Our LO just turned 5 months old a few days ago. She is a Spirited Baby, and just like the book said, she started to sleep through the night at 3 months. We have a very 'strict' bedtime ritual which we have followed every night (taken from the book Baby Secrets by Jo Tantum) since she was about 3weeks old. We were feeling very pleased with ourselves….. until about 3 weeks ago when it all changed.
We had a very hot weekend (I live in Holland, so we're not used to anything much above 30 degrees!) and she was having a growth spurt (20 weeks). To top it off, it was her first week at day care. I had gone back to work one month earlier, but my Mum had been staying with us and looking after her every day in our flat, so she was in familiar surroundings and she had no problems adjusting. Going to day care seems to be another matter entirely! Im pretty sure that it was this combination that set her off with the NWs, but ever since then it just seems to go from bad to worse.
Day time naps are extremely irregular. In fact her whole routine is now irregular because of going to day care. Actually, I should point out she goes to a child minder who has 4 kids of her own, and looks after one other boy who is 3 years old. She has 2 year old twins who are at home, and two older kids who are at school.
Here is her routine from today (at home with me):
5am awake and grizzling, but not really hard crying so I left her to try to settle herself. After an hour, at 6, she settled (I didn't go in to her at all. If the crying had been hard at any point i would have!).
6.45 awake again. But this is the normal time we get her up.
E 7am feed 150ml formula.
A playing with me, and lying under her activity arch.
S 8.15 tired, down for a nap, asleep almost immediately.
9am I woke her by accident, she was still tired, but wouldn't go back to sleep. Normally this is her longest nap when she's at home - around 2 hours. (With the child minder her longest nap is at lunch time where she has around 3 hours!!)
A bath with mummy, playing under activity arch and practising rolling over :-).
S 10am tired, but when i laid her in bed she cried really hard! After an hour of trying to settle her (shah pat) I gave up and got her up as it was time for her feed.
E 11am only took 110ml formula (normally she would have 180-200), but she ate a little carrot and apple puree too.
A for 15mins - just sitting with me quietly as i didn't want to make her OT.
S 11.30 went down easily - very tired. But was awake at 12!!
A Out and about with me, running errands. In the pram, in and out of the car, in the supermarket etc.
S 14.15 just fell asleep as we got home from the shops in her car seat. I took her out of it and lay her in bed hoping she'd sleep longer.
E 15.00 awake, 150ml (normally 180-200).
A practised more rolling, watched a Baby Einstein movie (10 mins, then she got fed up!) she was generally cranky and cried a lot, so I went for a walk with her. This is always her worst time of the day, and the walk always helps keep her calm and sometimes she has a short nap which means we can get to bed time without her getting OT.
S 17.15 (in the pram) 17.45 awake
A Daddy was home from work so lots of fun and cuddles, playing peek-a-boo etc.
18.45 Start bed time routine a bit early (normally it would be 19.00) because she was getting tired and cranky. She has 15mins playtime with no nappy on - playing in her playpen with a music mobile and lots of toys,
E 19.00 she had half of her last bottle (about 100ml) which also has some baby rice in it to help keep her full through the night.
A 19.15 bath time, 19.30 into her bedroom with dim lights and lullabies playing - massage. 19.45 the rest of her bottle (remaining 100ml, also with baby rice). Burp, a bit of sick, and into bed.
S 20.00 or just before. She whimpered a little but was asleep within a few minutes. I didn't go in to her as I knew she would settle.
Now what she had been doing up until recently was sleeping through until 7am the next day. We were doing a Dream Feed at 11pm until she was about 3.5 months, then we stopped it and she slept right through - never any problems. She was a sound sleeper - fantastic!
But now…..
So far this evening, she has woken up at 9pm, and just over 10pm. Grizzling, not really crying hard. Again, I left her and she settled herself back to sleep. Last night this happened also at 10pm but it was hysterical crying and i tried the shhhh pat for an hour with no luck. She hadn't eaten much that day so I gave her a 90ml bottle. She finally settled, but then 10mins later woke up again crying, but I left her and she settled herself after about 5 minutes.
