Totally Lost - need some pointers with S time and A time

[Mrsjeff]

So my little one struggled for the first three months of his life and we didn't realise all the fussiness was due to Silent Reflux, he would only sleep in his rocker chair at night as he hated being on his back, would only nap on his tummy on someones chest. After we realised he had Silent Reflux and gave meds a chance to work which didn't we switched to a thickened formula, and slowly I was able to get him to nap and sleep in his Moses Basket on his back once this milk was working for him.

The thickened milk brought issues with constipation, and he's had terrible trapped wind ever since so his fussiness has never gone away, we've tried all sorts of drops and gripes waters and taken him to the doctor who can't help as we have tried everything she could have prescribed, we've been told he'll just grow out of it and we have to wait it out.

So it's been really really hard because his trapped wind wakes him out of his night-time sleep and gets him up early, and makes daytime napping a nightmare, I am fighting a constant battle with his sleep and our routine and can't make it work for him, he seems to be tired a lot and can't handle awake times for those reccomended for his age.

I guess because his night-time sleep is broken in the last stage this is what is effecting his daytime naps? But I'm a first time mum, and due to his short awake times and short naps have never transitioned him onto a regular four hour feeding schedule, maybe this has had a bearing but I couldn't figure out how to make that work if i'm constantly entertaining him for a three hour feed schedule. As he has approached the six month mark things seem to have got worse and now a lot of his naps are cut to just 30 mins.

I'll add that in the last three weeks we moved from a moses basket on a rocking stand to his own room and cot. He was three weeks early and little so I've been lucky he's been able to sleep in the basket for as long as he has, i suppose the rocking motion was kind of a prop . . . . He took to his own room like a champ, first in the cot within the basket, and then on the mattress itself, it's obviously been a challenge soothing him outside of his basket.

I had worked with independant sleep when he was still in his basket, and whilst he complains for the first 10 - 20 mins for the most part he does drop off to sleep by himself, although lately there has been lots more crying, and i know the difference between his tired whines and when he's crying with trapped wind so check in on him and sooth at approriate times.

It seems that he's grown out of the reflux as we haven't seen any reflux symptoms since putting him back on the regular first formula to get rid of the constipation. Just the fusiness from the trapped wind remains. When he did have reflux, i used to have to sit him up for an extra 30 mins after his feed for his milk to digest, and so one whole hour of his awake time was used just for feeding and I was limited with floor playtime after a feed etc due to his reflux, so we quickly fell into a cycle of ESYA and so on. And due to his short naps have been unable to follow a proper EASY cycle as he rarely sleeps up until the point of his next bottle. Whilst this is not ideal, I am bottle feeding not nursing and during the day he doesn't fall asleep at the bottle so I am not nursing him to sleep. Far from it he fights me at naptime!

At the moment each day is different, because depending what time his wind wakes him in the night - anywhere from 3.30am to 4.50am depends on how I have to handle the night/day. Last night as an example he woke at 4am and I was unable to settle him in his cot, which went on until 5am at which point he was inconsolable and I was forced to feed him at 5.30 which around his normal wake up time.

The same happened the night before, and when he went back to bed after his bottle only slept for 30 mins, so this morning I succumbed to allowing him sleep on my chest for two hours after his bottle because he started crying and arching his back with wind after I put him down and wouldn't burp again for me. I couldn't bear the thought of him having a half hour nap at 6am after being up from 4am

He has just turned six months within the last week, but has always seemed hungry on the three hour mark, and still only seems to have a max window of 1.5hrs before he is showing me he is tired, yawning, rubbing his eyes, pulling his ears sucking his thumb, and due to his short naps I haven't moved him to a 3.5 or 4hour schedule, although the odd feed he can go 3.5 hrs.

Today is just a disaster and has prompted me to write, after his terrible night he was up at 8.30am and started rubbing his eyes at 9.55am, I put him into bed at 10.10am after singing with him and having a cuddle, at 11.49am he is still awake. He talked to himself for a good hour and then started to whine, I went in and soothed him and left him to re settle him and nothing worked, past 12 noon and getting on for his next feed and he's inconsolable as he's so overtired, so i let him sleep on me again, took me a while to settle him down but he did go to sleep.

5am or 5.30am at the moment is his typical 'normal' awake time, and i try and hold out until this time to feed him if he's been up earlier if at all possible as I want to regulate a wake up time/first feeding time for him. Ideally he would go back to bed and nap until 7am, he used to grab an hour or more during this period up until recently where he just seems to nap 30 minutes.

