10 days in to 4/4 EASY

[clareharley]

Hello,

I’m new to this site and started whispering to my 5 month old son 10 days ago. We're doing 4/4 EASY. Prior to this, he never slept during the day unless I took him out in the buggy and pushed him over cobbles. Even then he would only stay asleep for a max 20 mins. He always slept quite well at night, although that started to change around the age of 2 ½ months. He was waking up sometimes after 40 mins, 1 hr, 1 1/2hrs. Although I was worried about his lack of sleep, which I was sure was a big part of why he was crying so much, I didn’t know this was all symptomatic of over-tiredness.  I thought he might be waking up because he was in pain. The paediatrician didn’t seem to know either and sent us to hospital for a couple of nights to be observed. They didn’t find anything wrong with him.

Anyway, the BW has been brilliant – we’ve come such a long way since 10 days ago but we’ve still got a long way to go. Over the first few days, we went from him sleeping 20 mins in his cot, to 40 mins then to 1 ½ hours. It was amazing, although it took a lot of PUPD  and by the end of the day he had still only had about 2 hours sleep.

The problem we’ve had now for 3 days running is that mornings are awful. He’s waking up earlier and earlier – this morning 5.30am – and sleeping for less time – this morning only 30 mins. I know he’s still tired when he wakes up but it’s now 10.30am and I’ve been trying to get him back to sleep since 9am. Needless to say, the EASY routine is disintegrating! It's more like EAPUPDAPUPDAE! He’s also still waking up at night, last night twice between 8-11pm and then again at 3am so doesn’t ever get more than 4 hours sleep at a time. What I need to know is, are the care providers right? Is he just a baby who doesn’t sleep much and I need to stop pushing it or am I doing something wrong? I don’t know if this is still overtiredness or just his character. I feel like the mornings are out of control now because he won’t sleep, he won’t play, he just cries unless I pick him up. I’m exhausted! On the upside, I have got to the point where I can get him down 3 times a day now, typically 30/40 in the morning (I wonder if this neutralises after hours of PUPD hysterics...), 1-1/2 in the afternoon and a 30 min catnap in the early evening so he's getting about 2 1/2 hrs a day now.

Sorry for the long mail but I thought the background info was relevant. I'll post this on the PUPD forum, too.

Any thoughts?

[LucyA]

Could you post your daily routine as best you can?

Sounds like you've made great progress in 10 days, well done! I'm sure one you get the timing of things sorted out the rest will fal into place.

[clareharley]

Thanks.

Our routine hasn't really taken shape yet but VERY VERY roughly:

(By the way all E is breastfeed apart from the dreamfeed)

Wake/Eat 07.00-07.30
Activiy 07.30-09.00
PUPD 09.00 - 09.30/45
SLEEP 09.45-10.30
EAT 11.00-11.30
ACTIVITY - 11.30-13.00
PUPD 13.00-13.30
SLEEP 13.30-14.30/15.00
EAT 15.00-15.30
ACTIVITY 15.30-16.40
PUPD 16.45-17.15
SLEEP 17.15-18.00
ACTIVIY 18.00-19.30
PUPD 19.30-19.45
SLEEP 19.45 - 23.00
DREAM FEED 23.00-23.15 (FORMULA)
SLEEP 23.15-03.00
EAT 03.00-03.30
SLEEP 03.30 - 07.00

There are huge variations on this. For example, he's now waking up as early as 05.30am and I can't get him to sleep more than 30 mins despite the fact that he's clearly VERY tired. I should point out that he nearly always wakes up crying. Also, it's now much easier to get him to sleep at lunchtime nap - in fact he did it himself today after 20 mins of settling - but he's now waking up after 1/2 hour. I do about 10 mins of PUPD and he's asleep again maybe for an hour and just now he woke up again and I've just been doing PUPD for another 20 mins. This has been happening since Monday and I'm worried there's a new habit forming. Also, just generally, sometime I do PUPD for 5 mins and other times it's 1 1/2 hours!

