Help! 3 month old fighting sleep hard!

[jamiecx684]

Hello,
 
A little back story: my Olivia was born 2.5 weeks early at 5 lb. 11 oz. losing down to 5 when we got home then gaining from there. She is EBF, 12 weeks now and currently around 10 lb (which her doctor is very happy with!).
From the very beginning she would not sleep anywhere but on my chest, even in the hospital. After about two weeks, the crying started and to this day we are not sure if it has been colic or silent reflux, the doctors tried her on different meds, but nothing really helped. I believe now, at just over 12 weeks she is starting to get better and grow out of whatever it is. She still has terrible gas most days (I have tried food elimination for me and otc remedies for her and nothing seems to help). She started fighting sleep early. Some of our worst nights have been up till 5 or 6 am before she would give up.

Currently during the day I try to put her down as soon as I see sleepy signs (yawn, puffy eyes, rubbing eyes, etc.) but no matter how early I think I catch it, she always ends up crying, kicking, fighting sleep. It is worse at night, sometimes taking anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours to get her to sleep. She now sleeps in a rock n play beside my bed at night, and usually in her swing during the day although I would like to soon transition both to her crib. I have tried everything including shh-pat and nothing seems to settle her. Rocking helps during the day, but almost as soon as you put her down she wakes. And at night the only thing that (sometimes) works is walking or bouncing on a yoga ball. It's very frustrating when I feel like she is fussing just as much while I hold her as she does when i try to put her down. I am not a fan of the cry it out method, I hate hearing her cry and feel like that is almost all I have heard the last 3 months. I just want my baby to enjoy her sleep and get the peaceful sleep she needs (and I would like to get some as well!). Once she is asleep at night, she usually goes 3-4 then wakes to eat, then wakes every 2-3 hours after that to eat, and goes right back to sleep just fine (unless the gas disturbs her). Our sleep routine usually starts about 8 pm (pjs, clean diaper, dark room, rocking and nursing), but she usually isn't asleep until anywhere between 10-12. I am a stay at home mom, so I let her sleep until she wakes, usually around 9-10 am. Daytime she is on a 2-2.5 hour eat cycle, usually wakes, plays, eats, sleep and naps are about 20-45 minutes unless you are rocking, then she will sleep for 1-2 hours. She also tends to cry when she wakes, until she gets awake then she is all smiles (until she gets tired again!).

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!!! TIA!

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi and welcome!
(((Hugs))), sweety, the first few months can be very difficult.
Could you post your day in an EASY format? It could be that her A times are not spot on and that makes it more difficult for her to fall asleep when she is being put down.
Her adjusted age is 10 weeks, it's still an age when many babies find it difficult to go through sleep cycles themselves and still need assistance. Movement can help a lot and it sounds that this is the case with your LO as well. I am just worried that the rocking is taking a toll on you, it can be quite draining. Do you have a swing maybe or a hammock? It's still ok for her to have her naps in a swing, don't worry now about AP and props and transitioning to the crib - there is plenty of time for that . Now we need to get her onto a good routine with an age appropriate A and better naps. I believe that once her day routine is better then the nights will be better as well, especially going down at BT.
If her routine is ok then it could well may be that she is in discomfort. Is she still medicated for Reflux? Do you get burps out of her after each feed?

You can look here how other babies have their routines at the same age as your LO: chronological EASY samples, 0-3 months
And there is some information on the Colic, Reflux & Crying board that might be helpful: Colic, Reflux, & Crying
HTH .

[jamiecx684]

Thank you for your reply and for not making me feel like a bad mother! Sometimes it seems like everything I read/hear is telling me that the holding/rocking/swing is going to spoil her and I should not coddle her so much. I just can't stand to see my baby in any discomfort and am trying to do the best I can to help her.

Our Day (in easy format the best I can) this changes slightly day to day depending on when she wakes and how gassy she is:
9:07 eat
9:25 awake
10:04 asleep
11:05 awake
11:06 eat
12:00 asleep rocking
1:20 awake
1:22 eat
2:25 asleep
3:00 awake
3:02 eat
4:00 asleep in carrier
4:35 awake crying
4:50 asleep
5:07 awake
5:15 eat
6:30 asleep in swing
6:45 awake crying
6:55 eat
7:15 asleep in swing
8:06 awake
8:45 eat, fussy (fighting sleep)
9:16 eat, fussy (fighting sleep)
10:14 eat, fussy (still fighting sleep)
12:20 asleep finally
12:52 eat
12:57 asleep (no burp)
3:42 eat
4:03 alseeo (burp)
5:10 eat and change diaper
5:31 asleep (no burp)
8:16 eat (fussy @ breast, gassy)
8:36 awake

