Hi,
My DS is approaching 7.5 months now and we've had a really long journey with his sleeping.
Until he was 5.5mo he was totally reliant on props (feeding, rocking, walking, car) to get him to sleep and was waking 5-6x a night every night. We were knackered but then bit the bullet and started sleep training with him. PUPD was a real success and a fortnight later DS was totally capable of settling himself to sleep without any props for all his naps, at BT and after NWs. Sometimes there are some tears and we still have to do PUPD to get him to sleep, but usually it's 5-10 mins at most and he's asleep.
Life got so much better with DS taking 3 regular naps every day and waking only twice per night, once for a feed and once as a NW.
But it's getting a little worse again now. DS is in bed between 7.30 and 8 every night, then usually sleeps until about 11.30 when he wakes for a feed (will be weaning him off this very soon I hope) and then he'll settle easily and sleep until he wakes again at about 4-5am.
This is where it gets hard. His behaviour at this point is really varied which is why we're struggling to work out what to do.
Sometimes he'll settle very easily but then wake for the day at 5-6am happy and ready to get up. In this case he'll end up really OT all day and it's really hard getting his naps to work on schedule.
Other times it'll take 1-2 hours of gentle settling, perhaps some shhh/pat, during which he's mantra crying, then going quiet and seeming to be askeep, only to wake again 3 minutes later to start it all again. Poor little soul does this for hours and gets so tired. Again, getting his daytime naps and EASY to work is then really hard.
Other times DS will scream and cry for 1-2 hours and we'll have to do PUPD to get him back to sleep and it's a real effort.
Whatever happens during this NW, he's suffer from EW as well, waking up for the day between 6-7am which is just too early considering he's awake for so much of the night. Daytimes are then really hard.
Increasingly, he's adding in 1-2 of extra NW as well, one at about 10.30pm and one at about 2.30am. These happen some nights but not others.
Whatever happens, he still doesn't use props to get to sleep.
So we're a bit stuck on how to solve this problem. We seem to be stuck in an OT cycle where his nights are bad so his daytime naps suffer and he ends up OT at BT and then sleeps badly through the night. Please help with any suggestions you may have!
More information in case it's useful:
I breasfeed DS 4x daily (every 4 hours) and 1x at night. Additionally, he gets 3 meals and 1 snack per day roughly 1 hour after each BF. He is eating very well and enjoys his food. He gets porridge in the morning, some sort of veggie thing for lunch then pasta/rice based food for dinner. Fruit and finger food, as well as yoghurts make up the rest of it. DS is small and lightweight, on the 6th centile for weight but healthy rather than underweight. Both myself and my DH are not heavy people.
DS is very mobile. He was crawling before 6 months, and can now roll over back to front (but not front to back) and get himself from sitting into crawling and vice versa, and can pull himself into standing on anything he likes. I did wonder if this was a big part of the problem and this can be an issue getting him to sleep, but during the NW he is often just lying there and crying when we go into his room.
His EASY is not perfect but ok I think. He is on a rough 4h EASY but it often works out more of an EASAEASA than EASEAS. I stick to BF every 4 hours.
His A time at present is 2.5 hours. I guess it should be a bit longer for a LO his age but I find he's so OT that pushing it past this is not good for him at present. I'll be happy to take advice!
His naps are quite good. He has 3 every day. The first is his best, roughly 1.5-2h and easy to settle him for. The second is ok too and usually about 1h and also easy to settle him for. The third is more difficult, hard to settle and often only 20-30mins.
His bedtime routine is simple but we do it every day without fail.
6.20pm - story time.
6.30pm - dinner time (solid)
~7.00pm - bath with Daddy then into pyjamas and sleeping bag.
~7.20pm - close curtains and quiet. Breastfeed. He eats well.
~7.50pm - cuddle with mummy, then cuddle with daddy then into cot awake. He's usually asleep within minutes.
DS is mostly spirited with a touch of touchy and a touch of textbook. Even though he's OT a lot of the time, he's very smiley and is enjoying life at the moment. I'm just sure he could enjoy it more with more sleep - as could we!
I'm sure there's more info that would be useful but can't think what right now!
My main questions are:
1. If he's waking early at 6 but we try and settle him unsuccessfully until 7 when I get him up, say, do I treat his A-time as starting at 6am or 7am? When do I put him down for his first nap. I've tried both ways but can't really work out whats' best?
2. Is his A-time long enough for a 7.5mo?
3. How can we get out of the OT cycle he's in?
4. What could be causing the NW and EW and what can we do about them?!!!!
If anybody has read this far then thank you so much already for just doing that!
Lianna.
