HELP! Bedtime woes, bad napping during day . . .

[stacythetrainer]

I'm new to this forum and new to mommyhood.  My daughter is 6 weeks old (DOB 11/28/09).  We are so frustrated because she will almost religously go to sleep at 12:30AM, sleep until 3am, eat and then sleep until 10am.  Then during the day she is a horrible napper.  She will have a decent nap from noon to 1:30 or 2 and then be awake for 3 hours, sometimes longer.  I CANNOT figure out how to get her to sleep (at any time of day or night) if she is wide awake.  If she is awake she is awake and nothing seems to work, she just goes to sleep when she does.  This throws her whole day/night off and it's beginning to wear on me too.

I also don't want her wake up time to be 10am, that's too late for me.  I'd like bedtime to be 8pm as well as wake time to be 8am. Also, if we bathe her she's wide awake, I mean for HOURS!  It's not relaxing to her, it wakes her up!!

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Stacy, mom to Sophie
Arlington, Texas

[meltown]

Welcome to the boards!!

could you post what your day looks like including times you feed and how long your LO is awake before naps and such.

[charmie]

Do you have the book BWSAYP?  You really need to read the book to understand the philosophy of BW.

In the meantime have a look at these links;

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63243.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63534.0


xxx
charm

[stacythetrainer]

> Schedule:
>
> 6:30am - feed
> 6:45-7am - back to sleep (usually she's not awake during the 6:30 feed)
> 9:30am - wake time & feed
> 10-10:15am - try to get her down for nap, hasn't worked much at all--nothing works to get her to sleep
so far
> for about 2 weeks
> 12:30pm - feed
> 1-1:15 - try to get her down again, again doesn't usually happen but
this
> past week she had been falling asleep for this naptime right after the
> 12:30pm feed
> 3:30pm - feed
> 4-4:15pm - same nap thing, sometimes she'll fall asleep for this one and
> make it her good 2 hour naptime
> 6:30pm - feed
> 7pm- bedtime (as of 48 hours ago)
> 9:30pm - dreamfeed
> 12:30am - dreamfeed
>
> Her schedule is off usually day by day by about 30 minutes.  Some
days it is
> the above times and others it is 6am, 9am, 12pm, etc. . . .

>
> Stacy, mom to Sophie (11/28/08)
> STTN 6 weeks
> following BW+BWhisperer
> ---------

[charmie]

Hello Stacy 

If you want her day to be 8-8, you need to start waking her up at 8 everyday to start with. 

W&E 8
A at this age a time is around 1hr including feed so you start wind-down at around 8.45 hoping to have her asleep by 9
S 9-11

E 11
A
S 12-2

E 2
A
S 3-5

E 5
A
S 6-6.45 (45min catnap) no eating at wake up.

A eg;bath, massage, cuddle etc.
E 7.45
S 8

df between 10 and 11



You can also do cluster feeding until 8 weeks, but I am guessing she is almost 8 weeks now, so maybe don't bother starting them.

You can treat the 6am wake up as a NW, feed and back to bed, and wake her up again at 8.  Feed again at 8 to signal the start of the day and get back on track with the 3hrly feeds.  You always wake up your baby in time for feeds too.

The above timings are only approximates as all babies are so different.  The best thing would be to observe your baby and learn what she looks like when she's tired; yawning, rubbing face, gets fussy, turns towards you etc... Then do the 4s wind down routine and into bed.


The bath used to wind up my lo too.  But if you do it as an activity and not to close to bedtime, it will wear her out and then wind-down will help her relax before bed.

HTH


xxx
charm

[stacythetrainer]

Thanks so much charmie!  Now my question is that I don't know where I missed it but can you tell me where in the book it talks about the evening catnaps and then the bedtime routine.  You mentioned in the sample schedule you have above that about 6:45 I should wake her and she should have her bedtime routine start then.  I don't remember that in teh book and want to find it so I can read it again!  :-)  Thanks so much!

[charmie]

It's on the EASY chapter.  On the book the catnap starts at 5-5.545, and then bath, E at 7 and bed by 7.30 latest.  In your case everything gets pushed back by 1hr.


xxx
charm

[stacythetrainer]

Thanks again!  I read it over a course of time and I need to go back and re-read the book!  I think I may also benefit from "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems" . . . have you read that one?

[charmie]

That's the one I have BWSAYP.  Sometimes it's good to re-read and refresh your memory.

How is it going?


xxx
charm