This was a couple days ago.
This is pretty much how our days go, it usually takes anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes to get her asleep for a nap.
She usually burps well during the day when she is awake, but I struggle to get her to burp after night feedings, I do try but I also
don't want to jostle her around too much and wake her, so I usually only try for 2-3 minutes after a feed. She sleeps in a rock n play
by my bed, so that keeps her at an incline. Usually after around 2-3 am she starts getting very restless and gassy. I have tried laying
her in her crib or with me in the bed, but she always wakes within a few minutes.

The past two nights she has nursed about an hour before bed, falling asleep at the breast and stayed asleep. I have given her Colic Calm when we do her bedtime routine to try and help with the gas. This was the first times she has gone down at night without fighting, but has still been very restless at night with gas and quite fussy during the day.

Is there anything I should be doing differently that may help her? She is 14 weeks today (12 weeks adjusted). Should I just wait a while longer and see if in the next few weeks she (hopefully) grows out of some of her tummy issues. Or do you know of any good remedies for painful gas? We have tried Colic calm, gripe water, mylecon drops... I hate to see her hurt!

Thank you again for your help!

[Ima shel Alon]

Sometimes it seems like everything I read/hear is telling me that the holding/rocking/swing is going to spoil her and I should not coddle her so much

I so know that. I felt like the worst mother in the world, but the sooner you'll learn YOU are the one who knows what's best for YOUR baby, the sooner these things will not touch you.
It sounds to me like you are a wonderful mother and very caring. Your LO is lucky to have you. Don't let any book or person tell you otherwise.

Did you have a look at the EASY sample I linked you to? because her A times are very very short and she sounds UT, which will explain a lot of what's going on - the struggle to fall asleep and waking up early from naps. I would work on increasing her A time gradually to around 1.5h long. The way you do that, in order to prevent OT and give her enough time to get used to every new A is to up it by 10min every 3 days. So if right now you are doing an hour, your next step would be to have 3 days of 1:10h A time. After 3 days if there is no change you'd increase it again to 1:20h A time for 3 more days and so on.
It might not be easy, she'll continue to show sleepy cues at 1h A time, will maybe give you OT naps (30-35min long), but just prepare yourself to that and it will be ok. Many parents get stuck with too short A time because LO shows sleepy cues too early and by doing that actually causing more problems. You can read about it more here: Average A times and "Is my baby ready to increase A time?"
What are A times and how do they fit into the EASY routine?

Whether you deal with the rocking now or later is totally up to you. Some parents find it easier to deal with routine first and then do sleep training with pat/shh and some prefer to deal with it all at once.
Re the colic, my experience was that if I don't burp after night feed then the early morning hours are very restless. I remember DS groaning so loud I couldn't stay asleep .
Are you EBF? I did in the first weeks but decided to give fennel tea to DS, I know that EBF mommies don't often like to do that. I also drank loads of it myself as I read that it passes to them through the milk. I got in the health food shop a mixture of fennel and caraway seed tea. What also helped us is to massage the tummy with caraway seeds oil, you can get it in a health food shop or online.

(((Hugs))), hang in there, it will get so much better when she grows a bit.

[jamiecx684]

Thank you so much! I appreciate the encouragement, it is nice to hear from another mother!

I will start trying to lengthen her A time during the day and see if that will help. I thought her A times were way short, but when she started showing signs of being tired I just tried to get her to sleep before the fussing started, but it obviously isn't working. Hopefully we can get this figured out!

Getting her to sleep at night has gotten better, but only if I nurse her to sleep, which I am ok with right now, but I know isn't the solution long term. I do EBF and have tried giving her fennel tea mixed with a little pumped breast milk, but she hates taking a bottle, so its somewhat difficult to get it in her. We are working on that now. I will try drinking some and see if that will help her. I am also looking into some homeopathic remedies for gas for infants, or maybe something I can take that will help her. I did get a couple burps out of her during the night last night and it seemed to help some, she was still fidgety but didn't seem to cry out as much. I will keep trying to get those burps out!

Thank you again. I will update in a few days!

[Ima shel Alon]

We also fed at this age at almost every NW, I think there were nights we had 4 NF! I wouldn't worry about it too much right now. Once her A is more age appropriate and she can last longer between feeds then you can work on it then.
Good luck and let me know how you are doing.