - 2:15 / 2:30 (not getting through these the way she used to) NAP is 1.5 - 2 hrs. when I say that she isn't getting through..she usually wakes in the middle for a bit and then goes back to sleep for the rest of the time.
E - 4-4:20
A - 30-40 minutes with her dad before a catnap is needed
S - catnap 45 mins tops
E - 6
A - bath and bed routine
E - 7 top off feed
S - 7:15

when I say that she is waking....she wakes and fusses and sometimes I have to help her...but she does fall back asleep...maybe that isn't an actual problem...?

thanks for the reply - i hope this additional info helps.

jessica

[brenda2]

if she wakes and fusses and then goes back to sleep by herself this is fine.  if she wakes and you need to go in and help her go back to sleep and she does and continues with the nap this really isn't all that bad.  i though she was short napping which is a totally different story...

if she is waking at the 45 min mark before going back down though i'd say it's because of being UT.  she is very young still and young babies sleep a lot, but it does seem as though her a times are very low.  by 3 mo most LOs can do 1.5 hours A time (sometimes the first A time is shorter, but after this if long napping she should be able to go longer).  so i'd keep an eye on the  A time and in the next couple of weeks try to stretch her a bit towards that 1.5 hours (5 min every 3 days, very slowly and stop if you get a short nap).

she is still really young and it seems she is doing fantastic with falling asleep on her own and staying asleep for those wonderful long naps.  these are really great accomplishments by this age!! well done! mommy! 

[mylittlelovelies]

Hi there,
my DD (now 15 months) had reflux pretty badly as a baby. I just wondered what your milk supply is like? Could it be possible that her short feeds and unsettledness could be because you have Lots of milk, or a very forceful letdown? Does she really gulp when you feed her, or does milk spill everywhere because there is too much for her to handle? If thats the case she may have a tummy ache from being over full before you or she even realises it (not to mention extra wind in her tummy from gulping). I just ask because thats what happened with my DD and it makes reflux even worse. IF they are already prone to reflux and then their tummy is overfull it can be a really bad combination. I used to always keep feeding, trying to coax my DD to drink more because i kept thinking "you can't possibly be full after just 5 mins feeding" but now in retrospect I think she was probably completely full and i should have stopped as soon as she stopped.
My other theory is that 'short feeders' like my DD spend so much more of their A time actually being stimulated, rather than spending 30-40 mins just sucking and relaxing with their feed, so they end up getting overstimulated much more easily.
anyway, not sure if any of that helps,
good luck, let me know what you think.
Jessie

[Leia and Sabrina's Mom - Jessica]

Hi clajy011 
 
Thanks for the message....

My other theory is that 'short feeders' like my DD spend so much more of their A time actually being stimulated, rather than spending 30-40 mins just sucking and relaxing with their feed, so they end up getting overstimulated much more easily.
anyway, not sure if any of that helps,
good luck, let me know what you think.
Jessie

I really agree with that. She used to eat for like an hour and then it was basically back to bed. Now she is much quicker...the entire process (picking her up, sitting in the glider, eating...bla bla bla) takes now a total of maybe 20 minutes. That leaves a lot more A time than we used to have so I really had to come up with more things for us to do that wouldn't make her OS. I also had to institute a 5-10 minute wind down with really calming sitting and singing....whereas before she was still pretty sleepy cause all she really did was eat and sit on my lap for 10 minutes. Seems like we have similar scenarios.

My milk is good. I can read her really well and I know when it is coming too fast or when she has to burp (huge crazy man burps!). She is much better with the reflux now that i am giving her her meds in a bottle. She hated the taste and would spit half of it out before. I don't overfeed or force her and I think she was just having a few tough days...I might have eaten something dairy and not realized it.

Thanks so much for the message. Makes a lot of sense what you said and I completely agree.

Jessica