She will also sometimes wake up around midnight, but always around 4.30/5am and she will stay awake for an hour, sometimes more. If we pick her up she screams even harder, so we normally leave her in her crib. What we always used to do to settle her was to let her suck on a little finger. She has gone through stages of taking a pacifier, then not wanting it, then taking it again. BUt i think it's been a good couple of months since she last took one. Sucking on a finger would be the only thing that would calm her down, but it's an AWFUL prop!! Meaning that sometimes i would stand over her cot for 15mins or more letting her suckle until she's almost asleep…… back ache!!
So we decided that we're going to break that habit too because with all the wakings and crying it was just unbearable to be letting her suck on our fingers all the time. We used to not really have to do it very often, which was why we didn't really think it was a big deal. But for the last few weeks we have to do it constantly! She also has two little sharp teeth and she quite likes to chomp down on your finger whilst sucking it which is very painful! So we decided she has to learn to settle without a prop. For the past 2 days we have not being giver her our fingers. Instead we just do shhhh pat. But it has varying degrees of success, but it's very early days so we will persevere.
My problem here is that we cannot ask our child minder to sit with her shhhing and patting while she has two 2 year olds, and a 3 year old to deal with! She just puts her in bed and leaves her to cry. If she's still crying after 20 minutes she gets her back up out of bed. I don't like this, but here's nothing I can do about it. I sat with my LO for over 1 hour trying to get her sleep today…. It's too much to ask of someone with 3 toddlers to look after. A couple of times she told me she left her for an hour crying by herself - I was very upset and angry about this and have asked her to limit it to 20 mins.
Here is a typical day with the child minder:
7.30 we drop her off
A but not sure what exactly
S she drops her kids off at school - lilly normally sleeps in the pram. Not sure for how long… around 20/30 mins i think.
E 10.30 180ml
A not sure what - playpen i think.
S 11am until 14.00!!!!!
E 180ml and some pureed fruit
A in the playpen
16.30 until 17 tried to get her to sleep but she wouldn't
A back in the playpen - happy, smily.
18.00 180ml and she fell asleep whilst drinking
18.30 i pick her up. She stayed asleep until 18.45
Then bed time ritual as normal.
She was awake from 4.30 until 6 that night. Gave her a small bottle in the end then she slept until 8.
LO used to sleep fully swaddled, but we had just started to wean her off the swaddle about a week before the problems started, and it was going quite well. But when she started waking up so much I began swaddling her again thinking that might help. But it didn't help. She just seemed to be even more frustrated when she was awake that she couldn't mover her arms! So for the past 4 nights we have been putting her in her day-time sleeping bag instead.
She also sleeps with two cuddlies, and she loves to bring them up to her face and nuzzle into them when she's going to sleep. This is another reason I thought she might be better out of the swaddle at night, so she can comfort herself the same way she does for day time naps.
I feel like I have written the biggest essay ever, but I have answered all the questions in your 'please read before posting' post.
I guess I would just like some advice on how to get her back into the sleeping pattern she had before. She used to sleep so soundly that with the dream feed she would literally still be asleep - eyes closed and everything! The second she finished the bottle I'd lay her back in bed and she would instantly be asleep again.
Do you think it's because she is getting used to the child minder and we just have to give her more time to adjust? Do you think I need to be more strict with the child minder about when and how long she sleeps during the day?
Do you think there could be another reason she's waking up all the time?
Is it too much for her that we have stopped swaddling AND stopped letting her suckle on our fingers? Should we try one at a time, or is it best to just get it all over and done with in one hit?!
Are we doing the right thing with shhhh pat? I read about pick up put down, but because she screams so much harder a lot of the time when we pick her up I don't think that;'s a very good option for us!??
Sorry again it's so long… I hope someone out there managed to read it all and can help us!!
