I have been an avid BW follower since my first child was born 6 years ago. He was a textbook baby, followed by my 2nd who was an angel baby. Now with my third, she is DEFINITELY touchy and slightly spirited and I'm having a hard time. I am so frustrated--trying to read her sleep/eat cues is so difficult and no matter how hard I try to get her into a routine, things are a disaster. She was an AMAZING and easy newborn and then things took a turn starting at 4 months when she cut two teeth. Things have been all over the place since then and she will be 7months on Friday. She's definitely in the 3-2 transition as well as teething, but I'm having a hard time determining her awake times because her mood changes so much from day to day. Here was her EASY yesterday. We are in a bit of a EAES pattern because of the length of her awake times and the fact that she hasn't started solids yet (she had some food allergy issues we had to get straightened out, we'll begin solids again this weekend). I do nurse before her naps, but she goes down fully awake and happily babbles or whines and falls asleep within 5-10 mins.
E 7a
A
E 9:45a
S 10a-1215p
E 1p
A
E 3p
S 315p-5p (I woke her from this nap)
E 530p
A
Bedtime routine 715pm, top up feeding, jammies, book
S 730
NW from 9-11pm, 2a, 3a, 5a, 6a
woke for the day at 715
This obviously was a really bad night for us. What I don't understand is why? Her naps were great and she went down for the night easily. I gave motrin around 10 because she had been awake for an hour but she wasn't really unhappy? I think she is teething but the motrin never really seems to make a difference with whether she wakes or not.
Things I have noticed over the past 2 months of her sleep being all over the place:
-she does not do well with a long awake time before bed. This definitely needs to be her shortest awake time of the day. If its too long, she will wake every hour between bedtime and midnight.
-she will not settle with my husband and will only settle during the night by nursing
-she does better during the night if she has 3 short naps during the day (like an hour or less). She'll be cranky during the day on a schedule like this, but she will sleep 4-5 hours stretches at night. If we have a day like this, the catnap is a battle and she wakes early and unhappy.
I am at a loss. I keep telling myself its a phase and we'll get through it but we're going on 3 months of 4-5 nights a week of her waking every 1-2 hours. I am miserable and I still have two other children to care for! Any advice would be so appreciated. This forum has helped me so much in the past.
