3.5 MONTH BEDTIME @ 9 PM???

[Sarah33miller]

My DS is falling asleep at every nap time, right on schedule just by using the 4S's but we have 2 problems.

1. the 45 minute intruder - which is causing me to tweak his schedule so he is only up for 2 hours at a time. I am going to try holding him through the jolt tomorrow to see if it keeps him asleep - I feel like it might work because he does sleep through whenever he is in his car seat.

2. After his 5pm catnap, he is unable to sleep until 9pm or so. A lot of nights he shows no sleepy cues and is relatively content this whole time. We TRY to do a 7:30 bedtime, after his 7pm feed we do bath, massage, prayer and song (the full wind down routine) but come bedtime he is not tired at all. I know he is a little young for PUPD, but we still tried it as he is a big baby (15+ lbs) and I felt that he was developmentally ready for it. After just 2 days we had broken the sleep props that were preventing daytime naps, but we still have had no luck with bedtime. Even before we started PUPD, we could not get him to fall asleep at bedtime with nursing, rocking, or any other prop. He just seems to be wired from 6pm-9pm. Our nighttime sleep is still pretty pathetic (waking every 2-3 hours) but if it's not time to feed he usually settles within 10 minutes. I am wondering if we could get bedtime earlier if things would go better. Could this wired time be from him being overtired because of his short naps? I was following the 4 hour schedule at first him with because he does not need to eat every 3 hours, but he couldn't handle missing the extra nap so I am back to the 3 hour schedule just to try to squeeze in 4 naps. I'm kind of lost, constantly trying new things and unsure what will help. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Katet]

It may not be something that has an easy fix.
Firstly he may need his time between feeds to be  anywhere between 3and 4 hours, but as you say his awake time for his age is 2 hours, but that's an average, some babies it's 1h 45 some 2.15 and that can change for each nap time, so you may need longer or shorter at different times in the day...2hours isn't an exact science for all babies.
Level of stimulation may also effect how long they stay awake too, this knowing tired signs at this age is vital to  work out if your 2 hours is 1h50 or 2h 15.

In terms of the long evening time...quite normal to have witching hours/unsettled period, at 3months in BF babies it can be part of a growth spurt to change  milk supply to meet development or it can be over or under tired based on day  and if they are low or high sleep needs.
The first suggestion, I'd have to make is throw away the clock and look for tired signs and hungry signs , you may find that a 3.5/3/4 or a 4/3/3 or 3.5/3.5/3.5  routine is what he works best on on any give day it may change by 10/15/60 minutes.
Secondly definitely try holding through the jolts and given his age even try picking him up and sitting in a quiet dark place to see if he'll go back to sleep in your arms (which is actually what worked with my second.

[Sarah33miller]

Thank you so much for your reply! I do feel like I have a good handle on his tired signs and have stopped watching the clock. He does get tired roughly between 1.5-2 hours. I was wondering if you have any advice about what to do during night wakings? He has been waking up every half an hour to one hour all night long recently. I’m at a total loss as to how to get him to sleep longer. I also feel like it’s confusing because he hasn’t weaned off night feedings so I usually feed him around 1am and 4am, so sometimes when he wakes up I do PUPD, and sometimes I feed him which I feel like must be confusing for him.

[Katet]

I found with night waking, don't feed to the clock, first waking was a resettle waking, then if they only slept 20mins, you'd feed on the next waking (definitely was a hunger waking) then over time you start to notice the resettling noise as opposed to the I'm hungry night cries, but it takes patience. I never really got my first sleeping for long stretches, yet my second just did it. In hindsight, I can see temperament plays into it and also how relaxed we are, the more stressed we are the more the baby tends to be unsettled, which makes it hard as we need a good night sleep to be relaxed, yet we aren't getting it. If I had my time over, what I learnt with my second was rather than thinking 'Ill be better if the baby sleeps better' it would be 'what do I need to do to cope best if I only get 2 hour blocks of sleep...so I'd nap in the day, go to bed earlier etc and as I got less exhausted, suddenly I noticed the baby slept more too.

[Philothea]

How have things been the past few days?

Waking every 30-60 minutes overnight is pretty extreme. Sleep cycles are usually still up to 6 hours long at this age, decreasing to 2-4 hours soon. Something is definitely going on. My guess would be that it's routine related or physical (e.g. discomfort).

If you're still having issues, perhaps you'd like to share your EASY.

[Sarah33miller]

Thank you for your replies! Over the past month I have tried everything I can think of 
He is now 17 weeks old. Some nights he will sleep for consistent 2 hour chunks at a time and I can only seem to resettle him by nursing —- should I try pupd for a length of time?

But some nights (usually about 2-3x/week) he still wakes every hour or so... like a previous reply said, that isn’t a sleep cycle so I’m worried something is wrong but I can’t figure out what. I don’t think he has reflux and he really doesn’t seem to be in pain to me, but I could be wrong. We’ve adjusted temperature and keep a thermostat right at his bed to keep it 68 degrees. We have white noise on. 

My EASY is a mess because he will only sleep for one cycle during the day (42 mins) no matter what I seem to do. Eating wise, he seems ready for 4 hour EASY.

He now settles very easily at nap times and at bedtime (7:30pm). He just can’t link sleep cycles.