sudden dramatic changes 16 wks

[faerywings]

hi
i am not sure if this is the right place to post this problem or if it should be on EASY board?

my lo has changed all of a sudden of past 3 or 4 days or so she is only wanting to eat nearer every 3.5 hrs sometimes getting onto 4 hrs which is meaning i have had to reintroduce the dreamfeed i dropped back in november so she gets enough milk!  other wise potentially her last feed would have been 5pm tonight, now we are doing a df at 8.30!

she settles fine for her morning naps like an angel, i literally carry her upstairs and she goes to sleep byherself within 2 or 3 mins (still with dummy!), but doesn't seem to want to sleep at all in the afternoon. the past 3 or 4  days we have had to walk her in the pram as she screamed like mad, PROPER CRAZY SCREAMING in her cot and didn't sleep in her pram either!  i even tried the hair drier as i thought i had missed the window and she had got OT but she went wild! it is such a sudden change i can't get my head around what has happened, i could more or less time her down to the minute for feeds and sleep just a week ago when she was on 3 hr easy now i just don't know what is happening. she is also sicking up more milk but still only on 5 or 6 oz.  what do you think ? 
any thoughts ? she has also started trying to sit up a bit (kind of raises her head and neck off floor) and reaching for more things, do you think it is a milestone and devleopmental stage ?
what should i do ?
i thought it was all too good to be true the past few weeks she has been an angel  / textbook baby and now she is getting back to the spirited lo i used to know in the early days!

for the past month up until this change we were on 3 hr easy starting 6am finishing 6pm good 1.5 hr naps morning and 2 hr nap afteroon, followed by 45  min catnap.

past few days it has gone like this:

e 6
a
s 7.30

e 9.30
a
s 10.45

e 1
a
s 2.30 signs of tiredness then screaming pretty much on and off til next feed

e 4.30
a
s resisting nap again

a 6pm bath (happy baby!)
s 6.30 (straight to sleep no problem)

e dream feed 8pm

any advice or thoughts welcome thanks!
x

[Mashi]

BW advises that at around 4 months LOs transition to a 4 hour EASY - so feeds every 4 hours, with 2h awake time and 2h naps. It is usually done gradually in increments of about 15 minutes at a time so that LO can transition easily and get used to it, rather than getting OT and overly hungry.  It does sound like your LO is ready to make the transition.

Some great information here:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63161.0

HTH!

[faerywings]

i am trying to extend it a bit each day - she was awake every hour last night! she slept through from about 3 weeks so i am tired now!  going to concentrate sorting this out this week....thanks

[faerywings]

aghhhhhhhhhhh
it has got so much worse i am at my wits end and we are both so tired! she woke every 30 - 40 mins last night!
so far our day has gone like this:-
e 6.30
a 1hr
s7.30 (went straight to sleep like an angel!)

a 9.30 (i would have fed her but aiming to extend E to 3.5 hrs and she seemed happy)
e 10
a 1hr
s 11 (30 mins would not resettle at all)

a 11.45
s 12.45 (showed signs of tiredness rubbing eyes. yawns etc but REALLy resisted going to bed)

E 1.30
A

......   what should my action plan be for tomorrow?

i have read pg 209 from BW solves all your problems should i start from day 1 or what do you reccommend? she is happy going 3 1/4 hrs to 3.5 hrs between feeds now?

i need to sort this as she was like a proper textbook baby before!

thanks

[Mashi]

I suspect her 2nd A time from 930 - 1030 was too short, it was only 1 hour and you are aiming for at least 1.5 hours, probably perhaps getting close to 1hr45 minutes at her age.  The first A time in the morning is sometimes shorter for some babies, so I would not always judge all of her A times through the day on how long that one was, kwim?  I then think the rest of the day followed on from that 30 minute nap - I was never great at "recovering" at that age myself, I think though that after a 30 minute nap I'd then aim for 1hour of awake time.

Also, about her temperment, just because she is not sleeping at "textbook" times does not mean her temperment is not what it was before. Temperment is really more of a "who she is" not so much a "what she does" - my spirited toddler sleeps like an angel or textbook baby, doesn't mean he's not a spirited child though!  She may very well be a textbook baby - but that does not mean that she will fall asleep as soon as she is put in her cot, or sleep as long as we think she is supposed to.  She seems to be in a time of transition and change, milestones can affect how babies act, and so on. Does that make sense?

[faerywings]

i know the problem was her short nap but i couldn't resettle her at all, i knew what would happen. the main thing is i want to know what to do from tomorrow as we can not have her suddenly waking up through the night and then taking too short naps in the day. i don't want to get to the point where i am too tired to try and resolve it all rather nip it in the bud early if i can !
this is where i am up to now-  E1pm A 2 hrs S 3pm ...

i only just came across the section in the book about tranisition from 3-4 mth on pg209 i wish i had read it when she was on a definite 3hr easy,

what day should i follow from tomorrow, days 4/7 or days 8/11 ?

i know they are only guidelines but i just feel like we have lost control over everything in the past week

by the way i understand about temprement and - she is definately a spirited baby with textbook elements regardless of everything! everyone that sees her who don't even know about BW say that!!!!

thanks for replying, i think it is all a developmental stage but i am just finding it hard after so many weeks of being able to predict to with in 5 mins or so when she would EAS. i was spoilt for a bit! she is still gorgeous though :-)

[Mashi]

I don't have a copy of TBWSAYP any more and so I do not know anything about page numbers.  I don't think that you should jump too far into the move to 4 hour easy, she is only 3.5 months (correct?) and I think that she may be ready to increase her A times by a few minutes (5-10) at her A times, and go longer than 3 hours between her feeds, but I would not make the jump right to a 4hr easy at this stage.  Some parents find a 3.5 hour easy works well at this age but you have to get her A times up as well as feed times to have a 4hr easy be successful.

