Hi! My 4.5 month old has never been a great sleeper, but I finally found the BW books and this site, and I'm determined to improve things! I started feeding her at 3.5 hour intervals about 3 weeks ago, then moved her naps from her swing to her crib 8 days ago. Both transitions went better than I expected. She can go 4 hours between feedings, but her sleeping is so erratic that 3.5 hrs usually seems to work better with the rest of her "schedule". She wakes at least 3-4 times a night, sometimes as much as 10 times - I know, it's a little ridiculous. Usually when she wakes, I can get her back down with shh/pat in 10-15 minutes. I've been tracking wake times, and occasionally there's a pattern, but it seems fairly random. She'll nap for 45 minutes (I've been on the short nappers board) and then will sort of wake up, and this is my question: both when she wakes up after 45 minutes of napping, and when she wakes up after 4 am (used to be 5 before daylight saving time), I can get her to sort of go back down with shh/pat, but not completely. I can spend 30-45 minutes trying to help her get back to sleep, and she will drift off every few minutes just to jerk awake a minute later, cry, kick her legs, and we start over. She's overtired, there's no question there, only getting about 12 hours total on a good day. But it's like by the end of her first nap cycle or by that time in the morning, she's had enough rest to take the edge off and has enough energy to really fight sleep. Her grandmothers both say they've never met a baby like her - she won't have anything to do with being rocked to sleep, which is why she ended up addicted to the swing for 2 months. For what it's worth, in the swing she usually took 1 to 2 hour naps, but her nightwaking was about the same as it is now, and it was more frustrating because I couldn't do sshh/pat or anything when she woke early from a nap because she was strapped into a seat. So I don't know what's going on with the fitful waking at the end of these sleep cycles. Usually after 30-45 minutes of me leaning over her crib, I can get another 30-45 minutes out of her, but it's so labor intensive on my part and doesn't really seem to be showing improvement. She's obviously not ready to get up, because she doesn't really open her eyes - she cries out, slams her legs against the mattress, moves her head from side to side, etc. If I leave her alone (thinking it's a mantra cry), the crying escalates and then she's awake and mad and tired. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I don't even know how to classify the problem, much less come up with a solution. Thanks so much!
