Help! 3.5 month old REFUSES to go to bed before 9:30pm

[llcj518]

Hello all!  This is my first post here, although I have been lurking on these boards for a while.  I have just started moving my 3.5 month old DD on to the EASY schedule, although we have followed the pattern from the start.  She has never been big on eating and falling asleep right after, so I've always had an easy time with keeping the pattern of EAS.  However, her naps are a challenge, and her bedtime is WAY too late for her age!  She absolutely refuses an early bedtime no matter what I do.  We have tried shush/pat and PU/PD, and no dice -she just screams and resists until we hit about 9:30pm - and that is whether I start at 7, 7:30 or 8:00pm - she'll keep crying until 9:00pm or so - that's the earliest she'll go down, but usually until 9:30pm.  I have been moving her to a 3.5 hour EASY during the day in preparation for the 4 month/4 hour EASY (she'll be 4 months in a week and a half).  I'm at my wits end with this - if I leave her awake until 9:30, she's overtired and crabby, and if I put her down and do shush/pat and PU/PD, she screams her head off - and it's all fruitless since we end up at the same time anyway!  Below is an outline of our daily schedule:

7:30 - Wake and Eat
8:00 - 8:30 Activity (if she stays up any more than an hour, she gets OT and will not go down for this nap at all)
8:30 - 10:00/10:30 - Sleep (the length of this nap varies, but usually it's a good one)
11:00 - Eat
11:30 - 12:15/12:30 Activity
12:30 - 1:45  - Sleep (sometimes this goes for only 45 mins, sometimes an hour and 1/4)
2:30 - Eat
3:00 - 3:45/4:00 Activity
4:00 - 4:45 - Sleep
6:00 - Eat
6:30 - 7:30  Activity/Bath/Bedtime Routine
Top off before bed, and try to soothe to sleep unsuccessfully.

10:30pm Dreamfeed (although she usually wakes up)

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Lauren

Any advice on how to get her down would be greatly appreciated!!

[J & J's Mom]

I wish I knew what to tell you... I just wanted to say I'm totally in the same boat.  My LO is only 10 weeks old but I've been trying for at least two weeks to get her to bed before 9 and to no avail.  No matter when her last nap ended or when I start it seems she completely resists pt/sh (and she's a total independent sleeper and never even needs it to take naps) and screams non-stop.  I tried for over an hour the other night and got nowhere.  It finally got to be around 9:30 and I fed her one more time and she was out by 10 with no more crying.  The earliest she has ever fallen asleep for the night is 9 and that has happened only once or twice.

I am hoping this will change with time but I would love to see the advice you get - maybe it will help  me!

[elmarie]

Hi Lauren and welcome to the boards 

First of all I think for now you should stick to shh/pat for now.  It is not recommended to use pu/pd for Lo's under 4 months as it can be too stimulating.  If you say her naps is a challenge- why is this so?

Do you do a winding dow routine with her before naps and bedtime?

 

[llcj518]

Hi Elmarie!  Her naps have been a challenge because she only seems to want to do 45 minutes at a time when I was doing the 3 hour schedule, however, I will say that the past 2 days have been better as I started moving her to a 3.5 hour schedule - she seems to be still doing a shorter nap in the morning (an hour on good days, less on others), but yesterday's afternoon nap was over 2.5 hours.  She took the cat nap as expected (instead of a longer 3rd nap like they do in the 3.5 hour EASY I saw posted which said 1.5 hours for the 3rd nap and no 4th nap), which lasted about 35 minutes.  This morning, she took an hour and 10 minute nap in the morning, and has been down for an hour so far for her second nap, and still seems to be happily sleeping!

I do a wind down routine - keep things much quieter before the nap/bedtime, read a story, sing a song, and rock a bit before putting her in her crib, and she goes down great - usually very drowsy and is asleep quickly.  It just seems like when she wakes up early from the naps, her eating time isn't for a while, so I have to hold her out until then, even though she's tired.  And getting her down for a nap is easiest when she's only up for an hour to an hour and a half.  Any longer and she fights me going down, cries a lot and sleeps fitfully.  What I found with the 3 hour EASY routine was that the later in the day it got, the shorter her naps were.  I think she's trying to develop the 4 month pattern of 2 naps and a catnap - it seemed to work well yesterday, anyway.  I'm just still stumped on how to get her to bed earlier.  Last night, she had her catnap from 5 - 5:35, and then I started winding her down at 7, and had her in bed by 7:30.  She woke up 45 minutes later screaming.  I did shush/pat (I agree with you on pu/pd being to stimulating and didn't do it at all yesterday), to no avail.  I ended up having to rock her, and she sat in my lap WIDE awake staring at me until about 9pm, when she finally gave it up and went to sleep.  Grrrrrr.....  She's spirited/textbook if that helps.  Any advice you can give would be great - I'm open to trying anything! 

J&J's Mom - I hope we both get this issue worked out so our LOs can get the rest they need!

[elmarie]

Lauren it does sound that things are improving.  i will try and extend that 1st nap with shh/pat (remember that it will take some time to work-it is a technique to teach them to calm them self).  Once they get it you will find that you will need to do less and less shh/pat.  I will also cut the second nap so naps are on avr 1.5h.  Just be consistent with the nightime routine and continue with the shh/pat and try not to resort to the rocking. 

I know it is really hard and we have all been there, but it will get better 

Keep us posted.

E x