Hi everyone - I'm SO hoping you can help me... I'm a bleary-eyed second time mom with a 3 year old (in school) and a 3 month old (13 week old adjusted). DD2 was a 'magic' baby when she was born and would sleep ALL the time. At about 7 weeks, she started 'waking up' and since then we've had a lot of trouble sleeping and napping. I started her on an EASY routine/pattern around 8 weeks and we've now gotten to the point where she can go between 2.5-3 hours between feeds most feeds, and sometimes will do a 2 hour feed. I monitor this carefully as she has silent reflux and so sometimes I feel like she needs to eat more often and smaller quantities. But so far so good. She is medicated for the reflux, sleeps in an elevated bassinet and I've discovered and given up her obvious trigger foods, so it is well controlled.
I have 2 major issues with her though - her chronic OT (which I am working on with diligent naps and nap extensions) and her non-stop NWs, which I think is related to her OT and eating.
OT: Because I came to Baby Whisperer and the routine so late, I thought that when a baby was tired, she would sleep and so DD2 was nap deprived for a while. I started working on naps at 10 weeks and now, a month later, she consistently goes down for 4 naps a day. They typically don't last more than 45 mins, so I've been working on nap extensions (shush pat and paci) and she sometimes will go down for another 15-30 mins, but not always. Her last nap of the day (5.30pm-ish) is MUCH harder because DD1 and DH are home at this point and she gets distracted. I've been doing shush pat and while she seems like she hates it (cries the minute I swaddle her and cries harder when I start patting), she always falls asleep with it during the day. I'm working on staying home more so that we can do it more consistently and it can become the new way we do things. I stopped nursing her to sleep during the day at 8 weeks and stopped rocking/jiggling her to sleep at about 12 weeks (2 weeks ago). I'm telling you all this because I think the OT is what is making her wakeup so many times at night.
She was consistently sleeping about 10pm and then waking up at 2am and 6am to feed at about 8 weeks. Now, even though there are nights that she will do 5-5.5 hour stretches from BT, she doesn't do it regularly and more often than not, is up every 1.5-2 hours all night, whether I DF or not. Because she doesn't sleep longer on the nights I DF, I'm thinking that she's still OT and I'm working hard to repay that sleep debt, but I have no idea how long that will take.
She now (for the past month) has a consistent BT routine which includes bath, massage, song, nursing and I've progressively been moving her BT earlier and earlier. It is now 7.45pm (with a DF at 10.30pm). She nurses to sleep at night and was able to just sleep. Now she will sleep for 5-10 mins before waking up and 'calling' for me. I shush pat her back to sleep and she will do that again 1-2 more times. She finally falls asleep around 8.30pm, which was her BT for a long time.
The issue is that whenever she wakes up, she wants to nurse. I feed her if it has been at least 3 hours since her last feed, and have tried shush-patting her back to sleep all the other times. It rarely works and usually just means that we're both awake and she's crying to be fed until her next feed 'time'. I always make sure she stops crying and settles down to sleep with shush pat (even if it's just for 5 mins) before feeding her, so that she doesn't associate the crying with being fed as in 'If I keep crying, Mommy will feed me eventually'. It's not going well. Right now, I and DD1 are both sick with the flu (and I have multiple wake ups with DD1 at night, but that's another story!) and I just don't have the stamina to get through the night, so I've been feeding her not as strictly. She sometimes will empty both breasts, and sometimes will only nurse for a few minutes on one side.
I have just realized that her daytime feeds are terrible - the morning feeds are always the worst, where she is distracted and won't really feed well. By mid-late afternoon though, she starts taking fuller feeds again. This has been the pattern for at least a week that I am aware of (before that we had several reflux flareups) and now I'm paying more attention to giving her fuller feeds during the day. I'm wondering if she is just not filling up during the day and therefore getting all her calories in at night, hence the NWs? I'm sure some of them are related to not being able to settle back to sleep as well.
So here is my plan - and here is where I need your input/advice to let me know I'm on the right track:
1) I'm pumping an hour after her morning feeds today and the plan is to nurse her when she wakes up from her naps, and then feed her whatever I managed to pump too, trying to get more calories in. I was so centered on stretching out her feeds to 2.5-3 hour intervals, I wasn't paying attention to the quality of the feeds. So I'm going to back step and feed her more often - even every 1.5 hours if that means she's filling up. She's always been on the light side (she didn't gain back her birth weight until 4 weeks in and now is consistently gaining weight but at a slower rate than most babies). Is feeding her so often counter-intuitive even if it guarantees that she eats more calories in the day?
2) Cluster feed her in the evenings.
3) Keep up the DF.
4) Reduce the OT by staying home all week for at least a week (before the Thanksgiving traveling craziness starts! Yikes!) so that she can 'practice' naps and shush patting more.
5) Shush pat her and use her paci to get her back to sleep at night if it has not been at least 3 hours since her last wakeup. I'm happy to BF her twice a night, but I think 4+ times is ridiculous! So if I work on getting her the calories during the day, I'm hoping that her NWs for feeds will decrease. Is that good or faulty reasoning?
Is there anything else you'd suggest doing? I cannot go much longer on these NWs with a 3 year old to contend with too and I'm feeling for DD1 because she's not getting much quality mommy time at the moment.
Help!
