which one should i do first

[anitad67]

my 7 1/2 month old girl keeps waking up at night and only has short naps during the day (at most 1 hour each time).  the constant night waking is really killing me and i already got 4 colds for the last 2 month although i used to be an unbeatable person.

so my problems are:
1.  change her schedule so hopefully she will nap longer

2.  get her to fall to sleep on her own somehow.  this i got some limited success.  during day time naps, i lay down with her in our big bed, read a book to her and blow some bubble.  she will most of the time fall to sleep on her own.  but this never happened at night when i try to get her sleep in her crib.  the problem is, when she is not overtired, she just rolls around all over the place and get herself all excited.  so the best i got for evening sleep is to rock her to a magic point and put her down to drift off.  this works most of the time but can fail terribly too.

3.  in my too tired periods, i took her to our bed in second half of the night when she kept waking up (just really too tired to rock her and put down etc).  last 2 days i got to the point that when she woke up during the night, i just pat her back to sleep without getting up to rock her (didn't really mean to but just too tired to get up).  but suppose this is not a good habit either since i basically can't sleep soundly with her in our bed.

so,...  what should i do now?  do whatever to get her sleep through the night, nap properly, or get her to go to sleep properly?  i half thing schedule is important but afraid that it will make bad habits that hard to break...

any suggestions will be highly appreciated!!!!

[claires mum]

Can you give me an idea of what her current schedule looks like?

[anitad67]

she normally gets up around 7 am if i can manage to get her sleep through her dad's get up time.  then she gets tired pretty soon.  like today she got up at 6:30 am.  by 8 am she is already rubbing her eyes and crawling back for me so i had to get her to her crib (instead of trying to get her up longer as i am trying to extend her A time).  she fall to sleep by 8"30.  thanks to 3 days PU/PD she now mostly falls to sleep on her own in her crib while i stand next to her singing a song etc.

then she woke up around 9am.  failed to put her back to nap.  played till 11:15 and tired again.  got her napping from 11 to 12 and got up for lunch.  played till 2:30 pm and went for nap.  woke up 3 times although i managed to get her back to sleep till 4:15 which i considered a big thing since she rarely sleeps longer than 1 hour now.

her normal bed time is 7~7:30.  she often wakes up like exactly half an hour after she falls asleep.  then before midnight it is kinda random.  bad days she wakes up every hour.  sometimes in real good days she sleeps till around midnight.  from there she wakes up like every hour....

not sure i am clear.  i am just so frustrated and tired out.

[claires mum]

Poor you.  She's clearly OT and this is why she's waking within 30 mins of being put down for the night.  The trick here is to get a good routine bedded down...then she'll take longer day naps...then the NWs will start to disappear.  It will take at least 10 days of commitment from you to get a more predictable routine in place.  This is what the ideal day would look like:

wake 7.00, milk at 7.00, solids 30 mins later
A 2.75 hours 7.00-9.45
S 1.5 hours   9.45-11.15 ( you will have to try nap extension techniques for a while to get this nap nice and long)

E 11.15 milk, lunch 1 hour later
A 3 hours (if a long nap was achieved, otherwise, 2.75 hours)  11.15-2.15
S 1.5 hours 2.15-3.45

E 3.45 milk, dinner 5.45
A 3 hours 3.45-6.45
S milk and asleep by 6.45/7.00

We are aiming to limit her days to 12 hours from wake up and get 3 hours of sleep per day.  You would start this routine from the time she wakes..so if she wakes at 6.00am, then adjust the whole routine by 1 hour.  I know she's really tired due to NWs, but it's going to be important to stretch out that first A time to 2.75 hours.  Keep it very low key.  When she does fall asleep for that first nap, stay in the room and observe her.  If she wakes, apply pressure at the jolts or shh/pat to lull her back to sleep.  If you can get this nap right, the rest of the day will be much easier and you'll be half way there to getting this routine to work. 

What do you think?

[anitad67]

thanks for the suggestion!

i almost thought i jinx myself here by saying she could get herself to sleep now.  tonight is tougher than even before the training although my husband said her screaming is less loud.

got another question, before she could get to the routine, do you think it is true that i should try whatever technique to get her to nap longer?  i read in the 'no cry sleep solution' but before i tried the pu/pd i tried that and it didn't work very well.  but this afternoon, after she woke up twice from her nap, i finally rock her to sleepy before i put her down instead of sticking to pu/pd.

another problem i got is, my milk is going down and she still refuses bottle.  we started solid when she is five month after permission from her doctor so i think she is ok food-wise.  but i can't be sure whether she is hungry during the NWs but it is hard to feed her solid during the night (i imagine she will be wild awake after that!).  but if i feed her breast, since my milk is low, she basically just won't let go...

[anitad67]

i don't get it...  this afternoon is the first time i got her to sleep longer and yet tonight is the hardest so far.  she even broke her hourly wake up record.  i know there are teeth coming out so could it be teething pain? 

