help please!

[mjjm]

I’ve been having trouble with my 10 wks old sleep pattern.  Been on 3hr routine for over a month.  She’s somewhat betw touchy and spirited.  When she’s awake, she’s very alert, happy, and playful.  She doesn’t usually cry unless she’s bored, tired, hungry or doesn’t want to sleep.  I need help tweaking things out and hope that you ladies can help!!!  Here’s our routine today.

Last night fed @ 3:30 then woke @ 7:20 (was making noises for ~10-15’ before I went in; thought she was only making sleeping noise)

E 7:20-8, not very hungry, had to force her to eat, end up crying
A low key, stay in room, dark, walk and paced til she yawned
S 8:15-8:50 (incl 20’shh pat), stirred, eyes wide open, picked her up and calmed her, back to sleep from 9:05-9:40, stirred again, tried extending sleep, a few yawns but wouldn’t close eyes, tried putting her in carrier to sleep but didn’t sleep

E 10:15, not too hungry either, forced her to eat
A change diaper
S 11:00-~12:10 in carrier, slept on and off
A  12:10-12:50

E  12:50, hungry
A  diaper change
S  1:10-1:35 in crib with shh pat, stirred and tried extending with shh pat for 30-40’ and didn’t sleep, picked her up and fell asleep on me til 3:45pm

E  4-4:15, hungry
A  til 4:45
S  4:45-5:30, in crib with shh pat, never went into deep sleep, stayed with her the whole time
A  til6:30, play, bath
E 6:45 (bedtime feed)
S  7:30 X25’ went in and shh pat til 9:10, stirred again @ 9:30, fed her and went back to sleep

This is pretty typical, she usu wakes betw 7-8ish.  I let her wake up herself and never wake her up (but should I?).  Her naps have been short since ~3-4wks, I can get her fall asleep with shh pat most of the time but she can’t stay asleep.  I’ve tried diff things to extend her nap (went in before she stir with firm pressure, shh pat her after she stirred) but I rarely have success with extending her naps and if I thought that I managed to get her back to deep sleep, she would wake within 10-15’ again.  There has been a couple days when she took good naps but I’m not sure what happened and how to recreate that.  Bedtime’s been a battle as well, I used to be able to just put her down and she goes to sleep a few wks ago but now it could take up to 2 hrs before she’s finally sleeping.

I’m tired and exhausted and not sure what to do from here.  All I do daily is to ‘sleep’ her and there’s certainly not much ‘Y’ time.  I also have another toddler and fortunately have help for now during the day so I can concentrate on sleep training which’s not going very well.

Do any of you have any suggestions?  Can you see anything wrong with my routine?  She’s swaddled, has sleep rituals, and white noise.  I’ve tried cutting out stimulation during the day and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

BTW, she yawns lots, usu right after waking up fro sleep.  does that mean she's tired again?  She usu wakes betw 1-2X @ night for feeds.

thanks for your help!
May

[*Jo*]

Hi there, at 10 weeks old you are usually looking at 1 hour 15mins A time so perhaps try and gently extend that by 5-10mins more for a couple of days and then another 5-10 mins more after that until she gets there.

I would recommend waking up at a set time each morning, we used to wake up at 7.30am, and beleive me its hard, you just want to continue sleeping but it really is best for them to have a set wake up

i would say shes undertired for her first nap and so only takes a short nap as she isnt tired enough to continue sleeping. this then puts everything else out for the rest of the day and you end up with an OT baby who fights sleep at bedtime.

can i suggest not forcing her to eat, we did this with Caleb and he ended up with a food aversion where by three months old he flatly refused to eat anything at all and we could only get 100mls into him in a day, it was due to reflux. is there a possiblity of reflux or any other medical condition for your LO?

BTW, she yawns lots, usu right after waking up fro sleep.  does that mean she's tired again?

not necessarily, sometimes babies just yawn for no reason

let me know how you get on with extending her A time

[mjjm]

thanks for your reply and suggestions.  I never thought she would be UT as I thought young infants should only be up for 45 m max and my lo starts yawning ~30-45'.  I'll definitely try extending her A time and see what happens. 
As for reflux, I do think that she has reflux and has taken her to GP and was prescribed zantec & oval.  I've been using oval with feeds but haven't try zantec yet as I'd prefer not giving her any meds if possible but perhaps that's what she needs...

another question about dream feed...if she ends up waking up and then falling back asleep during the feed, is that ok?  ie the fact that she's falling asleep during feed??

thanks again and I'll let you know how things go.
May

[*Jo*]