You might find that there is some help on the EASY forum with transitioning and the age / stage that you are at?

[faerywings]

she was awake every 20 mins or so again and i am soooooooooooooo exhausted it wasn't even teething last night i just hope it is not a habit now as it has been going on a week.   she does settle for a bit with the dummy but then wakes again. i still think the dummy is part of this problem but she loves it so much i am still in two minds wether to go cold turkey on it or leave it a bit as she has her injections on friday and the HV said she can see 2 teeth coming so teething may be a part of it some of the time, and we are staying away next week so don't want her even more unsettled then. but i guess there will always be somekind of reason not to do it ?

dh fed her this morning so i could have a lie on as he is off work with the snow but i think i have forgotten how to sleep myself now as well and am back on here as i don't know what else to do .


oh, i am at such a loss as to what to do she is waking up every few mins from 1st nap too

woke up 6.15

e 6.30
a 6.45 - 7.45 (1.5hr)
s 8 settled herself straight away then waking every few mins :-(

[Maxmiliansmom]

Hey there, first of all HUGS! I know how frustrating it is. Its like once you re used to a routine and things are going smoothly everything changes! I just went through with the same thing with my LO, as his cues changed and i no longer could pick on that to know when he was ready to sleep. And once i worked that out i realized that the paci was disturbing his sleep... we went cold turkey and its been one paci-free week. Which hasnt been to bad but past couple of days have been hard on me...

To me it sounds like at this point she is OT. I ve ready many suggest that when the LO has been OT for days that you do whatever it takes to get them to sleep, starting with the first nap. Take a step back from the usual routine just to make sure the LO gets enough rest before you go fixing whatever the problem is...

Also for me and my LO during the period that you are going through i figured the problem was that i was putting him down to soon. They also wake up soon after sleep if they werent tired enough before going to sleep. So once you put her down if she isnt selfsoothing straight away, keep her up for another 5min and try again and repeat this 2-3 times till you figure out the A times correct and they all are different lengths in between the naps, the first and the last A time usually being a bit shorter. This helped a lot in our case. Also the wind down time is important right before all the naps (something i still need to remember and work on every time) ...

I dont know if any of this will help.
Whatever is going during the night can be sorted out during the day first, thats why i didnt mention much about the night.... however i hope things are going better already and wish you a good night.

[ruthallen]

Hi there, I can't actually help as I ahve just written my first post and then saw yours and realise that we ahve the same issues. I then saw the your liitle one's birthdate and realised that it is the same as mine. Makes me think that it an age thing then!!! I'll be keen to hear if anything woks for you and I'll let you know vice versa,
Cheers,

[faerywings]

hi, and thanks to all of you. ruthallen, yes i think it is an age thing. we followed the transition day 4 yesterday in bw solves problem bk and she was much better last night extending a by about 15 mins through out the day and eating every 3 1/4 hrs. in fact even though she was waking last night she actually slept intil 7.30 (we also never realised the time!) she has never slept so late and so hopefully caught up on her OT cycle and we can start again today. hope you have a better day too, we have injections later on so i am sure that will throw everything out again!

[ruthallen]

I'm moving towards the 4 hr easy routine too after been on 3 hr. I've realsied that the 3hr gives my LO an extra nap to the 4hr and am thinking that maybe this is the issue??? I can't imagine mine been able to nap for the 2 hr and he is really tetchy after been awake for 2hr too but to not have to go through horror nights it might be worth it. I love the mornings when my beautiful boy is all smiley again after crying and struggling to sleep all night with devil baby.
Good luck and I'll keep reading this post as well as mine (I posted before I read yours but after you wrote yours so maybe some stuff in mine that might help too)
My 3 hour crying settles at night with NW after that are bad enough for me but I hate that they are diffiuclt for my boy too.
Take care,

[faerywings]

i think we are back on track again now, how are you doing ?
she has had 2 long 2 hr naps this morning uninterrupted (i know says should only be about 1.5 hr but i reckon she has sleep to catch up on!). the only thing i am trying to tweak now is extending her A time as she can still only manage to stay awake about 1 hr or 1hr 15 at most at 16 weeks, but is happy eating about every 3.5 hrs now.   how are you trying to extend you A times? actual playing on her play mat is too much after an hr so i walked her around the house for an extra 10 mins today and that worked ok, but considering we should be aiming for 2 hrs A we are a long way off!

[ruthallen]

2 2 hour naps is fantastic. I think thats what you wnat!!!
I extend A times by doing anything. as you have done, walking round the house and pointing at things is good too. At the start of A time I let billy play by himself for 15-20 minutes with me just near by. This way I can wash bottles and tidy up. Then I take rocker into bathroom and have shower and get dressed, with a whole lot of peek a boo whilst doing it. The first hour is always qute easy and now even the firts 1.5 hours, its after that that my boy gets a bit tougher to occupy. I have a great DVD of sing along nursery rhymes where they have actions and songs to do for babies that my son loves, as long as I start before he is unhappy. If I'm really pushing to extend A times I will do anything to occupy him, I become a full on one man show!Then, becasue I ahve been carrying on so much I figure he needs a decent wind down time cos I have been so stimulating. Songs and music are great.
I managed a 2 hour A time this am so I am hoping I get a 2 hour nap in,
take care,
x