Resisting sleep?

[BookMom]

 Baby is 3 mo old, but we have had family visiting or been traveling for almost his whole 3 mos. We have tried to keep to Eat, Wake, Sleep (babywise) since he was born, but with all the disruption, we've relied on nursing to sleep more often than I'd like.

Been trying EASY for about a week to help address a few things: 30 minute naps, not sleeping long periods at night (1.5 to 3hr)

Since starting he has gotten worse! We have had a few times that he's self soothed to sleep (put down drowsy), slept past the 30 minute mark for a nap, and gone back to sleep for additional nap time with soothing mid-way through. So I was hopeful, BUT... he now cries as soon as we start any part of the sleep routine. Its like each piece makes him angrier. Then he gets more tired and the next nap is harder. Then last night was a disaster of waking up all the time.

We now can't even rely on tricks of bouncing him to put him to sleep and he just won't sleep!

Not sure where we've gone wrong with this, or where to begin.

He's only 3 months, but pretty much won't fall asleep if put down awake, doesn't seem to respond to shush-pat, wakes up after 30 minutes and mostly won't do anything but scream until he can tell we are either going to be awake or feed.

If I stick with just the routine and let him go through it as quickly as he likes (as in feed after his silly 30 min nap) it might work? But I am now at a loss for how to get him to sleep at all!

[BookMom]

Just to add to yesterday, he is breastfed but still often has a hard time not falling asleep feeding. So sometimes I'm not sure if he's had a full feeding.

Lately he wants nothing to do with the pacifier (like all sleep related things) and he simply is so angry when trying to put down. He thrashes and screams. But I don't think its pain because if we walk out of the room he gets quiet.

Last night he took an hour to get down in the middle of the night, which is new as he normally will eat and go back to sleep just fine at night.

HELP!!!

[jessmum46]

He sounds very overtired.....how long are you keeping him awake for?  Can you post a typical/recent day in EAS for at for us?

[BookMom]

Well... I'm trying to go with the three hour schedule. And was originally trying for something like:
7:00-7:30 Eat, diaper, etc
7:30-8:30 Awake- tummy time, swing, me playing with him supported sit up, toys, walk in the stroller, (not all these in an hour, just whatever works)
8:30am wind down and try to sleep
But since we can't get an 1.5hr nap, we were trying to either go in to settle back to sleep, or hold for more nap after he woke up, or simply delaying the next eat for at least a half hour to get to 9:30 or 10am.

What we really got (going back to a "good" day last Saturday and Sunday was something like:
7:41am -8:13 Eat
Super huge blowout diaper meant a bath at 9am and an extra long awake time
9:41-11:07am Sleep THIS WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!
11:09-11:25 Eat
11:25-12:43 Awake
12:43-1:38 Sleep (I went in at the 30 minute mark when he woke up and held him for the second part of the nap.

I then switched with my husband and left house, and it all went down hill from there!

TODAY I had good intentions of putting down after a shorter Awake time, and it sort of backfired.
7:22-7:39 Eat
7:40-8:30 Awake
Started to wind down here, turned off just one light in room, sang lullabies
8:40 Tried to put down after upright hold and shush pat (still trying it!) He kicked and talked and was wide awake (I had seen eye rubbing earlier so thought we were good, but the minute he hit the crib it was like he was ready to run a marathon!)
8:55 Finally fed him to sleep since his fussiness turned to shouting then to crying
He only slept 45 minutes

I feel like we have a chicken or egg problem. He needs to learn to sleep better, as in fall asleep on his own (no nursing, no rocking to sleep) and sleep longer than 30-45 minutes. But he can't handle that when he's over tired, so one way or another I need him to sleep. So I get sleep at any cost, but it keeps building the habits of co-sleeping for naps, or nursing to sleep.

The new problem is him being SO resistant to sleep. I can't even rock or bounce him to sleep anymore. So I don't believe the schedule that I'm trying is making him over tired, but I do think that he's ended up over tired the last few days because it has been so hard to put him down that he'll end up awake for a long time. We gave up trying the other night and put him in the swing to eat dinner, so times like that he ends up awake much longer than the 1 to 2 hours.

