Ok I've been looking for answers now for 2 months and nothing seems to be working. I'm at a conflict because half the people I talk to say 'let baby dictate, it's natural' and half the people I talk to say 'routine routine routine'.
So here's the story - at 10 weeks I was told my LO has reflux. He's been on losec for the last 6 weeks, and has now been off it for 1 week. He always has green liquidy poos unless on losec. He used to cry and arch away in pain, so I believe it is or was reflux rather than overactive letdown or oversupply (which I have, I can feel the let down like sharp pins and needles every time, and it jets out and causes him to gag, though not as often anymore)
He used to go to bed anywhere between 6.30 - 7.30pm, and wake between 6.30 - 7.30 am, with 2 - 3 feeds during the night, but about 1.5 months ago he started waking earlier and earlier, sometimes as early as 4am! It always changes. We tried adjusting with an earlier bedtime to compensate and that made no difference. This also began around the time he started refusing to nap like he used to.
A bit of background: from around week 8 when the reflux became an issue, he would only sleep for 40 min at a time. After losec he gave us a couple of days of 2 - 3 hour naps, then it went something like this:
wake 6am or earlier, feed 10min one side, feed sometimes other side, nappy change, play, calm down and bed by 8am at the latest. Sleep till roughly 10am, get up, losec, feed, change, play, sleep again from 11.30 for roughly 1.5 - 2 hours, then a short nap around 4pm, then bath and bed routine and in bed between 6 - 7pm.
Over the last 2 months he has reduced his morning nap to 40 min, started needing settling after the first sleep cycle for the 11.30am nap, then eventually refusing more than 30 - 40 min at this nap too, then sometimes refusing to sleep at all at 4pm ish.
And now, sometimes he will sleep in the morning for 20 min, sometimes he refuses. Same again at lunch, same again at 4pm ish. He is also back to only wanting to feed for 5 min or so, then wanting to feed again every 1 - 1.5 hours or so, basically snack feeding.
Sometimes on rare occasions he will sleep for 2 hours in the morning, then refuse any more sleep during the day.
After taking the quiz and reading the descriptions it seems he is a spirited baby. He actively resists swaddling, and we haven't swaddled for 2 weeks, it's made no difference in his napping either way.
More often than not we will battle for up to 2 hours to get just 20 minutes sleep. I have over the last 2 months tired: Darkening the room, playing white noise, playing soft music, trying the shh and pat method (worked wonders for 2 days during week 9, then never again), tried the pick up put down method, tried letting him cry it out and hated every minute of it. I used to have to go for 2 hour walks to get him to sleep for that long, now even that doesn't work...
He wriggles and moves all over the place in his cot, sometimes just babbles and plays for those 2 hours, sometimes screams and cries loudly for refusing to nap.
I know he is tired and he is not just a non day napper, as while he does get happy and giggly with play, if left to his own activities he will often end up just staring vacantly into space. He will also only be happy on his own for 10 min at most before getting grumpy.
I'm out of ideas, I don't know what to do. Do I even try and put him on a routine? And if I do, how do I go about it? I can't seem to find anywhere that suggests timings with a reflux baby
Please help me. I am supposed to be working. I can't just be a SAHM, I would love to but my husband and I need the money. I am in the lucky position where I can work from home and go into the office for an hour twice a week. But this doesn't happen when I spend the larger part of my day trying to settle him to sleep. But when he flat out refuses to sleep.. like this morning.. he woke at 6.. he finally went to sleep for 20 min at 10.35am.. so he was awake for 4.5 hours then only a 20 min nap
what do I do??
Hoping for answers,
Frazzled mum
