We have a lovely 7 months old baby girl who slept ok until 4 mo old. Then she started to have shorter naps or skipped naps and started to wake up more often in the night, sometimes 10 times and usually demanded breastfeeding to settle. She was sleeping in our bed and I was usually breastfeeding her right away when she woke up, because I was already so tired and needed to find an easy solution to get her back to sleep. So the usual case I guess...
After reading Tracys book we realised we created the problems ourselves by our actions. Now we have established 4 hour EASY routine which works almost perfectly I think, and started to use PU/PD if she seems to wake up without being hungry. PU/PD usually works quite well, altough sometimes it can take 60 minutes because she wakes up quite soon again. We have been able to lenghen day naps by using PU/PD and to cut down night feeds quite a lot.
The challenge is that our baby is still waking up quite a lot during the night, some nights even more than previously. I'm not sure if this is due to the new things: 1) moving to her own bed, 2) introducing solid food - stomach pain?, 3) reducing night time feeds, or all these. In any case I think she's not getting enough sleep because waking up all the time and her parents are slowly turning into zombies as well
. I would really appreciate if you lovely people would have some advice for us on how to continue from here.
Here is some additional info about our situation:
Our baby is breastfed, usually both sides at each feed, altough the amounts have been decreasing since we started to eat solid food (in 6 months age) 3 times a day. She doesn't use pacifier or drink milk from a bottle.
Her daily routine:
8.30 E wakes up, breastfeeding
9.00 A (activity times include all sorts of playing, music, bathing and diaper change)
11/11.30 S (nap 45-90min)
1 pm E solids and breastfeeding
2.00 A
3.00 S (nap 60-120min)
4.30 E solids and breastfeeding
5.30 A
7.00 S (catnap 30-60min most of the days because seems tired)
7.30 E solids and breastfeeding
8.00 A
8.30 E cluster feeding
9.00 A bath etc
9.30 E cluster feeding
10.00/10.30 S
1 am/1.30 am wakes up, PU/PD's and if it takes over 30 minutes and seems hungry -> breastfeeding
2.30 wakes up, PU/PD until sleeps
3.30/4.00 wakes up, PU/PD but usually I end up breastfeeding, diaper change and breastfeeding again
5.00/5.30 wakes up sometimes as well.. if PU/PD doesn't work -> breastfeeding (if so, then the next waking usually is around 8.30)
6.30 wakes up, seems usually hungry, breastfeeding, diaper change and breastfeeding
Our bed time routine: walking to the bed room, swaddling her, walking a little bit in the room singing and closing the curtains, then standing still and patting her back until relaxed and then laying her down to bed. Resting my hand on either side of her tummy (she sleeps on her back) and trying to take my hand away before she sleeps. I stay in the room for about 10 minutes to make sure she stays asleep.
If she doesn't fall asleep right away, she usually starts whining and then a bit later crying -> we do PU/PD until sleeps (or on rare occations, start 4S from the beginning. We usually pick her up quite fast if she whines, which might be part of the problem (?). It's just that we don't want to wait until she cries.. because she usually doesn't calm down by herself and if she gets really angry she doesn't settle down so easily anymore. My voice can settle her down for a little while, but usually it doesn't really help and she starts crying after a little while. My hand on her tummy doesn't usually help, so we usually do PU/PD right away, because it seems effective. We have to do it 2-10 times usually to get her back to sleep day or night.
At night she doesn't usually do mantra cry, only when going to sleep. Sometimes she wakes up already crying and then I know it's not hunger, it's something else (stomach etc.) and I do PU/PD successfully. However most of the NW's she starts with a little whining noice and then later on crying if not noticed right away.
Thank you very much for yor help!
Susanna