Everything seems really messed up the last few weeks of him being five months old and I feel like i don't know what i'm doing anymore and feeling kind of desperate

I've just put him down now for a nap after 1hr 20 mins of awake time and he hasn't settled himself within the 20 mins, seems to start settling when i go and comfort him but then reverts back to fighting the nap by talking to himself, shouting to himself and trying to keep himself awake playing with his hands.

Should I try and get him on a 3.5 or 4 hour schedule if he is struggling with his awake times and short naps or do you think the both go hand in hand.

Every nap time as the days progress this week just seem to get worse and it takes him much longer to self settle than it used too. I have this horrible feeling he is starting to teeth, maybe that is it and i should just assist all of his naps until he seems more his normal self? i don't know anymore

Edited to add I am trying to start weaning at lunchtimes so no doubt feeding routine is ready for a change anyway, and we do bedtime routine at 5.45 which is bath, lotion, PJ's, bottle, and in bed for about 6.45. I can put him down drowsy but still awake and he goes straight to sleep and sleeps without a feed until his wind wakes him between 3.30 and 4.50 or sleeps through until 5-5.30am ish.

Typical day

E 5.30 - 6am 7oz Formula Bottle
S I tend to put him back down for a nap after about 45 mins because this is a) prior to 7am and b) has often had broken sleep in latter part of night due to wind issues - right wrong thing to do? He used to sleep for about an hour or more at this point around six weeks ago but lately grabs just 30 or 45 mins sleep if i'm lucky during this period.
A
E 9.30 7oz Formula Bottle
S Nap - lately just 30 or 45 mins
A
E 12.30 7oz Formula Bottle + Offer Spoon Feed Solids (first week of doing this)
S Nap - lately just 30 or 45 mins
A
E 3.30 7oz Formula Bottle
S He is notorious for being really fussy and skipping this nap when I have tried hard to encourage independant sleep in his cot, but can't last until bedtime without a sleep he is miserable without it so I have been doing assisted nap (sleep tummy to tummy) for 45 mins - 1 hour to bridge the gap to bedtime. All be it, last night i trialled not doing this and keeping him awake, and he was more tired than usual, falling asleep on the bottle and had the worst time in the night with his 4am wake up, we tried for an hour to settle him and the screaming was awful :/
A
A 5.45 Bathtime with Daddy, Lotion & PJ's
E 6.00 - 6.15ish Bedtime Bottle 7oz Formula
S In bed 6.45 - 7pm

[Mrsjeff]

He went to bed for his latest nap at 3pm after being awake since 1.35pm, maybe i waited too long, he first rubbed his eyes at 2.40! Just one hour after waking, but after my earlier experience today, where i put him down at the first sign of tiredness and he was awake in his cot for two whole hours unable to settle and i couldn't settle him, just felt like it was pure torture. should i have tried to wait out the two hours, but then at risk of overtiring him and the same meltdown. anyway he napped for just 30 mins but when he woke he was uncomfortable, homeopathic drops i gave him for his wind have constipated him and waiting for that to get through his system - the battle never ends!

[Mrsjeff]

Back again, this morning his awake time was 6.15 (or that's when i first heard him)
He was rubbing his eyes after just one hour and 15 mins awake, i put him down for his nap at 7.50 after another eye rub and burying his head in my chest, as usual he protested to being put down but settled himself within 20mins or so but had just a thirty min nap again.

Should I be brave and push his A time up in accordance with his age (turned six months four days ago, was three weeks early) and see if he naps longer even if he seems tired? I've always gone by baby cues vs the clock before now but he never seems to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time in the day lately! I read that 30min naps mean OT, but yesterday I put him down at the first sign of tiredness and he fought the nap for two hours and ended up sleeping on me, i am so confused on his A times it's unreal!

Sorry for my essays

[jessmum46]

Hugs and sorry for the tough start. 

I do think your problem here is you are trying for naps way too soon, and then he is either not falling asleep so getting very overtired from that, or doing a short nap and getting OT that way.  Bear in mind a lot of LOs will have dropped or be on their way to dropping the catnap and being on a solid two nap routine at this age, with A times in the 3h range.  Tired signs can become very unreliable as LO gets older and sometimes you do have to try a change of scenery, distraction etc to push them through a bit longer. 

What I would do is treat the 5am feed as a night feed and put him straight back down.  If he is happily taking a nap after 45 mins that is a night waking, not morning and so the start of your day should be when he wakes up again.  From that point, I would not put him down for a nap until around 2h15 as a minimum, and then fairly quickly I would be pushing this 10-15 mins every few days until you get to nearer 3h or to a point where he settles well and does a longer nap.  Same for your other A times. 

