routine was ok - naps were ok but now all bad

[leycourt]

this is long beware.

just posted this on nw:

""Just wondering what I should be expecting - perhaps my expectations are too much?
Lo is 11 weeks old nearly (6 prem - though her development is that of an 11 week old).
I thought we had made progress and went from DF at 12:30-1 to say 5:30 (sometimes 6:30am). Then start day at 9:15 am as we go to bed 9:15PM.
Now she has got up at 3:30 - I resettled her but she was starving at 4:30. That's the first time in 2 weeks she has gone only a 4 hour stretch at night. My normal practice is to resettle her if before 5am. After 5am I will offer a feed as she is often hungry. I might have not got in there quickly enough last night and she was too unsettled to go back to sleep  for long before wanting a feed.

She is well over 9lbs in weight and I do think she should easily be able to do a 5-6 hour stretch at night if not longer.
I count the DF as a night waking simply beacuse if you don't do it baby would wake earlier for next feed.
Please is anyone else's baby doing 2-3 feeds a night including the DF? and not going more than 4-5 hours? My friends prem twins with a corrected age of 3 weeks go from 11 pm to 8am every night and feed 5 hourly during the day.
I must be doing something wrong.     ""

then realised naps wrong too.

it was: (AVERAGE TIMES)

9 ish Feed
Activity
10:15 Nap
12 ish feed (wake her up for this)
activty
1:15 ish nap
3ish feed
4:15 nap
5:30 feed as son gets home 6

then on off feeding/naps until 9:15pm

Naps were good - now she gets tired earlier and won't stay asleep - she seems hungry and grumpy

[brenda2]

hi
at this age a normal night for babies is to only skip 1 feed time.  so if you are feeding ever y 3 hours as you should be at not quite 3 mo then "sttn"  is going a 6 hours max stretch without food.  kwim?  so at this age is is very very normal to have 2 to 3 night feeds including the df. 

we had 3 night feeds until 4 mo when she went to 2 night feeds (incl df).  she didn't sttn with just the df until 6.5 mo.  so you are very normal and i wouldn't worry about it at all.  you are not doing anything wrong!

as far as naps go, you didn't post her awake times from the nap so i'm not sure how long her naps are or how long the A times are.  can you repost the routine with sleep and wake times for her naps and i''ll look.

[leycourt]

Yesterday


9:10 Feed
9:45 Activity -on playmat & toys
10:30 Nap - went down
11:10 - woke up unsettled so I resettled  - took 10 mins
11:55 woke up again
12:10 feed
12:40 activty - tummy time and toys
1:25 Put down for nap and slept
2:00 woke up and resettled
2:45 woke up again
3 pm feed
3:50 Activity
4:10 Nap
5: woke up & went out - awake from now
5:30 short sleep on car 10 mins
Activity - grandparents here
6:20 Feed until 7:30
7:30 Nap
7:45 feed 
8:20 Nap on mummy
8:40 - put down so I could eat and woke up
8:50 nap on daddy so mummy can get bath ready
9pm Bath
9:10 wind down and top up
9:15 asleep
9:25 awake - cried for about 5 mins and asleep

She is really hard to get down now - we had no problems before - we swaddle, have white noise and shhpatt. It takes 10-15 mins now (used to be 5 after weeks of work). I think it may be developmental - she is so much more aware of the world this week.
She also seems to be waking herself up as she wants to move position as she is uncomfortbale - so I do wonder about the swaddle (we use miracle blanket). She also has a blocked up nose.
In the past she has resettled herself - but she seems to wake herself up grunting and thrashing about - I am not sure if this is reflex or her trying to roll

[brenda2]

i would shorten up the A  times.  waking after 30ish min and needing resettling means OT.  shorten the A times by 10 min or so and see if this makes a difference.  the broken nap won't be as restful as a continuous one so she may need less A time afterwards.  also the 10 min naps in the evening are really not restful.  at this age she should be getting 3 long (1.5 hours) naps and 1 short (45 min) nap.  yesterday she got 2 long noncontinuous naps and 5 10 min naps.

i assume you are doing a 9 to 9 routine because of your own schedules?

[leycourt]

Yes 9 to 9 is the only way we can fit in with our toddler and Oh who gets home late from work.
I did shorten the A times and got long naps x1 for the past couple of days - good advice. She did cry a bit though in the middle. I don't know wther her reflux is playing up which makes her wriggle or whether she is growing out of swaddling - she can break out of miracle blanket - then she moves and more reflux.

[brenda2]

reflux does complicate matters.  at 3 mo swaddling is still the way to go.  can you buy the next size up swaddle me blanket?  we swaddled until 5 mo and it was great.  keeping her still and the matress elevated may help with the reflux.

keep shortening up the A times then and try for a better catnap in the evenings.

[leycourt]

Thanks - will keep swaddling - might try the aussie one , or having one hand poking out - which I think is what she likes?

[leycourt]

I am still struggling with naps. Lo woke up after 50 mins today . I resettled and now she has hit 1.5hrs. I do struggle to get her to do the full nap on her own - sometimes she resettles herself. If OT I have to rsettle.
What I find so tough is that there is such a fine line to tread to not get her ot - today Ist A time was 1hr 10 and she went down fine. Clearly I should have put her down at 1hr but there weren't many signs and I had to change DS;s poopy nappy before it went everywhere.
I am sure she needs to go to bed earlier at night - I shaved 15 mins off yesterday - but then she had more milk at her feed and ending up going to sleep about 5 mins earlier

[brenda2]

good you can resettle her tough. 

is she going to sleep independently?  any props?

[leycourt]

Propwise - she has a paci - that started in Intensive Care and now she has reflux I haven't the heart to wean. She has a white noise machine and I swaddle and put down with eyes open.

[brenda2]

the paci might be why she can't transition herself into the next sleep cycle...waking at 45 min and needing resettling is either OT or Ut or prop dependency and since you can resettle and get her back down which you wouldn't  be able to do if UT ...it may be the paci.

you could try the gentle removal plan - take it out once she falls asleep if she doens't spit it out herself and try resttling without it.