Hello all
I am back after 3 years of BWing my beloved DS who is now 3 years old.
I had our little DD 4 weeks ago (3 weeks2D early).
I am actually in a living nightmare at the moment with coping with these nights. Her days are not fantastic either but the nights are a serious priority at the moment. I am this morning 'waking' (from no sleep) from another night of hours of fussing and trying to get LO to sleep. Cannot sleep to catch up in day because of 3 year old DS.
Ok - I'll try to give some of the info you need.
She was 3weeks 2d early.
Weighed 5lb12 at birth and 6lb5 2weeks ago.
I think she has some spirited/touchy features but not sure just yet
She feeds roughly 3 hourly around the 24hr clock. (should she still need to?)
Formula fed with one BF in the morning topped up with FF.
Eating loads - taking between 60-100ml per feed. Each day totals 550-650ml.
Trying a 12 hour day from 7/8am to 7/8pm.
Has a big wake time normally after first days feed at 7/8. Awake to 9.30 but sometimes all the way to the next feed at 10/11.
Feeds at 10/11, then has deep sleep through to next feed - sometimes have to feed her in her sleep for 1/2pm feed.often WILL NOT wake up at all. Continues sleeping to 4/5pm feed. (This pattern has howver mostly changed in last week and more awake in day but nights are now worse???)
If we're lucky, then awake for an hour or so - may sleep again before atartgin night time routine to sleep again. Feed at 7pm straight to bed.
First stretch of night sleep from 7-10pm good. Dream feed at 10/10.30.Goes back down okish if she hasn't woken til 1/2am. Wakes for 1/2am feed.
This is where the problems are. she wakes for feed at 1/2am, and then can't get her back asleep for at least an hour (after 30mins feeding and burping), often awakw/fussing/trying to shh patt through to the next feed at 5am ish. Then next feed at 4/5am has same problems going down again sometimes back asleep by 6am. She is extremely windy needing 10-20 winds per feed which really wakes her up even more. Started using infacol a few days ago - really helping with wind but again coinciding with longer fuss/wake times at night. She is swaddled and I think she hates it but arms will fly other wise.
When shes awake/fussing, she squeaks, grunts, curls in a ball all very tense and loudly and escalates to a cry if you don't either shh/patt or shh/rub, or pick up if bad. She finds it hard to get past the jolts when shes going off as she grunts, rooting+++ curls up everytime and we spend hours going round in circles trying to get past the jolts. Dummy does satisfy most of the time, we not using it 50% of time, still trying it out, but it pops out all night and she still seems to spend 1-2 hours trying to get to sleep with it. Not crying all night unless we don't intervene enough and it escalates, she sometimes 'shout' cries before escalating, sometimes screams out aswell. Frantically rooting all the time at night regardless of feeding. SSHh patt/ shh rub worked for a few days with hand on chest also, now spending hours over crib with no success most of the time.
We've tried full feeeds at night feeds (she takes full feeds at night), and less feed to get her back down. less feed did not work last night but should we try again?
I know this was night/day confusion at first what with long sleep stretch in afternoons. But up unitl last few days we literally could not wake her all afternoon even to the point of spendng hours lifting, poking, talking, undressing etcetcetc. Just last few days she is awake alot more in the day, but actually this has coincided with even longer wake times in the night so it seems that the amount of day sleep is not correlating at all to night wake times.
Her naps times in the day are fairly bad, like I said maybe one nap 1 hour after first feed, then long stretch in afternoon, and maybe another short nap early evening (if she even woke early enough from long nap). So EASY not happening really at all in the day. Also very hard with 3 year running round screaming and playing happily which I don't want to restrict his life too much. Days naps vary from needing loads of intervention & dummy to not needing anything at all - seemingly totally random. Also shes fairly high demand in the day, crying often to be held (i really try not to let this develop too muc - very aware of this), wondering if she overtired in the day.
This is loads of info. I don't know what to try next. I'm pulling my hair out. My DH works away for two night per week and I on my own those niths. Last week I almost lost my mind and cried for 2 whole days and the 2 nights that were affected and managed to survive unitl he got back. He has a week off this week and we need a new strategy to fix this as much as poss before he goes back to work next week. DH very supportive and my angel, very supportive of BW techniques.
Are we expecting too much too soon?
Is this becasue she was early?
Should we be ignoring all the fussing?(but it only winds her up and escalates if we do)we would need to put her in other room with monitor as the noise cannot be ignored easily.
Could the infacol be disagreeing with her (although helping with burps)?
How can we continue to address the night/day confusion?
How can i implmenet EASY when she won't wkae up? Toddler running round being ignored?
Is she too young / small to try to drop the 1/2am feed yet? (this is my next plan maybe tonight to stretch this feed time using a dummy and shh patt to go back to sleep)
Why has she worsened from just waking at 1am and 4am for feeds- to now not going back to sleep after aswell?
Should we try to shift the long sleep stretch in the day to start later and later in the day (ie let it happen but try to move it progressively laterie not expect wake time beofre bed routine)?
Is this a growht spurt at 4 weeks? (1 week adjusted though)
Do we just stop trying to wake her and let her sleep and just give the feeds? It seems the more we try to manipulate the situation the worse it gets.
Is she overtired??? Or sleeping too much?
I don't even know
Any help / suggestions greatly appreciated - I know there are so many variables with what this could be - anything I haven't thought of??? What should be our priority this week with DH home??
Thanks for reading such a long desperate post. Very upset about the fact I don't know what this LO wants.
Caroline (averaging 2-3 hours sleep per night for the last 2 weeks)
