just need help...14 week old sleep schedule and problems

[newmom11]

hello...i've posted on here several times in regards to my baby's terrible sleep.  it seems that things have gotten worse...last night was awful and i just need help.  my first problem is that it is very hard for me to make a schedule and stick to it when every nap is a different length.  my baby took two good naps yesterday...the morning nap was 2 hours and the mid-day nap was 1.5 hours which i woke him from to feed.  i kept the activity time the exact same for the late afternoon nap which normally starts around 3 or 3:30, however he would only take a 30 minute nap which threw off the rest of the evening.  this is what i am finding on a almost daily basis.  we usually have one or two 1.5 hour naps a day, but you never know which nap it is gonna be.  the problem is in the evening hours...my baby who is 14 weeks usually wants about 1.5 to an hour and 40 minutes activity time before wanting a nap.  so if he gets up from his late afternoon nap at 5pm, then i can get a catnap in from 6:30-7pm and have him in bed for the night at 8:45 or 9pm.  however, sometimes, he doesn't go down for his late afternoon nap until late, so do i always wake him by 5pm even if he gets a short nap so that he can have time for another catnap before bed.  we have tried just cutting the catnap at 6:30 and putting him to bed at 7:30 and it is ALWAYS a mess.  my baby will wake 30 minutes after i put him down and will continue to wake on and off several times until his dreamfeed.  i feel like 9pm is late for a baby to go to bed (our waketime is 7:30), however like i said, whenever i put my baby to bed for the night at 7:30pm, he will be up and down for several hours where as if i just wait and let him catnap at 6:30 and then put him down for the night at 9, then he is usually good until his dreamfeed.  what do you think...i just can't get his schedule to work out.  also, my next question is in regards to nightwakings.  i would say that 2 nights a week, we have random night wakings.  he has several times gone from his dreamfeed at 11pm till his waketime at 7:30am so i know he is capable...however twice a week, sometimes 4 or 5 nights in a row, he will wake up randomly.  once he wakes up, i give him his pacifier or will let him cio and he will always fall back asleep within 10 minutes of crying, but will continue to wake up every 45 minutes until i feed him at 6:30 or 7am.  i guess i just don't know what to do since cio doesn't work.  why is he waking and what do i do when he wakes every 45 minutes?  i don't want to feed him since i know sometimes that he isn't waking out of hunger.  like last night, he had just eaten 3 hours before so he couldn't be hungry, so when he woke at 3:15 i gave him his paci.  he went to sleep and woke again at 3:50, we let him cry and he cried for 10 minutes and slept until 4:45, he cried for 15 minutes, fell asleep and slept until 6:15 at which point i was exhausted so i gave him his paci and he went back to sleep until 7:30.  what am i supposed to do about the nigthwakings...they are so frequent and awful that i just need help.  thanks. 

[Peek-a-boo]

Hi there!

my first problem is that it is very hard for me to make a schedule and stick to it when every nap is a different length. 

Okay, first, I think it's important to remember that we're aiming for a routine here, not a schedule.  The younger the baby is the more likely it is that your times will vary from day to day (because there are just so many variables that can affect them and because they change so darn fast at this age), but you keep the sequence of events predictable in the EAS pattern.  You're not trying to reproduce the same schedule each day, just a predictable routine.  Trying to schedule a baby is likely to create very unrealistic expectations and a lot of frustration for both of you.

so do i always wake him by 5pm even if he gets a short nap so that he can have time for another catnap before bed.

  Based on what you're describing, for now, yes, I probably would wake him in order to preserve the late cat nap and keep your feeding routine rolling as well.  It's likely that in the next 4 weeks or so your baby's evening nap needs will change, so at some point you'll have to experiment again with changing that, but if for now it's working best to have a late cat nap, then I would preserve it.

i would say that 2 nights a week, we have random night wakings.  he has several times gone from his dreamfeed at 11pm till his waketime at 7:30am so i know he is capable...however twice a week, sometimes 4 or 5 nights in a row, he will wake up randomly.  once he wakes up once he wakes up, i give him his pacifier or will let him cio and he will always fall back asleep within 10 minutes of crying, but will continue to wake up every 45 minutes until i feed him at 6:30 or 7am.  i guess i just don't know what to do since cio doesn't work.  why is he waking and what do i do when he wakes every 45 minutes?  i don't want to feed him since i know sometimes that he isn't waking out of hunger.   

Okay, so as I read this a few key things stand out to me.  The first is the word "random."  Because of your LO's age and because these wake ups are random and not at an habitual set time, I'd suspect that they are driven by hunger.  Just because a baby can go one night without eating for 8.5 hours, doesn't mean that you can count on him doing it every night.  14 week is still very young and it is very common to have a dream feed plus one more night feed.  At this age, if it's been more than 3 hours since his last feed, I'd be inclined to suspect hunger and go ahead and feed--particularly if you are breastfeeding.  If baby is waking because of hunger, that would explain why he wakes repeatedly--if he woke hungry once and wasn't feed, when he transitions to his next sleep cycle, he's likely to wake again because of the unresolved hunger. 

Secondly, you mention offering the paci to resettle.  It's possible that the paci has turned into a prop.  Can you describe how your LO falls asleep at the start of the night?  Is he going into the crib awake or asleep?  If he's going into the crib awake, are you in the room when he falls asleep?  If so, are you touching him (patting, etc)?  Singing or shushing, etc?   Does he fall asleep at the beginning of the night with a paci?

