Mantra cry help!!!!

[KateNErinsMummy]

First off, thanks to anyone reading this. It's nice to know there is help out there.

My 4 month old daughter is EBF. We've been doing EASY since about 8 weeks with little success. I have tried everything for MONTHS to handle her short naps and nothing works. Wake to sleep, holding through sleep phases, removing props, increased A times. You name it. I think she is just an extremely light sleeper. We are currently transitioning to 4 hour EASY.

With that, I have basically given up on any kind of long nap and just need some guidance on the best way to help her sleep. She wakes either 30 or 40 minutes into every nap.  Her A times are not too short. This transition has been tough. Her A time was at 1.5 hours, we are currently at 1.75 hours and we are slowly (eventually) working towards 2.

The thing is, she falls asleep independently for every nap and bedtime. She wakes 1-2 times to feed at night - and from what I hear this is common for EBF babies. Dream feeds do not work for her because she wakes up. She sleeps better without them.

She simply cannot transition during naps. She awakes quietly sucking on her fingers every time -- even if she is overtired.  It will eventually turn into a cry and then I go in and do pu/pd or shh/pat. By the afternoon she is extremely OT. I feel terrible for her but have not given in yet re: finishing the nap in my arms etc.  I am on the verge though.

So when she wakes, do I just let her lie there quietly until she falls back to sleep? For how long? The book just says don't rush in. What does that mean?  How long do I let her cry before I help her?  Do I do anything if it is just a mantra cry?  Just leave it?  I'm just worried that if I don't go in, she'll lie there for 30+ minutes and just get more and more tired.

I know she is in the 4 month regression, but this has been happening for months now and I am at a complete loss.

[clazzat]

Firstly I would say that it is okay to hold her to finish her naps,  particularly if she is getting very OT. I have never regretted a nap when I cuddled my baby, but I do wish that I had done it more often with dd1 as I was so determined not to create bad habits that I didn't cuddle her when I could have. Given that your lo is putting herself to sleep a lot of the time you can get away with quite a lot of cuddling!

Secondly, the key thing about a mantra cry is that it doesn't escalate. There is no set time for leaving baby to cry, although you do need to leave it long enough to be able to listen and make a judgement about whether it is an 'I need you' cry. Each baby has their own mantra cry, and it does take a while to learn it, but once you do it is a very good tool for establishing and preserving independent sleep. It sounds like she doesn't make a lot of fuss when she wakes up, and actually I think that you are doing the right thing: listen while she is quiet and help her when she starts to cry.   It will get better over time, so don't lose heart!

[KateNErinsMummy]

Thanks so much!!!  Do you think the cuddles when she wakes up will mess up night wakings?  I get about 1-2 a night outside of feeds with his sleep regression, but she goes back to sleep pretty easily with a few minutes of shh/pat.

Just want to double check!!

[clazzat]

You should be able to get away with it as long as she is going to sleep independently - I certainly managed to get away with it!  It is worth bearing in mind, though, that you often have to consider the lesser of two evils - if you do find that there you are having problems then that is something that you can fix then, but at the moment what she needs is more sleep to get her through the day so helping her do that is a priority, iyswim.  I also always found that OT brought more NWs anyway, so for me stopping OT was very important.