Does one night of good sleep reset the overtired button? How can I start over with this?

[jessmum46]

What I'd suggest is start with the first A time of the day. Start your wind down early, and aim to have him in the crib for 1h10ish ie before he gets really tired. If he's had a run of bad nights and naps he may well need shorter A times for a bit to be able to catch up. Use shh pat or whatever variation works for you and try to persist until he settles. My LO is 3 months tomorrow and can only cope with 1h10-15 first thing just to give you an idea. Maybe work on getting that first nap right, using it as an opportunity to teach cot sleeping, and once that becomes easier work on the other naps in the same way?

[jessmum46]

Just another thought - if you do need to use props for later on in the day, make sure they are ones you are 'happy' with. Here I use a wrap when it all goes pear-shaped and I'm ok with doing that. I wouldn't personally feed to sleep as that's not an association I want to deal with long-term, but it's up to you

[BookMom]

Well, we fed to sleep every nap to get him to at least sleep and catch up. Trying to start fresh. Since that day we haven't had to feed to sleep! One down sleep prop down. Instead he's now hooked on using MY thumb instead of the pacifier. So its not a total win. Not sure why he now has such a clear dislike for the pacifier!

Now that I'm not freaking out HOW to get him to sleep at all, I can think on this a little more clearly. We have been shortening the awake times. Ironically though, the night I was out, he woke up 30 minutes after going to bed for the night, and my husband couldn't get him back to sleep. I found them both on the sofa watching football when I came home, and he'd been up for quite awhile at a time he shouldn't have any awake time. I fed, and put him down, and miracle of miracles, he slept for 6 hours!!! Not sure if it was at all related to the messed up routine that day or just chance.

Problems:

Taking 20 - 45  minutes to get him down (now complicated by the fact he's rolling to his belly, then wakes up and usually cries about it) so I'm reluctant to try putting him down sleepy but awake since it gets him worked up and the whole process takes longer! But I know he needs to learn to go to sleep on his own.

Eating all night long. Sometimes every hour.

30 minute naps

Which of these issues do I tackle first?

Been working on the naps, but it means that I go in after the 30 minutes and pretty much end up holding him for another hour to get the full nap. I'm HOPING he'll get the hang of it and nap on his own that way, but am I just shooting myself in the foot by giving him the idea that I might just hold him for sleeping?

My problem is the info for 3 month olds all seems to say things like too young for p/u p/d, or cry it out. This age is typical for short naps, that they haven't figured out self soothing very well, but also aren't able to sleep through everything like they could when younger. So what do I focus on while he's 3 months?

I'm willing to put the consistent work in, because, really, right now I'm putting WAY more work in just trying to keep him happy! Up over and over again at night, holding him for naps, and having to work really hard to get him to sleep. I'm just not sure what to work on.

[jessmum46]

Well done on not feeding to sleep it's a hard prop to break, ok if you're both happy with it but if you're not it can be a tricky one.

That 6h stretch was most likely exhaustion - he crashed out. I hope you were able to use the time for a rest yourself though?

Can I just check there are no potential discomfort issues causing so many wakings, for example reflux?  If not then I think probably some kind of gentle sleep training may be the key to improving all of the issues you've highlighted.

I'm not sure if you've read the BW books (Baby whisperer and Babywise are somewhat different in their underlying philosophies) but we don't support CIO/CC methods at all here.  Tracy Hogg believed such methods could damage the bond of trust between LO and parent.  We would suggest to use shh pat at this age - Shush-pat - How to

Have a read and let me know what you think

[BookMom]

I read Baby Wise first, which is how I at least started the eat, wake, sleep pattern to his day, but found that it didn't go into enough detail to help tackle these issues. Hence the Baby Whisperer method a little late in the game. I started Tracy's book by just going to the spots that I needed, but I'm now reading through start to finish.

