10 week old baby girl(spirited) difficulty with day time sleep

[Maria14]

Hello,
I am new to this forum although read BW during pregnancy and really like the methods suggested.
My baby girl Alex is 10 weeks old today. She is a mixture of textbook and spirited baby more spirited I'd say.
Pretty much from about second week of her life she started having difficulty with her naps. At the time she was not on any particular routine but in those early days she was completely different to all other babies I know in that she was fighting sleep in that early stage while everybody else's baby in our group seemed to have no difficulty sleeping all day long between feeds..
We tried for a while for her to have three naps a day, one long one around lunch time usually out in the pram for good 2-2.5 hours and two shorter ones either side (she would not nap for long at home hence one long nap outside in the middle of the day), I feel this schedule does not agree with her in that the short naps at home leave her very tired and she is often cranky and red eyed especially in late afternoon. I now feel that she would do better on EASY routine where she could have roughly equal lengths naps throughout the day.
The problem is that she is 1) quite difficult to settle for a nap -this is mainly overstimulation issue from what I gather now having looked at her awake times and thinking that I am often late putting her down especially as the putting down process can take a while, now I know to start the nap routine earlier 2) main problem- she wakes up 20 min into her nap screaming (more rarely 30 mins into her nap). For a while I thought that she was in pain etc but since she is pretty comfortable the rest of the time I think she screams and wakes up because she is overstimulated. She slept fairly well in the pram but now also wakes up 20 mins into our walk and screams occasionally or goes back to sleep and this is quite new so I gather she is just overstimulated. She exhibits lots of features of spirited baby such as jerky movements, lots of cooing and smiling mostly when prompted etc.
She is EBF does not take bootle or dummy, feeds every 3 hours including at night (though I feel she could go longer but need to look into this issue separately).
She has a good bed time routine at around 7pm and settles well for the night usually.
The naps are a nightmare however. She does not like being held or rocked very much so I end up shushing her and using white noise to settle her and then leave it on for the whole nap to block out sounds.recently I installed a blackout blind to help block out visual stimulation and it seems to help settle her too.

I really want to get EASY working for her but her naps are a trouble and often the routine goes out of the window and I have to feed her at 2 hr interval rather than 3 to calm her down. Se is rarely hungry at 2 hours though so ends up snacking.

I am now working on trying to put her down for a nap much earlier to avoid overstimulation which is likely the cause of this nap trouble in our case.
My questions are:
1) what would be a good nap time routine for her given she is spirited and does not like being held a lot unless she rides on the shoulder and can look around but that's just more stimulating
2) with shush patting do I do it for the whole duration of the nap-say if she woke up after 20 mins do I keep going until 1.5 hours are up. Is this the idea of sleep training appropriate for her age and if I persist then presumably she should learn to self soothe and prolong her naps?or do I try for say 20 mins and then get her up with shorter activity time and another nap but I think she would still only do 20 mins..am worried that we will get into an endless cycle of her being overtired and the EASY will not work based on 3 hour cycle..
3) I would still like to take her out in the pram once a day just so I can get out of the house for a bit, is that going to interfere with her sleep training?
I tried letting her sleep on her tummy as I find she settles better as cant see around as well as when lying on her back, needless to say I am not keen on the idea but often it is the only way she will go to sleep, she slept on her side for a while but stooped liking it..
I used to swaddle her and it soothed her until she became strong enough to get her arms out, that's why back sleeping also became and issue as she flails her arms endlessly and tummy sleeping helps with that.
I am very keen for her to continue sleeping on her back and swaddled (I will persist with that) but am very frustrated with her napping issue and get very worked up myself when she does not sleep at home.
I would appreciate any advice- I did read quite a few topics here trying to work out how to best approach this issue but am a bit confused how to proceed with the routine when he naps are short.
Thank you
P.s.as she wakes up every three hours at night and does not sleep in the day I am very sleep deprived and frustrated..

