10 week old napping 20 minutes in his bed

[ladybug74]

Hi all,

I'm new to this, but could really use some help with my DS.
Up until last week I could not get him to nap during the day at all; he just always was so restless, jerking his arms and legs around, spitting up a lot etc. At night he would slip into some sort of coma to catch up on his sleep that he was missing during the day. Not healthy at all!
 I gave him Chamomile and that seemed to take the edge off his restlessness, and he started actually falling asleep by himself in his crib for his naps!
The problem is that I can only get at most (usually the first nap of the day) 45 minutes of sleep out of him. As the day goes on it decreases to 20 minutes. After this he is up and crying and will not fall back asleep in his crib. He is far from rested and the kicker is that if I calm him down and transfer him to the swing he will finish his nap time in the swing sleeping.
I really have a problem with him sleeping in the swing so much and I thought I might slowly see an improvement in the length of his naps as he got used to actually taking naps, but this has not been the case. The fact that he will sleep in the swing after sleeping in his crib for 20-45 minutes tells me he is still tired, but why can he not fall back asleep in his crib?
I've tried white noise, pacifier (which he will not take), swaddling, shh/patting, nothing seems to work.
He is usually up for 1-1 1/4 hour, which includes nursing, and I'm careful to put him down with the first signs of tiredness. Every time though, he goes down great, falls asleep by himself (sometimes after a couple of minutes of fussing) but wakes up way too early.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated!!

[malialeanne]

Hello and welcome to the boards! You'll find lots of great info here.

How long have you had your son on EASY? Was he sleeping in the swing for naps before starting on a routine? Is he swaddled for sleep?

Can you post your approximate routine with waketime, bedtime, etc so we can take a look?

Thanks!

[ladybug74]

I've tried to have him on EASY since he was about 4 weeks old, with limited success due to him not sleeping during the day.
I am on a 3 hour EASY now, with 1-1 1/4 hour of awake time which includes eating. Since he never wakes up at the same time in the morning the actual times vary a lot.
He will sleep anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes in his crib, will start crying and I will try to get him to go back to sleep in his crib. This has never worked so far, so after about 20-30 minutes of trying I transfer him to his swing. I usually have to wake him up in the swing for his next feed.
He did well at night; only waking up once to eat, but for the last couple of nights he actually maintained a 3.5 hour feeding schedule (waking up at 1:30, 5:00 and then 7:00). The problem is that he will not settle back down without eating then.
I'm not sure how to increase his intake during the day since he already is very fussy breastfeeding and spits up a lot. He does gain weight appropriately so he must be getting enough (I think).
I try to put him down for the night between 7-8 pm, depending on how his day has been. I do a dreamfeed around 10-10:30 pm.
It doesn't seem to make a difference whether I tank him up or do the dreamfeed, but for my own peace of mind I continue to do this. Sometimes he will fall asleep at night and I can give him the dreamfeed while he's still asleep, other times he is fussing (not really crying, but definitely not sleeping) the entire time until the dreamfeed, after which he then falls into a deep sleep.

We've had the swing for about 3 weeks now and at first he slept his entire naptime in the swing, but after a week of that he started to wake up in the swing after 20-30 minutes and not falling back asleep.
Now that I put him down in his crib and let him finish his nap in the swing he is back to sleeping without a problem in the swing.
I did move the swing into his room so he has a somewhat less stimulating environment.

As far as swaddling is concerned; I tried it for 1 week and he fought it very hard. I thought he needed to get used to it since on the 2nd day he actually managed to take 1-hour naps for the entire day, in his crib. Something that had not happened before. He was back to his normal ways the next day though.
He continued fighting the swaddle though and instead of flailing his arms he started moving his legs up and down in the swaddle; still keeping himself awake with the movement.
I gave it up after 1 week, also because the weather has been hot here and he worked up such a sweat fighting the swaddle that I was getting concerned about overheating.
I feel like there are many things going on at once, the feeding problems (restless, fussy and spitting up a lot) and the sleeping problems, but I figured I needed to start somewhere.......

Monique

[malialeanne]

Hi there. OK. Your A times look good. Since he's sleeping in the swing but not in the crib, it seems that there's nothing wrong with his *ability* to sleep--he obviously has both the ability and the need to sleep, just has issues with sleeping independently and sleeping in his crib. Since that's the case I recommend using shhh/pat to teach him to sleep in his crib and extend naps. We had success using shhh/pat for both (for nap extension I would go in at the 35 minute point and pat at her first stirring to keep her from waking fully, and she eventually learned to go back to sleep on her own.) When we first started dd SCREAMED her head off and I had to pat for 45 minutes each nap (thankfully only had to do that for a week or so) so I know that it is hard but that it DOES work if you stick with it. Here's a link to shhh/pat: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=26672.0

I think you'd probably see an improvement in daytime eating if you work on eliminating one of the nightfeeds. A lot of babies have 2 nightfeeds for quite a while (incl. the df) but you could probably work on pushing the 1:30 a.m. feed later and later until he's eating at 3-4, and then again at 7 to start the day.

[ladybug74]

Thanks for the advice!

I had tried the shh/pat before, but maybe didn't give it enough time. Will try it again though.
I agree that I need to eliminate 1 of the night feedings, would you suggest using the pat/shh method for this as well? He seems to eat a full "meal" at those nighttime feedings and I've tried to add more to his daytime feedings, but I am unsure how to do this since I am breastfeeding. Sometimes he'll only nurse from 1 side and still spits up a lot afterwards. I'm thinking he doesn't get a lot then, but he seems to be able to last 3-4 hours on that.
Every now and then I'll pump to see how much he's getting, but the amounts just vary so much and I've also heard that babies always are able to get more milk than a pump, so it doesn't necessarily ease my mind.

Well, thanks again, I will give this a go and see how we do!

[malialeanne]

Shhh/pat does take awhile to take hold. I followed Tracy's method exactly and found that it really worked, particularly a firm pat with a "tick tock" type of rhythm and a very loud sshhhhhh.

As for the night feed, I would try and see if you can hold him off for the 1:30 feed for a bit using shhh/pat, rocking, or whatever works, gradually moving it a bit later and later, maybe 15 mins every few nights. No need to be abrupt. Eventually you'll move it late enough so that ds will probably not need the 5 a.m. feed, so the two feeds kind of "combine". If he absolutely protests, then he probably does need to eat and you can try reducing the minutes of nursing or only offering one side.

Good luck!

[ladybug74]

I have another question regarding pat/shh. How long do I do this for? It seems I end up doing this for the remainder of his nap time without him actually falling asleep. He'll stop crying periodically and maybe even close his eyes for a little while, but I've never been able to have him fall asleep with this.
The other problem is that I have to go back to work next week and I really doubt that his daycare providers will be able to do pat/shh for the amount of time that I am doing it now.
Should I give up on this, any other thoughts on how I can extend his naps, something that might also work in a daycare setting???

Monique