Thank you jessmum46! You've given me lots to think about. Lapjmv and duo duo - i feel for you. I just wanted to post an update to let you both know how we're conquering this hurdle. And I wanted to reach out to you jessmum46 to see if you have any other insights. So this is where we are now:
DD2 self settles to naps and at bt. she has no bf sleep association at bt (i make sure she's awake when i put her down, kiss her goodnight and leave the room. she puts herself to sleep within 5 mins). when i nurse her in the MOTN, she definitely is asleep when i lay her back down - is that ok or is that a sleep association too? we are now waking up 3 x a night but in 2 very different patterns:
1) i DF her at about 1030-1100 and then she wakes up about 230 when I shush pat her back down to sleep, and she wakes up about 430 when i feed her, and her wake up for the day is 730.
2) i don't DF and let her be to see how long she'll go. she'll wake up anywhere between 1230 (5 hour stretch from BT) to 130 (6 hr stretch) and then again at 400 when i shush pat her (but this wake up is horrific and it can take her 1.5 hours to finally get back to sleep - she's not playing, she is trying to get back to sleep but for some reason 530 is the magic time), and then she'll wake up at 530-600 for a feed and then wake for the day at 730.
her first feed of the day around 800am is always bad and i'm thinking it's because of her last feed of the night. she seems to do better with that feed with the first scenario above and barely feeds at all with the second scenario. i know it's a catch 22 situation - she's feeding at night because she hasn't had enough during the day and she's not having enough during the day because she's feeding at night - but i'm not sure what to do to break the cycle except not feed her and have a few rough nights to reset the pattern. is that what you'd recommend jessmum?
i still haven't got her completely consistent in terms of feed times and nap times during the day, but i do feed her consistently every 3 hours. with DD1, its hard to always be home for her to nap in the same place. DD2 is an angel baby though and seems to roll with it but i am committing to spending at least a week at home next week so that she can figure out her nights. do you think consistency of schedule might be the key?
jessmum i was wondering if it was time to gradually tweak her schedule and move her closer to a 4/4 and a 2 hour A time too, since she will be 4 months old tomorrow. but 1) i'm worried about her not getting enough feeds/calories in with the reduced number of feeds on the 4/4 schedule and 2) her present A time is 1.5 hours and she's yawning at the 1.25-1.5 hour mark. i guess i'm going to have to stretch it out VERY gradually but it's nice to hear you confirm what i was thinking.
her naps are suddenly amazing and she is taking a 2 hour nap (that i wake her up from) for her first nap, a 1.5 hr nap for her second and anywhere from 1hr-1.5 hrs for her third. she rarely goes down for a catnap.
what that means though is that she is typically up for 2.5ish hours (sometimes 3) before BT. isn't that crazy long? your advice is SO appreciated. in particular, i'm not sure how to phase out the night feeds - what have you done that worked for you?
as far as your other questions, yes she self settles at BT. when she wakes at night, she fusses (and i leave her) and sometimes i hear the mantra cry (i also leave her to work it out) but she never gets back to sleep by herself. pretty quickly (<5-10 mins) it escalates into an 'i need you' cry. i do shush pat and it can take forever (or at least it feels like that in the MOTN!) - about 40 mins. but as soon as i walk away and get comfortable again, she's crying for me. only sometimes it turns into the 'cough' cry which i know means hunger and when i hear that, i do feed her.
the last couple of nights, she has taken her paci again in the MOTN (she stopped doing that) but cries for it back 5-10 times when it falls out. she's never been very good with the paci and so i'm loathe to start it again considering she is 4 months.
with the reflux meds, thats one of my questions for her doc next week. but her reflux seems MUCH better. you still hear the odd swallow from time to time, but she doesn't bunch up and cry anymore. there are definite food intolerances and i've given up those foods - tomatoes, lemons, chocolate, almond milk. i also did dairy, caffeine and wheat elimination for a while but that didn't seem to affect her.
and as far as teething, i've not noticed anything (and i check often because she drools so much!)
as far as lapjmv and duo duo - this is what i did to get to this stage (which is 1000x better than where we were!). i watched the clock and her like a hawk and put her down 10 mins before her a time was done during the day. i do the 4s routine (even though she hated it for a while) and i shush patted her to sleep like the book said. in the beginning it felt like nothing was working. she would fall asleep after 20-40 mins and wake up 30-45 mins later, without fail. i never heard a mantra cry - just a full on cry so i would always go get her. it was super frustrating especially because we had so many NWs. but i had done cio with dd1 and although we've had no lasting consequences and she sleeps beautifully still, i just didn't want to go down that road again. so i stuck with it. the magic moment came when about a month into trying all the bw techniques consistently (but still on an erratic EAS routine, even though i had the order right), i was taking a shower and when i turned the shower off, i heard her crying. it was freezing cold that day and so i had to dry off and get clothes on before going to her. by the time i was dressed, she had stopped crying and had put herself to sleep (maybe 3 mins). i realized that i had heard her mantra cry (low in pitch but loud and angry almost). so her next nap of the day and all the rest of naps since, i do the 4s, i put her down in her crib awake and i say the same thing all the time 'it's time to go to sleep now' and i leave the room. she always is asleep within 5 mins if i've timed it right (which i usually do). if she is OT, she'll cry for 10 mins but always puts herself to sleep. that's when i realized that she CAN self-soothe if i let her be and it was my bad for not a) giving her a chance to self soothe and b) recognizing her mantra cries. at night i started giving her a (timed) 10 mins before i got her unless it was a very high pitched pain cry. overnight, she stopped waking up every 45mins-1.5hrs and started waking up 3-4 times. now i'm working on getting that down to 1-2 times. also during her naps, she still always wakes up at the 45 min mark but if i don't get her for 10 mins, she always puts herself back to sleep and sleeps for the entire 1.5-2 hours and i usually have to wake her up. hope that helps you guys!