Early evening night wakings between bedtime-dreamfeed

[*Jo*]

holding through the jolts

You place one hand on your baby’s legs, other on their chest and attempt to assist them through the jolts.  You would do this a few mins before the jolts that wake them occur.  You apply pressure until they stop jolting, plus about 5 mins. If they haven’t moved more, you can stand  back and see what happens.  If they fully wake you will have to employ your typical method of sleep to send them back to sleep.  Some babies you have to also shield their eyes with your hand to stop them from looking around.  If you use a paci you can re insert the paci when and if your baby looks for it.  This would be when they are searching for it with their mouth.

This is usually used for naps when waking from OT at the 30-45min mark but i think you may be able to use it if its early in teh evening. when they get OT they jolt hard between sleep cycles and this can wake them.

[namikers]

We do HTTH and sometimes it works if her jolts aren't too intense.  Last night at her bedtime I let her fall asleep in my arms (during nightfeeds we have to for 20 min. because she has mild reflux) and held her hoping that it would help her pass the 45 min. mark.  But she woke up at 45 min. and didn't go back down for another 45 min. (to only wake up again and again).  When she wakes up it's with a jolt and cries really hard as if someone's pinching her.  This morning I noticed that she has dark circles under her eyes !  Although it's overcast today, I'm going to take her on a short walk outside after her afternoon nap, I read somewhere that fresh air helps babies to sleep?  I feel at such a loss here - we can't seem to break this cycle.

[*Jo*]

forgive me if you have already answered this but do you swaddle her? if shes jolting that hard a good tight swaddle will really help

[namikers]

we do swaddle her with a receiving blanket.  we also have a velcro swaddle that we stopped using, but i think tonite i'll swaddle her with that since i can always get a tighter swaddle with it and see if that doesn't do anything.

[namikers]

she usually sleeps so well during the day that we have to wake her up or she'll go beyond 2 hrs. Does it sound like she might have gotten her days and nights mixed up? 

[namikers]

Great news - lo slept for 1.5 hrs. last nite after putting her down before she woke up !  I don't know exactly what helped make that happen but I used the velcro swaddle and tried w2s.  She's also switched to a 3.5-4 hr easy about a week ago so maybe all those factors played a role?  Tonite I'll w2s again and keep my fingers crossed that she'll sleep pass 45 min. again!  but today's naps are off - lol if it's not one thing it's another with the sleep issues

I have a question - if lo naps for 30 min. and wakes up and is resettled then sleeps for another 1 hr.  is that nap considered a good 1.5 hr nap and so she gets regular A time or is that considered a short nap so her A time should be shortened as well?

many thanks!

[*Jo*]

if lo naps for 30 min. and wakes up and is resettled then sleeps for another 1 hr.  is that nap considered a good 1.5 hr nap and so she gets regular A time

yes and yes

well done on the 1.5 hour sleep before she woke up! i know she still woke so thats not so great but at least it wasnt at 45mins, if you do change things you need to give it about three days to see good results so keep up the good work

[namikers]

Looks like I celebrated too soon.  Last night was completely disastrous.  She barely slept from bedtime (8pm) to 1:30.  Desperate to get her to sleep I tried nursing her to sleep.  She spent an hour on my left breast (I fell asleep) but lo didnt fall asleep so I spent another hour feeding her on my right breast (I fell asleep again).  She finally fell asleep - this was around 3 am - to wake up again at 4:30 and then at 6:50 for the day.  DH usually spends the first morning A time with her and puts her to sleep.  Miscommunication and sleep deprivation on our part resulted in lo having 2 hrs of A time!  Well her whole day was terrible.  She was way OT and didn't have a real nap till 4 pm! She finally crashed for a little over 2 hours.  Today was full of APOP - nursing to sleep, singing, rocking, using the Bjorn.  It's now 10:20 pm and it's another night of struggling to put her down.

In the past 1-2 weeks we put her on the 3.5 EASY.  The suggested 3.5 EASY on this forum seems incorrect with the A time.  My question is at this point should her A time be around 1.4? Maybe if I tweak the times in her new routine it'll do something but at this point I'm really letting her lead the day with her naps - she is losing out on so much sleep!

[*Jo*]

awww sorry it went all pearshaped!

at the moment dont focus too much on A timing, while she is OT you need to bring it all back a bit to let her catch up and get back on track

for her daytime naps to help her out can you take her for a walk in her pram or in the car to help get some extra sleep into her at all?

[namikers]

she's not a fan of carseats and she'll only sleep in a carrier for the first sleep cycle.  but the other day when she didn't nap till 4pm(!), i did take her out in the carrier although she woke when we got back in she resettled in the crib for an extended nap - yea.  today was much better - solid 2 hr. morning nap, broken up 2 hr. afternoon nap and broken up 1.5 hr late afternoon nap.  lo of course woke up at the 45 min. mark after being putting down for the night, so dh is in with her now trying to resettle her (i bf her but she doesn't fall asleep the way she used to!).