4mo - short naps and multi NW

[Jennzed]

Hi thx for reading. Wasn't sure whether to post this in Naps, NW , or EASY.

BW saved me when DD (now 2.5yr) was 6MO and hard to settle, short napping and needing rock to sleep.
So I thought we'd start EASY right away with DS...except colic and reflux led us to rocking to sleep and feeding to calm, just to keep the peace.
Now, DS is 4MO, colic has passed, he's a pretty happy little guy and I'm correcting AP and implementing EASY one step at a time...need your help....

My first step, 2 weeks ago, was ensuring I start winding him down for naps at 1H30M-1H40M, and having him asleep for sure by 2 hours. This is working. I swaddle, rock to calm, then once sleepy, place in bed, and shush-pat only if the transfer doesn't go well.

Problem - NW - DS tends to sleep 1 five or six hour period, say 9pm to 2am/3am, but then then early hours of the morning, 4am on, he wakes every hour to hour-and-half til morning....exhausting! I think I caused this by feeding him side-lying when I was too tired, and falling asleep, letting him stay in bed with me, so he kept snacking. Now he wakes like that even if he's back in his bed.

Problem - Short naps - Though he's going down well at the 2 hour point, he's waking from 80-90% of naps after 45 minutes. When I get to him he looks WAY too alert to re-settle, and he's almost always upset (doesn't that usually mean they weren't done sleeping?). I do find the first nap of day to be our best chance for a long nap, 1-1.5hr.

Problem - 3.5 hour EASY - it's a challenge to make it a 3.5 hour EASY, when he's waking after 45 min.

Problem - teething - we've got teething messing with us in this mix as well. No teeth yet though.

Typical EASY day for us, 4mths (actually 20 weeks) old:

7am - wake and eat (wake time varies, sometimes he'll sleep past 8am, other times DD comes in and disturbs him earlier)
9am sleep
9.45/10am - wake and eat
11:45am - sleep
12:30/12:45pm - wake and eat
2:45pm - sleep
3:30pm - wake and eat
5:30pm - CN - 25-35min sleep
6:15pm - eat (oops left this out previously)
7:30pm - start bedtime for both kids, try to have him down by 8:00/8:30pm.
8:00pm - eat (oops left this out previously)
8:30pm, sometimes 9pm - sleeping
2:00 or 3:00am - NW1 (feed)
4:30am - NW2 (feed)
5:30/6am - NW3 (feed)
7:00am/8:00am wake

Now that 2 hour activity time is established and successful, I don't know what to tackle next? NW? How to fix short naps? Settle without rocking (thinking leave this to last?)

Total 24 hour sleep is between 12 and 15 hours, most commonly 13 hours total in 24.

[michaeljacknnugg]

Hi there!

I would probably tackle his feed times next - unless I am reading wrongly then he goes a long stretch in the afternoon without a feed. This could be contributing to the number of night feeds.

I would try to space his feeds out either at 3 or 3.5 hourly intervals, and if that means he has some A time between waking and feeding, that's fine. The aim is to avoid feeding to sleep.

At a similar age (I think, it's been a while!) we were aiming for feeds at 7,10,1,3,5 and 7 - I did more in the afternoon as he didn't take a dream feed. Then the 3pm one shifted backwards as he got older.

If you get good feeds then you know he's not waking from hunger and can start thinking about the nap lengths next.

[Jennzed]

Oh geez, sorry I somehow left them out.....there should be a feed after the CN and right before bed. I have edited my post now.

[michaeljacknnugg]

Aha! Well, I would still try to space them out so there is at least a 3hr gap between the main daytime ones - he will probably take in more calories during the day that way.

[Layla]

If he's breastfed, he might not make it the full 4 hrs but you should try and space the feeds out so that he's eating at 3.5hrs. The short naps are common and our morning nap was always the best (and the first one to extend on its own) with just this week the 2nd nap has gotten longer and some days the CN isn't required). One thing I have noticed is that he is going to bed at 9pm, which imo is quiet late (he's awake for 3 hrs before bed) so I would work on putting him down earlier, so that he is in the cot by 7:45pm and asleep by 8pm

When he does wake at night, do you have to rock him back to sleep?

