dd2 is 4.5 mos old and ebf. She has reflux and MSPI that is currently managed by meds and me being dairy/soy free. We started sleep training about a month ago as we had numerous props to wean (due to reflux). We're not all the way there, but we're down to just 4 min of rocking in the chair before putting her in the crib. And she can resettle herself sometimes at the 45 min mark, other times, I can resettle her in the crib. And this is the bub who was carried for all naps, bf to sleep at night. So we've made great progress.
The past week, we've started getting some good naps, but our nights are still bad. Bedtime can take up to 2 hrs to get her fed, settled, and asleep. She wakes 1-3x a night and some of those can take 2 hrs to get her back to sleep. And she wakes at 6:30 in the morning (it's almost always a 10.5 hr night, so I'm almost positive she's waking because of OT). Here's what our EASY is looking like lately:
E: 6/6:30 (upon waking)
A
S: 8/8:30 (goes down easily, and this is the nap she will resettle herself for)
A: 10 (sometimes 10:30/11 even I wake if it's been 2.5 hrs) its A first because she has meds, then waits 30 min to eat
E:10:30
A
S: 12ish (she does about 2 hrs of A time), wakes at 45 min, but I've been able to resettle her and get another hour out of her.
A: 2 (again, the 30 min wait for meds)
E: 2:30
A
S: 4:15/4:30 - catnap, wakes at 45 min, I don't re-settle
E: 5:00 - one side only if she seems hungry or earlier feeds have been bad - we've only been doing a 4 hr EASY for a week, so still getting used to it.
6/6:30 - start bedtime - and here is where everything falls apart. It can take anywhere from 45 min - 2 hrs to get her to bed. If she falls asleep bfing, we do gentle removal to get her off the nipple and into bed. If she doesn't fall asleep bfing, we rock/shh/pat to bed just like we do for naps (so we're weaning props at the same rate). I'd say about half the time she falls asleep bfing.
If she goes to bed easily (45 min or so), the pattern is 2 NWs, if she takes a long time to go to sleep, we'll get 1 NW. If 2 NWs, one is usually early (10-12ish) and early morning (4-5ish), and then up for the day at 6/6:30. If we get 1 NW, it's anywhere between 1 and 3. If we do early bedtime, we get 2 NWs, and one is usually LONG (2+ hrs).
For the NWs, if it's been 4+ hrs since the last feed, I bf her. Usually she'll bf to sleep, but sometimes she just won't settle and we get that 2+ hr NW.
Before we switched to a 4 hr EASY, and after she settled on the reflux meds, she would go from 7:30 pm - 5/6 am, then back to bed til 7/8. Her naps were awful, her feeds were erratic, but her nights were good. After doing some readying in BWSAYP, it seemed like she needed to move towards a 4 hr EASY, but we were hesitant, then we had a few days of really bad nights (3+ NWs) and made the switch. NWs went back to 1/2, but bedtime got worse, and we got some LONG NWs. And we have the EW now.
I have no idea what to do. I feel like I should, being as she is my 2nd and I've been a sleep mod for years. But honestly, I'm lost.
She's partially swaddled (legs only), daytime naps are in her crib in the room she shares with dd1. Nights are in the bassinet in our room - could this be the issue? It's the only thing dh and I could think of, so tonight she's in the room with her sister (so I anticipate BOTH of them waking up!).
help! I'm soooooooooooo exhausted! good grief I wrote a novel....sorry for the length!