[Maria14]

Forgot to mention that I don't usually feed her to sleep/before sleep so she does not have that association luckily apart from bed time when feed is part of our routine.
For a while she used to suck on my little finger instead of dummy and it would send her to sleep but she has now given up on that and is not in such need to suck as when she was newborn and she has now found her own fists which she enjoys during awake time but is not yet able to use them to soothe herself to sleep.

[skatty]

It was all a long time ago for me now but my spirited dd struggled terribly with day sleep  What i found was being spirited just about everything OS her!! We also had to scale A times way back which you are doing  I live in Denmark so my dd never slept in a cot during the day, babies here always sleep in their prams outside, I think this saved my sanity so I personally would still take her out for one of her naps a day because as she gets older you will love being able to be a bit flexible and be able to do stuff knowing she will sleep in the pram/pushchair. I put a muslin cloth as a curtain over the pram so my dd would not be able to see anything while she was supposed to be napping when she was very small.

Sorry I can't give any help with EASY or ssh pat because I didn't do it, I just made sure I followed the EASY pattern so not to feed to sleep but my girl was so spirited and just wasn't like the average baby in any way so I just felt disheartened when trying to get her on a solid routine so I have great respect for you doing this because I do think if you can work out her routine thigs will be much easier for you than it was for us 

Ther is a spirited baby sleep thread where you may be able to get tips from some other mums, i will find it for you 

[skatty]

Here it is 

Sleep and EASY Support for spirited babies

[skatty]

BTW I forgot to ask what you are doing in your A times, those screaming and jolting wakes after 20 mins could be OS, I think at this age trying to keep life and quite and simple as possible is the key, spirited babies can't help but notice everything and it makes life very overwhelming, hence the fussiness  I don't want it to all sound bad though, she just has a very big personality to grow into, I always say my dd hated being a baby, she was in such a rush to grow up! It will definitley get easier but for now keeping life pretty boring will help with the sleep and if the naps get better so will the nights 

[Maria14]

Thank you skatty for your reply, I will be looking at that topic definitely!
Yeah,Alex is exactly what you are describing always curious and wanting to run somewhere if she could!definitely acts like an older baby trapped in a body of 2 months old!
Activity for her is mainly sitting in the bouncy chair observing the surroundings she likes that.not particularly interested in the gym so I don't bother with toys much,just play her the music.even a nappy change is a party for her!and she loves her bath time more than anything.
The trouble with the pram is that it's got to be moving for her to sleep!i love walking but it just means that she wakes up if I go in the shop and what's most frustrating we can't go to our baby group weekly meet up as we just have to leave as soon as her awake hour is up as I need to move that pram for her to sleep.having visitors is also difficult as its very stimulating for her.so I feel very socially isolated and sleep deprived

[skatty]

(((hugs))) Maria, i know how you feel, I have been there  I did used to go to a mother group once a week for my own sanity but I always paid for it with extra bad sleep! All the other babies would lie on a mat cooing and my dd wanted to be sat up at the table with the action! I wont lie, the first year was so hard for me because my dd couldn't handle anything without becoming OS but I still had to get out for my sanity, some days would be better than others and I basically had to watch her cues for if it was getting too much (first squeal meant get out now!!) Something that helped loads was having her in a sling if we were out, for some reason that close contact seemed to stop her getting too OS and she used to sleep in it fine, it's also great for when you have visitors because noone is getting in her face 

I do think following a routine is good for baby but you have to look after yourself too and it can be very depressing feeling isolated. I wonder if you could try and wean her off needing to move in the pushchair and try to get her just to nap in it  I think the fact she falls asleep while you are moving may be the problem, if you could try keeping her awake on the way to the destination and then maybe when you stop say something like "sleeptime Alex" give her a lovey and then pin a muslin up if she would pick up on the sleep cues eventually. When my dd was about that age she would start to fall asleep as soon as I was putting her snowsuit on because she knew it was nap time! I absolutely think spirited kids really need routine and rituals even as tiny babies because they really do need to know what is going on, I used to have little sayings and jingles for everything and it really helped, so before nappy change, for naptime, before I picked her up or put clothes on her. If you could try a really simple winddown/sleep cue like I mentioned then perhaps you could get her to nap easier. You are doing treally well by the way, it took me much longer to figure my dd out 