Hi May, with the dreamfeed its fine if they wake up and fall back asleep, as they get older it gets harder and harder to do the DF with them not waking up as they get heavier and its not as easy to transfer them from cot to arms and back again etc.

check out this link regarding A times http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.0

[mjjm]

Hi Jo,
tried extending her A time to an hour today but still only slept for ~40'.  maybe it'll take a few days before I'll see any improvement?!  It seems to me that she's able to fall asleep rather easily with min shh pat for most of her naps and night sleep but is just that she's unable to stay asleep.  Even when I carrier her to sleep, she seems to stir and squirm quite a bit during the transition.  Could that be due to reflux?  Also she seems to be uninterested in eating in the morning.  This morning she fed @ 3:30am and then woke @ 7:30am but didn't want to eat much.  Is that also because of reflux?  She eats much better in the afternoon and evenings.  I just don't understand if it's reflux why there would be diff during the day/night.

Also a few more questions...
1.  if I decide to choose 7:30am as wake up time, what should I do if she wakes up earlier than that?
2.  she's starting to bring her hand to her mouth to suck and she's starting to fuss when I swaddle her, I'm thinking maybe she doesn't want to be swaddle and she could suck her hand for self soothing.  what do you think?
3.  when did you Caleb's reflux get better?
4.  it could sometimes take more than an hour to extend her naps and she would still be in light sleep only.  I'm getting discouraged...should I con't to extend her naps with shh pat or give in and let her finish sleeping on me?  and when should I expect to see improvement?  it just seems like she's getting 'addicted' to shh pat and needs it to stay asleep?!

[*Jo*]

I think it will be a little while before you see any improvement because shes just not sleepy enough to sleep longer yet, once you hit the magic A time then you will hopefully get some good naps in there

1.  if I decide to choose 7:30am as wake up time, what should I do if she wakes up earlier than that?

you shh/pat her back to sleep right up until wake up time (or very close to it) this will be considered a night waking

2.  she's starting to bring her hand to her mouth to suck and she's starting to fuss when I swaddle her, I'm thinking maybe she doesn't want to be swaddle and she could suck her hand for self soothing.  what do you think?

its possible, you can try leaving one hand out and see what happens. Caleb did this but leaving the hand out didnt work, I made a sleep sack that had the hands covered so he still felt like he was in a type of swaddle and was able to suck his hands still.

3.  when did you Caleb's reflux get better?

pretty soon after we started going to a chiropractor that did gently methods, around 4 months old. dont know if it was the chiro or the age but it did start getting better, he now never vomits.

4.  it could sometimes take more than an hour to extend her naps and she would still be in light sleep only.  I'm getting discouraged...should I con't to extend her naps with shh pat or give in and let her finish sleeping on me?  and when should I expect to see improvement?  it just seems like she's getting 'addicted' to shh pat and needs it to stay asleep?!

I want to encourage you to continue to pat/shh as much as you can, i literally spent days in a darkened room and i would just cry, however, now i have this amazing baby that sleeps brilliantly, i am the envy of most of my friends with babies, and its all due the work i put in in the early days at this age they are working on their night sleep, at 3 months old they start to work on their day sleep. Calebs naps became really good at 4 months old, we then had a relapse with reflux for a couple of weeks which meant the sleep went downhill again but came right again at 6 months old.
Tracy explains that shh/pat isnt a prop, take a look at this link http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64275.0

we found Calebs sleep was also fantastic at night and not so grand during the day at this age because of the reflux, not sure why its different but it just seems to be something that happens, be thankful for that though! it gets you through the hard days when you know they are going to sleep well at night

[mjjm]

Hi, thanks for your encouraging words.  I've been spending a few wks in the dark room extending her naps.  She's getting better at falling asleep but staying asleep is a different story...I'm praying that things will get better quick as I'm getting depressed and frustrated about it.

another question...she's now 11 wks and approaching 3 mos mark, how do I decrease her naps from 3 long one and a catnap to just 3 naps/day.  If she's staying @ 3hr EASY, does that mean she'll skip a nap in 1 of her cycle, maybe the last one?  Also, how do I transition her from 3 hr to 4 hr EASY, how do I know when she's ready for it? 

thanks!

[*Jo*]

 they dont usually drop the catnap until 6/7 months old, so you then do two naps and a catnap, as for the 4 hour EASY it doesnt usually happen until they reach four months old and can handle at least 2 hours of A time so its 2 hours awake, 2 hours asleep etc http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63161.0
take a look at some of these routines for an idea of what you are looking at: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=10385.0