I'd also suggest you look at this: All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

Hope that helps, let us know if you have more questions x

[Mrsjeff]

Thank You so muss Jessmum I appreciate you posting, before I read your post today I decided to go ahead and experiment with a longer awake time,  2.5 hours and his nap was 45 mins vs 30 mins, when he woke he had the dreaded gas/wind pains and I was unable to get him to resettle. For his afternoon nap he was awake 2.75 hours and again his nap was 45 mins vs 30 mins and he was really struggling with wind again when he woke from this nap. I was able to get him back to sleep after picking him up but he was up again within ten minutes and was really distressed so we finished the nap on mummys chest seeing as he'd only had 45 mins and 30 mins prior to this.

My worry is if he'll ever be able to re-settle at the 45 min mark until or even if he grows out of these wind issues (although he used too when he napped in his basket) but sometimes with assistance as it rocked. I guess I shall just have to push his awake time to the three hour mark and see what happens, I just hate the thought of stretching out his awake times and him still napping at 45 minutes and what consequences that will have for the rest of the day and his night-time sleep, but I guess if he never grows out of this wind problem which the doctor assures me he will then at that point i'll have to take him back to the doctors.

It's so frustrating to see him struggling when he clearly wants to sleep bless him, he keeps putting his hands behind his head and suckling on his sleeve as he likes to when he's settling down to sleep and does a little self settling mantra and then slams his hands down on the mattress in frustration when he gets another griping pain

Wish me luck!

[jessmum46]

Poor little thing . Just go slow on the A time increases and if you get a short nap, so a slightly shorter next A time to avoid too much OT.  Is he still going to sleep independently?

[Mrsjeff]

This morning was an odd one again as he was whimpering in his sleep from 3.50am so I was on tenderhooks all morning waiting to see if i'd need to go in and re-settle him, but he tried to re-settle himself throughout the morning and it would be whimpering then a period of quiet, then whimpering again and so on, until between 5 and 5.30. Seeing that he'd re-settled himself all night I thought i'd try and see if he could get back to sleep so I gave him half hour or so in his cot and didn't end up feeding him until 6am, then put him back down at 6.45 for a nap and he slept 45 mins - I think he would have slept longer if it had not have been bin day as I watched him rouse at 45 mins and seemed to go back off, then noisy truck and clattering of bins woke him up even though i was there to try and help him transition into the next cycle but I couldn't save that nap.

Then i was confused if he should eat as soon as he woke at 7.30 to start his day a-fresh and re-set his body clock? He'd already eaten at 6 and had a full bottle and just the 45 min nap, so i held off until 8am, and he was quite happy, so went with an A time of 2.5 hours and he woke at the 35 min mark from his nap, wasn't happy, I managed to get a burp out of him and had to help him re-settle a little. He only slept for another five mins and woke unhappy and wouldn't go back to sleep.

He is awake when I put him down, I don't put him down already asleep. With the longer A time, he is much more receptive to it being nap time, before he'd be alert and playing and it would take 20 mins of tired whiny complaints before he'd go to sleep, often with me doing timed checks and having to re-assure him. These last few days with the longer A times he has immediately tried to settle himself to sleep but often will gripe as soon as his back hits the mattress, and seemingly seems to complain with wind, even though we've recently been playing on the floor and he was fine then, almost as if he has a bad association with the cot maybe i don't know. If I think he's fighting wind i'll try and rub his side until I can see he's happy settling or apply light pressure on his nappy area and gently jiggle him like a rock until he seems to be settling. So I suppose it's kind of assisted some of the time but with his windy issues it's hard.

Thinking about how upset he was with wind yestserday, I did give him some vegetable puree solids after his bottle close to his nap time. Maybe that is a no no, but with his nap times being so short and him not sleeping up to when his next feed is due his feeding time tends to fall before naptime. Maybe I should only attempt solids at the moment one hour after his waking feed.

So I should shorten this A time to re-coup for the 35 min nap, and then maybe try 2hr 15 again next time, maybe 2hr 30 was too much from the point when he first got up. I read somewhere a 2 - 3 - 4 approach maybe that is worth trying tomorrow?

[Mrsjeff]

I noticed in another post, whilst reading older threads and transitioning from 3 to 2 naps, that your little one woke in the night with Gas Pains. Can I ask how you re-settle ? My little one used to allow me to bicycle his legs, but by the point he is woken from his sleep with gas pains he is already tense and is drawing his knees to his chest, if i try and bicycle them for him he fights me and stiffens them. I try to do it throughout the day on the changing table and he seems to think it's a game of resistance and just won't allow me anymore. He used to let me bend his legs during his floortime play and i used to roll him to each side whilst singing row row row your boat and he used to giggle his head off but won't let me do that anymore either!

