I had to come out of my lurking status because I am at my wits end and I don't know what to do!!.
My DD is 8mths, 1 week old and we are all over the place, sleepwise! I've scoured the boards reading almost every post ever written trying to find a solution but I'm so sleep deprived, I don't even know where to start! I'll try to summarise the main issues. Please forgive the length of the post.
I only came across the EASY routine when she was 6 months old. For a while we were doing well on the 3 hr EASY. However, we travelled overseas two months ago, and since getting back home we seem to be stuck or regressing. Our current routine is so erratic that I am afraid and embarrassed to post it- but as an example, yesterday went like this...
Woke up at 5:49 am -
E - 5:55 am BF - she's not very interested in this first BF, but she gets hungry again an hour later, so she has a "real" BF at 7:00 am
A - 1h 54 min
S - 7:43 -9:22 am
E - 9:45 am Cereal and fruit, 11:00 am BF
A - 1h 43 min
S - 11:15 -12:15
E - 1:00 pm Fruit
A - 2 hrs
S - 2:15 - 3:00 pm
E - 3:00 pm BF
E - 4:20 Meat and Veg, 5:15 BF
A - 5:30 tried to put down but didn't fall asleep until 6 pm
E - 11:30 pm BF
NW - 1:44 am - 3:30 am with lots of crying until i finally give in and BF her at 3:00
This routine varies from day to day although the wake up time, bedtime and length of A times are usually the same.
My question is (thank you for reading this far),
what should I try and fix first?
EW: I always try and put her back to sleep from her EW, but have never succeeded, so we've been waking up between 5 and 6 for most of her life. I don't think she's ever started the day any later than 6:30 am. PU/PD only makes her upset. She isn't hungry when she wakes up because she's had a BF at 3, and she also isn't tired, but is perky and happy and ready to play.
Short A times: I know at her age she should be up for at least 3 hours at a time, but she can only do 2 hours. I think because of the NW she's exhausted by the time the first nap rolls around. In fact, we seem to be regressing and today she could only stay up 1hr 45min. If I keep her up longer than 2 hours she gets OT very fast and then will only sleep for 30 min. How do I slowly increase the A times, when she is so tired from being up during the night?
Short Naps: She has been doing 40 min - 1.5 hr naps for a while. Sometimes she'll do a two hour nap, like this afternoon. I tried the "stir" W2S which worked for one day, but never again. For the last 3 days, I've been holding her at the jolts at the 40min, and 1hr mark, and that's been working for all naps except the last pm one which is always 45 min. I know naps are related to A times, so maybe if I fix the short A times then this will fix itself?
NW: This started maybe 3 weeks ago, but would happen every other night. At first it seemed linked to me feeding her solids at lunchtime, but when I stopped that, it kept on, so I started again. It's been happening every night now for the last week. I then thought it was teething because she has no teeth yet so I'd give her some baby Panadol but she kept waking up. I tried Pat/Shush and PU/PD but it ended with lots of tears, until I was so tired I just fed her. I don't think she's hungry however because she's usually had a BF at 11. We've been going to bed earlier and earlier to try and combat it, but no luck. Her bedtime used to be 6:30 but for the last three weeks has been between 5 and 6 pm. Sometimes she cries immediately, other times I hear her just playing in the dark for an hour, and then she starts to cry. I also tried to DF from 6 months, but we got to the stage where she would wake up at 10:30 crying for food, which I thought was the point of having a DF, to avoid that wake-up, so I stopped it.
Props: I have slowly tried to wean her from our sleeping props which were me, rocking and BF. We co-slept until she was 6.5 months old, and I used to rock her to sleep for all her naps. I don't ever want to do CIO, so I've been changing our routine slowly. With many tears, on both sides, we're now at the point where I I lay her down awake but drowsy for her naps, and keep my hand on her, but with no rocking and she goes off to sleep in 2 min. She also sucks her thumb. I'm hoping to slowly get to the point where I can just lay her down and walk out of the room. For the bedtime sleep, I BF and put her down, sometimes drowsy, but usually almost asleep.
I'm so exhausted, and I can't seem to think straight. I feel like my whole life is spent either putting her to sleep, keeping her asleep, or dreading the moment she wakes up. I'm sorry the post is so long. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