[Jennzed]

Thanks for the replies, ladies!
Good points! Yes I guess I just got used to feeding him when he wakes, but when the nap is short, the feed is too soon. I'll work on better spacing between the feeds. I agree, 4 hours is much too far apart for my little EBF guy.
Today he made it 3H15 and that was a feat! I think it will be a challenge for the first little bit to even get to 3.5H!

Bedtimes. Yes I've been slowly dialling them back. Three weeks ago he was coming to bed with me at 10pm. Now we're at 8:30pm. I will keep moving it earlier until we get to to 8. Thanks for that.

Lastly yes, in order to get him to sleep for any time, bed time or to re-settle in the night I do:
- tight swaddle
- paci (I hate them and can't believe l'm using one but it helped during colic.)
   He keeps the paci only til he's calm and then spits it out himself before falling asleep. Doesn't need re-plugging.
- rock or bounce on the ball holding him
- shushing
- as soon as he's nearly asleep I transfer to his bed and shush-pat if he wakes.

Holy cow I'm glued to PROPS, aren't I???

I'm just dealing with obstacle or issue at a time....

[Layla]

ood points! Yes I guess I just got used to feeding him when he wakes, but when the nap is short, the feed is too soon. I'll work on better spacing between the feeds. I agree, 4 hours is much too far apart for my little EBF guy.
Today he made it 3H15 and that was a feat! I think it will be a challenge for the first little bit to even get to 3.5H!

and this is what we are doing - feeds are 3.5hrs apart (except when she sleeps the full 2 hrs) and we also do a feed just after catnap (if she has one) and then final feed before bedtime so towards the end of the day the feeds are closer (i guess its like cluster feeding)

For resettling at night, I would probably do swaddle, feed and then back to bed (without the rocking/bouncing) and shh/pat if he needs it. Most babies feed to sleep at night anyways so its not really considered a prop .

Holy cow I'm glued to PROPS, aren't I???

Haha, the good thing about using different props is that he isn't just used to one (if you know what I mean). Honestly, go easy on yourself. When Jasmine was born, Isabella was just 13 months old and I was the queen of accidental parenting for 4 months. I used the dummy, I rocked her, I breastfed her, pushed her in a pram to sleep (along with whatever else worked at the time) and Jasmine had colic too , she would just cry and cry and it was much easier to help her fall asleep than sleep train her. But around 4 months (same age as your LO), I started sleep training and within about 2 weeks or so, she was going down on her own without any props 

Let us know how you're going

[Jennzed]

Okay, last night:

- Bed 8pm. Check!
- 8:40pm stir and resettle
- 10:00pm stir, so did DF, resettle 10:20.
- 1:30am. NW. Feed (didn't feed long, fell asleep)
- 3:30am. NW. Full feed.
- 6:45am. Feed and back to sleep.
- 8:00am wake

Happy that he went down at 8pm even though he stirred twice. Happy he slept 3 hours between 3:30am and 6:30am, even though first part of his night was broken up.

I'll keep trying all this for a couple days and get back to you guys.

As always, you ladies ROCK!!

[Layla]

The waking up part is quiet normal and we all do it. Some babies cry out, move around, kick their legs, change positions, etc.. and then back to sleep. As long as he put himself back to sleep, it is normal part of sleep cycle .

Great update!!! 

[Jennzed]

Unfortunately he has no skills yet to re-settle himself. Each time he wakes, day or night I have to pick him up and walk around or bounce on the ball and shush him back to sleep. He never just closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. Comes from all the AP I did when he was colicky. One more thing to correct....

[Jennzed]

Hi Layla and MJ & N,

I have some things to celebrate and some to work on

Bedtime is successfully converted to 8pm. He's ready to go and goes down easy.(That means I swaddle, put in the soother and rock just a little bit and he's out in five or less. I'm also doing a feed just before.)

Feeds have been stretched to 3H15-3H30 apart. Funny, once I got it in my head that he didn't need to eat earlier than that, I realize he may have just been bored or needed a cuddle, not a feed. So that's fixed. Yay!