All he will let me do is place a gentle bit firm hand on him and gently jiggle/rock him using that hand to settle him (whilst still lying down kind of thing), or rub his side or tummy. Failing that I pick him up for a cuddle and try and burp him and by the time we get to that point he normally begins screaming non stop once he's picked up and not settling and needs a feed.

[jessmum46]

How are you getting on? 

I'm not familiar with the 2-3-4 approach but suspect that may be for older LOs.  4h A time would be a lot at this age. 

Yes if you get a short nap try a slightly shorter next A time to hopefully avoid too much OT

If LO is waking uncomfortable I don't think there is a magic way to resettle, just do what you've been trying, a back rub, shh pat or whatever usually works.  A cuddle is fine if he is in pain too.  Just a thought though - not saying you are doing this at all but don't be too quick to assume all crying/fighting wakings are gas or discomfort-related.  DS can look like he is being tortured sometimes (!) but it's actually just overtiredness so worth just keeping in the back of your mind

[Mrsjeff]

Hiya,

With great difficulty

At the weekend, I continued to experiment with awake times, 2hr 05, 2hr 15, 2hr 30 and 2hr 45, I cannot figure him out at all! No matter what, he seems to rouse between 30 and 35 mins or at or before 45 mins. I got to his cotside at the first sign of a rouse on his second nap on Saturday and stayed with him for 15 mins with a firm hand and was able to keep him settled and get him through the transition into the second half of the nap and managed to get a 1.5hr nap, the second nap it didn't work and I couldn't get him past 30 mins, and the same for this mornings nap, he actually roused at 20 mins this time and i kept a firm hand on him between 20 and 35 mins but he woke again at 35 mins and wouldn't sleep anymore. Yesterday at 30 mins I refused to let him out of the cot and really tried hard to get him back to sleep which went horribly wrong. After not settling in his cot we had pick up and cuddles and he was inconsolable, it seems it stresses him out way too much me trying to extend his nap once he's actually awake.

I think I just have to accept these 35 - 45 mins naps for what they are and assume he'll grow out of it, I can see his window is about 2.5 - 2.75 hours to go down easily and be tired enough to sleep and just put him down as often as i can through the day and see how he copes with fussiness. Funny how bedtime is so much easier, I suppose its dark, and he has his bath to prompt him it's bedtime. I take him to his cot sleepy but awake, last night he was looking around his room prior to going into his cot. Hits the mattress and bam put's himself to sleep and I here him re-settling himself throughout the night unless his wind pains get the better of him and he needs a little help. It never used to be this bad during the day prior to him hitting the six month milestone.

Any Y time is out of the window as i'm at his cotside whilst he's sleeping trying to KEEP him asleep he he

[Mrsjeff]

Well as I type I didn't hurry to get him out of the cot after his 'disaster nap' and after he started calling and shouting for me I went in to him and gave him my hand on his tum and he went back to sleep i've been in again and had to re settle him briefly but he's had another 20 mins sleep so far, lets hope he gets a little more. I'm sorry for all my posts things are just all over the place!

[jessmum46]

It's a good idea if things are all over the place to pick one thing and stick to it for at least 3-4 days, even if that's just making the first A time exactly the same every day (I know often by the afternoon you end up in 'salvage the day' mode - at least I do!!) so at least you have a hope of spotting a pattern.  Do you want to keep track for 2-3 days and then post your EAS to see if anything jumps out at me?

[Mrsjeff]

Just wanted to pop in and thank you Jess for replying, still experimenting with his schedule and as it happens he turns 7 months tomorrow, things are still not working out and his morning wake up has been a bit all over. One day he slept til 6.15 and another 6.45 so i thought he was starting to lengthen his night sleep again and drop the 5 - 5.30am wake up/bottle but then he reverted and now it seems closer to 5am each day than 5.30 lol! Anyway lol, after his 5.30 bottle and a 45 min or hour nap he was still only giving me 30 min nap for his first am nap after keeping A time consistent and it's also getting increasingly harder to actually get him to nap now after that 5.30 bottle, for two days he refused and played and talked in his cot for two hours and didn't sleep at all!.

On the days where he does nap after that early bottle which is *most* of the time, he is increasingly fussy after two hours wake up, and i saw a schedule here by another mum that was working for her with a nap after two hours for the am so i'm going to try that this week, i've nothing to loose by tweaking things as i haven't nailed it, maybe he needs a shorter A time in the morning. Will post again if I need any more pointers you've been brilliant, should i start a new thread? xo

[jessmum46]

You are very welcome to keep posting here if new issues arise in the next few days.  After that it's probably best to start a new thread with an update on your situation.  Fingers crossed that something clicks soon!