Also, I feel like I have to use of some of A time in order to allow PUPD time. Otherwise, he'll either be sleeping in to his eating time or not sleeping for long enough.

[momofclaire]

Do you think he handles the 2.5-3 hours of A time ok.  It is a bit long for his age.  I would suggest starting your nap windown and then pu/pd if needed a littler earlier with the goal being that he is asleep by 9:00/9:30.  Could you try that?  Early wakes are generally a sing of being overtired and I suspect this is happening because by the time you get him settled he only sleeps for 45 min. 

[clareharley]

I don't know. He's so difficult to read because he never gets droopy eyelids and rarely yawns. He always looks wide awake and the only signs he shows are writhing about and chewing his hand.

Should I be incorporating the PUPD in the activity time, then? So, if he just has 2 hours of A time do I start PUPD after 1 1/2 hours of A time?

[momofclaire]

Right now, I would plan for a bit of pu/pd so start your windown earlier. Do you know what type of baby he is, angel, textbook, spirited...?  That might help you to read the signs.  I would shorten your A time and see how things go.

[clareharley]

He's a mixture of touchy and spirited. I really feel like we're losing it now. For the past few days, he's been waking up at 05.45. We try PUPD as his feed isn't due until 7am. It hasn't worked so far and he just lies babbling/grumbling/crying until it's time to eat. I feed him at 7 until 7.30 then get him down for a nap at 08.30 so he only has an hour of activity time. He'll go down quickly but wake up after half an hour. I can sometimes get him to sleep for another half hour. Then I feed him at 11 - 11.30 and put him down for another nap between 12.30-12.45. Again, he'll only stay asleep for half an hour and then we can't get him to go back to sleep at all. The more we try to get him back to sleep the hysterical he becomes. Yesterday I gave up and my husband, who is doing it today, is also about to give up as he's been at it for almost an hour now. This makes him tired and grumpy in the afternoon and yesterday I couldn't get him down for his 5pm nap - which I moved to 4pm because he'd slept so little and cried so much during the day. As a result, last night he woke up several times between 1am and 3am. I know all this spells over-tiredness but I just can't break the cycle and get him to sleep. We do pat/shhhh, PUPD. We've got a consistent wind down routine, we make sure he doesn't get over-stimulated. I just don't know what else to do. It just feels like it's not working anymore.

[LucyA]

What if you start your day earlier for a few days? If he wakes at 5.45 then doesn't sleep again during pu/pd, and doesn't go for his first nap til 8.30, that's quite a long stretch. Could you try doing pu/pd til maybe 6.30, and if he hasn't slept just start the day then? If you can break the ot cycle, hopefully the early wakeups will disappear on their own.

[clareharley]

OK. I'll give that a try. Last night he woke up several times and I had to feed him back to sleep at 04.30 because PUPD wasn't working then we both slept until 07.30 so we missed our usual 7am feed time. We're also moving house in a couple of days and are going to be living out of a suitcase until the middle of January, staying my my parents, then in-laws. I don't know if all the disruption is going to unravel all the hard work we've done or whether it might just help break some of the bad bits of the routine.
Fingers crossed for the latter!
Thanks for your advice.

[momofclaire]

I agree with Lucy.  I would try pu/pd and then if it doesn't seem to work start your day.  Try to be consistant with all that is going on but also remember that there will probably be some tough days.   
Keep us posted and good luck with the move.

[clareharley]

Thanks for all your advice. I'm still having problems getting him to sleep for longer than half an hour but, despite the fact that we're now living out of a suitcase and moving from one lot of relatives to the next, he's just started sleeping right through the night, from about 7.30pm - 6am with an 11pm dreamfeed. It's just happened and I'm so happy!! Also, he's an hour and 20 mins into his second nap of the day so maybe we're making a breakthrough with the daytime naps, too.

Thanks again for all your help and advice. BW has been a massive help to all of us!

[momofclaire]

Great news.  Hang in there as I am sure all the moving about isn't easy on him. Yippee about a full nights sleep. I hope that continues for you.