Yesterday was a very successful 3.5 hour EASY, with 2 naps of about an hour, and then a 30 min CN.

Two problems left and I think they are related: Lots of NWs, and needs props to get to sleep.
Last night went something yucky like this...
8pm sleep
11:30pm wake and eat
11:45pm sleep
2:00am wake and feed side lying, feel asleep, not sure how long he fed for
2:10-2:40am sleep
2:40 try to put him back in his own bed, he woke, props to get get down at 2:50
2:50-4:45am sleep
4:45am woke, feed 7 min
5:05am woke again, feed 12 min
5:20am-6:35am sleep but then stirred again
6:55am-7:15am sleep but then stirred again
7:25am just keeps waking up. I'm now just holding him to get him to finish his night sleep.

I am exhausted!

So I'm wondering: am I messing up by not doing a DF? Waiting to see if he needs it? Are all the NW because he can't self-soothe? What should be my first steps in trying to get him to self-soothe, settle himself to sleep?

[michaeljacknnugg]

I don't know about the dream feed - just know that it didn't work for us.

What I am wondering is if you can try to stretch him out during the night like you've been doing in the day. So if he wakes before your 'he's definitely hungry now' window (and I'd probably allow a couple of night feeds in your plan at this age) then do other stuff to resettle him until then. Ok, it will mean some more AP but since that's something you're using at present, I don't see a problem.

Independent sleep is our next goal!

[Layla]

I never did the DF either - it didn't make a difference so I would let mine when she'd wake naturally for a feed and then feed her. As PP said, I would try and stick to the daytime feeds, so if mine was feeding every 3 hrs, I would try and resettle (with shh/pat) before the 3hr mark and if it was after then I would feed. Is he sleeping in your room? At around 4 months, I moved J to her own room and I found it made a huge difference to her night sleep. I wasn't responding to every single sound she'd make. Not saying you should move your LO but maybe getting white noise in your room would help? My DH is a noisy sleeper and he was constantly waking her up. With regards to the props at night - it really depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to eliminate the props, then I would work on that now rather than later. It may be a rough couple of nights but you'll have to do it some day... just depends on when you're ready to do it .

[Jennzed]

Hi ladies,
Very frustrating day. In the past week I've definitely had successes, with following the 3.5 hour EASY, with making sure he's down by 2 hours, and moved his bedtime to 8pm -- he's ready for it at 8 now.

Now for the challenges...
1.  I have not succeeded in stopping myself from side-lying to feed at night, and thus I fall asleep, he just snacks and falls asleep, I wake up like an hour later and try to put him back to bed and he stirs and needs propping back to sleep. I start out doing the right thing for the first NW but subsequent ones, I mess them up. He is still waking about 3 times per night. I'm not even getting the 1st long sleep of 5-6 hours anymore.

I aim to try not to feed before 3.5 hours in the night...great advice!   But I'm frustrated that he's still waking so many times.

2. I'm getting pretty disappointed with myself for all the props. I am ready to cut them off but not sure where to start. I believe the dependency on props is connected to him waking so many times and not being able to settle himself at ALL.

I'll try to answer your questions:
- he sleeps in our room. His room is not ready yet but should be in about 2 weeks.
- goal is definitely to eliminate the props.
- the DF feels counter- intuitive to me too. I feel like I should just wait till he wakes naturally.
- other stuff going on....he hasn't pooped in a few days and that isn't normal for him. If he doesn't go tomorrow in taking him to the DR. He is EBF.
- I believe he's teething on and off. But no teeth yet.
- I've tried shush-put and I feel like it's waking him up more. The hand on him and shushing works sometimes.

I have a couple days per week when DD 2.5yrs is at daycare and I can work on this.

Help!!

[Jennzed]

Oh! - and nap-extending is working too. With props. But at least he's extending, naps are all between 45-55 min, but current nap, I just extended by an additional hour so far (he's still sleep!). But to do that, I ran in as soon as I heard him, scooped him up, plugged in the paci, turned up the white noise for a minute, gently rocked, then put him down.