[claires mum]

It could be teething...or hunger.  My LO would not drink formula milk..she just threw it up.  My clinician recommended goats milk (they can't handle cow's milk..but goat's milk is much more digestible).  And that worked for us.  I tried it during the day so I could see any adverse reactions.  When I felt confident she could handle it, I gave it to her before bed and it kept her going till morning.

Stick with the routine and if you HAVE to do some APing, then I would do it.  You can then tackle the prop when she's not so OT.

[anitad67]

failed to extend her nap time    got her awake for 2.75 hour in the morning and she only slept 30 mins.  then she was all happy to go out.  rock even BF failed to get her back to sleep.  she struggled in my arm and just looked around and wanted to play.  didn't let her out but till noon there wasn't any sign of her going back to sleep.  slept for about half an hour again from noon to 12:35 then we went to a play group came back at 2:30. fell to sleep on her own and woke up in 30 mins again.  pat her back to sleep but only for 15 mins.  why she doesn't like sleep?  i am desperate to have a sleep more than an hour 

[claires mum]

Honey...some babies just don't sleep and you just have to go with the flow for a while until they get a little older.  Eventually it settles down.  In the meantime it's really important NOT to get stressed/obsessed with sleep patterns.  She picks up on it and it's not good for either of you. 

If she is a short napper and you've had enough, then take a break for a while and just follow her cues.  If she only sleeps for 30 mins at a time, then try to get more 30min naps in the day.  Don't feel like a failure...OK?

[anitad67]

yea, i am all stressed out right now.  thought we got along well as for her sleeping on her own in crib but she still wakes up constantly at night.  i know she is tired as the more tired she is, the shorter time span she wakes up.  in the mom's group i am in, other moms are complaining about their babies waking up every 3 hours and i would really be VERY happy now if my girl ONLY wakes up every 3 hours at night.  now it is every hour almost and how i want to have a sleep longer than 1 hour!!

i am wondering whether she is hungry or i am not feeding her enough proper food.  she still refuses bottles and my milk is running down.  we started soy yogurt as she seems to have some allergy to milk. 

[claires mum]

If you think she's allergic then I would recommend seeing a clinician.  The sooner you can diagnose that the better...at least that will be one problem identified and there are plenty of solutions. 

In the meantime, follow her tired cues and put her down as soon as you see them.  The trick is to get as much daytime sleep into her as she needs.

When you are feeling up to it, it might be time to start PU/PD or gradual removal technique.  She has a habit that needs to be broken and it's going to be hard work...but it will be worth it.  I can walk you through these when YOU decide it's time.  OK?

[anitad67]

i am trying to do PU/PD these days and it did make things better but not good enough.  before i did PU/PD, i needed to rock her to sleep and put her down quietly after she was deeply asleep.  now i can put her down and she plays with her doll/bedtime blanket and goes to sleep on her own, although i still need to be in the room.  today i am just starting to back off a bit, not singling once she is calm and lay down on our bed instead of standing right next to her crib (our bed is pretty nearby though).  it took a lot longer for her to get to sleep but she did it eventually.  hope i am doing this right? 

i definitely need to do something otherwise i am going to collapse.  so would really appreciate your suggestions.  thanks a lot!!!!

[claires mum]

I think you're doing great and I know you think you will collapse, but you won't.  You'll find that you can just keep going...we all do.  You're doing a combination of PU/PD and gradual withdrawal and that seems to be working so keep it up.  Just gradually move towards the door as you are doing.  You can role play your sleep routine with a teddy bear during the day so she understands what to expect...just a thought.

Are you following tired cues at the moment and if so, are you getting more 30 min naps into the day?  How did today go??

[anitad67]

today naps were a bit better.  morning she woke up after 30 mins and i pat her back to sleep, but only for 15 mins.  afternoon she slept for 30 mins at first then i rocked her back to sleep for another 45 mins.  i am still not good at timing the wake to sleep thing.  partly because i kinda dozed off too after a bit.

got a question for the withdrawal.  at what point should i leave her alone?  i think i did a bit too early today and she just played with her blankie for about an hour!  i finally got impatient and stood back up and hold her down.  then she drifted of within like 5 mins.  should i have just let her play whenever she is ready to sleep?  or i should have withdrawed a bit later while she is already starting to doze off?

thanks a lot for the encouragement!  i really need them!

[claires mum]

It's a pleasure to give you encouragement, you're doing all the hard work...and it is hard!

Hmm...not sure what advice to offer re withdrawal.  She needs to know that it's time to sleep rather than play.  If it were me, I would encourage her to sleep (so a bit more intervention perhaps) until she was drowsy...and then start to pull back bit by bit.  As she's OT, we really want her to sleep a lot more during the day.  So ideally, we're aiming for at least 4/5 naps of 30 mins not just 2.  You will need to play around a little with her A times to find out what's going to work for you...remember not to let them go over 3 hours at anytime.  What are her nights like..is she waking at all?  Can you give me an average day in EAS format again?