Finally, you mention that for some night wakings you are leaving him to cio.  As you may know, Tracy Hogg, the baby whisperer believed that a baby's cry is his own only means of communication and it's important not to ignore that crying in order to build and maintain trust with your LO.  She believed there is always a gentler way to teach baby to sleep than using cio.  At 14 weeks, the primary baby whisperer sleep training tool is shush/pat.  Check out this post for more details about how to use shush/pat: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=26672.0
Tracy did make a distinction between a "mantra" cry, which is a fussy self-settling cry that tends to be rhythmic and does not escalate.  This mantra cry is sometimes part of a baby's self-settling process and if that's what your baby is doing, it's okay to hang back and see which direction it goes.  However, if it turns into a genuine "I need you" cry that escalates, the baby whisperer would recommended responding promptly and using shush/pat to help your baby settle in the crib. 

{{Hugs}}  I know this can be really frustrating when you're trying to figure it all out and do what's best for your baby.  Try to relax and listen to your LO's cues.  He's just a wee thing yet and will still need your help figuring all this out. 
As I read this, w

[*Liz*]

((hugs)) to you. We have all been there and understand how hard it is to cope when you are exhausted from NWings.

I just wanted to post and say that I essentially had the same thoughts as I read through - firstly that your routine is really not too bad for this age as short napping is SO SO common and in part developmental. It sounds as though you are at the point of needing to drop the 4th nap - but after some short napping never quite manage it. But what you are doing - pushing back bedtime to fit a CN in is exactly the right thing to do for a few weeks until the A time naturally extends and the issue goes away.

Part of this is just developmental short napping and it WILL go away. They just wake and forget to go back to sleep again  . Jacob took short naps every single time until he was 5 mths old - there was one 2 hr nap at 14 weeks (I remember so well!!) and another 4 weeks until it happened again. Then all of a sudden they were all long, and at 6 mths he took 2 2 hr naps a day.

I would also just feed if the first NWing is over 3 hrs since the last feed as wakings that frequent are either a prop, pain or hunger. Just because your lo misses the feed sometimes doesn't mean they can go without it all the time. Remember as well there is a HUGE growth spurt at about 16 weeks and that very often causes night feed regressions also. Some babies do get genuinely hungry again as they get bigger and closer to 6 mths as well.

Personally I preferred to do a full feed, and have my whole household go back to sleep peacefully again. I know some people chose to wean night feeds more actively - but I felt that if he was hungry it was fair enough (as long as he ate well all day as well).

It is very sensible to try and work out your babies mantra cry as it is part of the settling process - but if your lo is repeatedly waking and crying they really might need something - food or cold or a wet nappy or a poop or whatever. I always go and check what the problem is before deciding to to and sleep training in the night. If there is an issue I fix it - if there isn;t them I may chhose to do whatever sleep training method is needed and age appropriate. So in your case I would check and then do shh/ptt as Bethany said.

No form of sleep training will work if your lo is hungry at this age though - they will continue to wake up.

((hugs)) and I'm sorry you are finding things so hard at the moment.

As an outsider reading it really does sound like you are both doing really quite well given your lo's age - and to reassure you that it WILL all come together soon and all your hard work will pay off.

 

[newmom11]

thanks so much for all of your help.  as for the paci...it's funny because some nights my lo will lay in bed and coo for a few minutes before falling asleep completely independent and then other nights he has his paci in his mouth throughout the entire bed time routine and will fall asleep with it.  so i would say that most of the time yes, he needs it to fall asleep, however there have been plenty of times that he will fall asleep peacefully without it...however those times are when he is not overtired and is just ready for bed.  we do not do shh/pat as it never seemed to work for us and to me it seemed just as much of a prop as the paci.  at least with the paci, i can pop it in and leave the room and let him do the rest to fall asleep.  i have a 2 year old at home, so i never found the time or patience to do the shh/pat method as my 2 year old is constantly needing me for something.  i guess that's why we let him have the paci.

so it sounds like i need to continue to wake my baby from the 5pm feeding and give him a final catnap and a later bedtime for another few months.  when will this all blend into one and he'll drop the catnap and just have an earlier bedtime? 

also, as for the mantra cry, it is hard for me to distinguish b/c my baby is just not a crier overall.  we don't let him cry for more than 15 minutes at a time and he is usually not crying the whole time during that 15 minutes.  i guess i just don't know how to tell if his cry is mantra. 

also, any ideas on what to do when my baby wakes up after 45 minutes into his nap?  do i go replug the paci?  if so he will usually return to sleep, but i'm wondering if i'm further reinforcing the behavior by not letting him go back to sleep on his own. 

[Peek-a-boo]

Well, if you're going to keep the paci, then, yes, I would use it to replug at 45 minutes to extend naps.  However, if you start to see a pattern where you are replugging often at nap transitions and in the middle of the night, you may decide it's time to wean the paci as it may have become a prop. 45 minute naps are also often a sign that baby is ready for a little more A time--it's that additional A time that will eventually allow you to drop the late evening cat nap. 

Around 4-4.5 months, most babies drop from 4 naps to three, with two longer naps (1.5-2 hours ideally) in the morning and one cat nap (30-45 minutes) in the late afternoon.  When this happens exactly really varies from baby to baby.  Then sometime around 6-7 ish months they drop the cat nap and just have 2 naps. 

[newmom11]

i do sometimes suspect that the paci is a prop...any ideas on how to wean him from the paci?  he is a VERY oral baby and always has his hands in his mouth during the day so i sometimes generally think he may have a strong urge to suck.  he chews on his fingers, but he does not seem to want to suck on them like he does the pacifier. 

[Peek-a-boo]

Check out this FAQ for a few ideas:  http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=2361.0

You might also check out these two threads:  http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=107041.0

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=62333.0