Thank you for the link to the Shh-Pat, it helps to re-read these things, and I like that this blog restates the same ideas in the book. Nice to hear it more than once.

So far I haven't had much luck with Shh-Pat. He gets so angry about being put down, that he rarely ends up in the crib until he's asleep. Occasionally I have put him down sleepy and had success in helping him fall asleep while in the crib. Most of the time it sets us back another 10 minutes.

No actual reflux issues as far as I can tell. He spits up more some days than others, but doesn't seem upset about it. He sometimes will fuss a few little "huh, huh, hun" sounds then spit up. But he's fine after. Not major spit up in the bed either, just drool now that he keeps sleeping tummy down. I haven't noticed that he's happier upright or anything. He just won't settle and sleep. For that matter, he seems pretty angry about us trying to make him sleepy. That's why I'm confused here, I don't think he's old enough to resist sleep and the routines that indicate sleep is coming, but that really seems to be the case. I feel like we are doing pretty good with timing, but he seems to be angry with the things that are part of the sleep routine.

The book has a huge section on how to start late, but its meant for over 4 months. So all that is recommended before 4 months is to help them get to sleep each time with Shh-Pat?

I haven't tackled nights yet because I'm not sure what the guidelines would be, so I just feed each time whether that's 1 hour or 4 hours. But he's getting harder to put back down after feeds at night now.

[jessmum46]

You can adapt shh pat to suit your LO. My DS for example likes having his head stroked with a bit of a shhhh if he's really getting worked up.

I think it's fair to say that a LO of any age can resist sleep. It's not conscious or manipulative, just that overtired or overstimulated babies find it very hard to switch off and settle. That's where shh pat or similar comes in - you are trying to help them block out the world and lull them into a state where they can drop off.

For babies under four months generally yes the focus is on getting to know your LO, learning their cues and helping them (if necessary) to learn to settle using shh pat. PUPD is too stimulating for younger babies - but in all honesty even in the 4/6 month group you'd still be trying a lot of shh pat in the crib as part of PUPD.

At night I would tend to feed if it has been a longer interval than LO manages in the day. I'm assuming you are feeding 3hrly in the daytime so I would feed at night if it has been 3h or more since the last feed, but try to resettle without feeding if less than that.

[BookMom]

Thanks for all your responses.

We are still nowhere better. He's become impossible to put to sleep some times, especially towards the end of the day.  Took my husband over an hour last night. Several times he's gotten to the point where he needs to eat again, so we feed, and maybe pause to eat quick and he's happy the whole time. Then he'll lose it again when we go back to his room.

We are trying to cut back on all the "things" we do and stay very quiet. Everything that we used to help (bouncing, patting, pacifier, etc) seems to make him angry now, maybe its over stimulating now? Its frustrating because sometimes he'll just cry and thrash while we hold him! Its worse than CIO because I haven't left him to fend for himself, I'm actually TRYING to comfort him, but its like I'm only making it worse. So our last two days have just been focused on keeping the crying from getting going. So we'll leave the baby room and go into another room if it will snap him out of it. I'm just afraid that we're doing so much accidental parenting while trying to get him settled to sleep that we'll just be un-training more issues later.

I don't know if we are just stuck waiting for him to grow out of this stage? But I'm at a loss for how to get him to sleep.

[jessmum46]

Can you post your day, what time he woke, when you tried to settle him and how long he slept etc?

Remember crying is his way of communicating at this age, so trying to minimise crying may not always be for the best.  If what he is trying to say is 'I'm tired, help me go to sleep' then taking him out of the sleep environment may well not be the best plan, though it will likely calm him in the short term.  That said, absolutely if you are both getting very worked up it can be a useful way to break the cycle.

Something I've always found useful is trying to change my mentality from 'getting LO to sleep' to 'allowing LO the opportunity to sleep'. It's a subtle difference but it makes it more of a partnership.  What happens if you just put LO down and maybe sit with a hand on him and hmm or shh instead of patting?