[lily_layne]

You could be describing my DD!  People always comment on how alert she is (even as a newborn) and they all seem to think it's a great thing but they don't have to deal with putting her to sleep   Nap time was almost always difficult in her first months and I began to dread it.  Like your DD, she hated being rocked and only wanted to be up on my shoulder so she could look around.  It sounds like you're off to a pretty good start at setting the stage for sleep with a very dark room and white noise.  For swaddling, I found that the Summer SwaddleMe wraps were better at keeping her wrapped tight than a blanket.  DD also slept better on her tummy and I spoke to her doctor about it and he said that most babies are comforted by sleeping on their tummy and he gave me to go ahead to keep doing it.  It has the added bonus of making it easier to pat her.

As far as creating a consistent routine, would you feel less stressed and more relaxed if you just went with the flow for a while?  I spent hours agonizing over DDs A times and sleep patterns in a vain attempt at getting a regular routine and all it did was stressed me out more.  Finally, I "gave in" and just followed her cues and eventually her days became more consistent.  I think she just wasn't ready and I didn't have the stamina to be consistent enough.  Instead I just focused on maintaining the EAS pattern and creating a wind down ritual that worked.

On days when I wasn't exhausted, I used sh/pat for the first 20-30 minutes of her nap.  On days when I was tired, I used the swing (which I had sworn I was *not* going to do ).  It was a lifesaver!  DD napped better in it so I ended up using it a lot and we had no problem transitioning her to her crib when she as a bit older.

To get her to sleep when she was OS, OT or just not wanting to sleep (which was often!) I used this technique:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGmBdH_oCs.  It worked wonders!

If you need to get out of the house, go ahead and have her nap in her pram.  DD also woke up when I stopped walking and I was never able to solve that problem but I didn't work very hard at it so I don't have much advice to offer on that topic.

(((hugs))) 

[lily_layne]

so I feel very socially isolated and sleep deprived

I forgot to say that I felt that way too at the beginning.  It is hard but it does get better and the memories of those early days have faded pretty quickly.  DD is only 7 months and the nap time battles feel like they happened a distant, foggy, lifetime ago (maybe that's a result of the sleep deprivation...)

[Maria14]

Yeah,I often go with her cues and when the naps are short I get her up for a bit as usually can't resettle her and then soon put her down again.so yeah,3 hour cycle will not work here with short naps..
At 7 months what's the nap situation with your DD now?dies she still get very overstimulated or does it get better?
I considered the swing and like you never thought I d want to resort to one!same with dummy,gave in pretty quickly bur she did not take to it at all,tried different ones..
I ve got a good sling for her but she is a bit small for it,needs to be 6 kilos,so will be trying her in it for outings when she is big enough..

[lily_layne]

Right now the naps haven't been good but that's because she's ready for a routine change and it always takes us a while to figure out a new one.  Before this, it was pretty smooth sailing with a great nap in the morning (1.5-2.5 h) and usually a pretty good afternoon nap.  If she had a short pm nap, I would just give her a catnap later on and it worked well.  She still gets OS but it's nowhere near like it was at the beginning.  It probably also helps that our house is pretty quiet and I hate electronic, noisy toys so she doesn't play with a lot of them.  I think it was around 4 months when our days became more predictable and at about 5-6 months when she started going to sleep more often than not on her own for naps (BT can still be a struggle).

I think the swing could really help - even just for getting in a few long naps so that you can catch up on rest.  If DD was fairly calm and relaxed for wind down, I'd put her in the crib, but if she was worked up, she went in the swing.  She was also colicky so eventually we just always used the swing for evening naps and most bedtimes.  When she got up to eat, I'd move her to her crib and she was fine.  Often I put her sleep using the technique in the link in my previous post and then put her in the swing.  As she got older, she began to be able to put herself to sleep in the swing.  I worried a lot about creating bad habits but the long naps won me over and in the end, the transition to the crib was easy.

When DD was in her crib, one thing that worked great for getting her to sleep was jiggling the mattress so that her head jiggled.