Requesting help and advice for numerous issues with my 4.5 month old

[Nikkirod]

Hello mamas and papas. I'm brand new here but have benefitted tremendously from the posts. I feel spoiled at the idea of personalized help so please know in advance how much gratitude I have for your time-I certainly know how limited it can be.

Summary of current situation: Sylvie is 4.5 months, the generally easy and happy, but has recently learned to roll and is coming off a GS so everything is mix d up.  I have fostered non-independent sleeping so I feel like it's time to help her learn to fall asleep without me.

She's a cat napper during the day, 30-40 mins. For the first three months she napped exclusively in a wrap and slept long naps. At 3.5 months she started cat napping even in the wrap so I switched to nursing her an laying her down asleep, usually took 10 minutes.  Since the sleep regression she sleeps 10-20 minutes, wakes up with the slightest noise and usually wants to keep my nipple in her mouth the whole time. If I remove it, she wakes. I SAHM so I often don't mind- she's my first and I adore holding her. But I know I am causing problems and think it's time to change some of this.

At night we co-sleep. I used to nurse her to asleep and key her down easily. Or nurse then husband rocks her till asleep.  Now it takes two hours (her cat naps lead to OT by BT).  Sh bused to sleep 7-8 hrs for the first stretch, now she does 4. She used to wake twice, now she wakes every hour.  I used to be able to nurse then lay her back down right away, now it takes at least a half hour to get her asleep enough to lay her down.  Husband used to be able to rock her, now it doesn't work well.  She is nipple obsessed and its no fault of her own!

Typical schedule is
WU 6 am
Nurse
Play
Nurse
Down at 7
WU 7:40
And so on through the day.
BT is between 6 and 7.

Sometimes I do get a longer nap and then I can structure two hours between naps but if she doesn't get a long nap and only sleeps for a half hour she can't stay up for longer than one hour between naps.

Also I wanted to note that in the middle of the night for the last two nights I have been frustrated with the night wakings and have been able to get her back to sleep with Shhh Pat. I have laid her on her side or belly because now she is rolling so we have unswaddled her.  I have tried maybe 10 times over the last couple of nights and it has worked twice.

I'm not sure what other information is relevant but I would be happy to respond to any other questions. Like everybody else, I have no plans to cry it out. And bed sharing is our plan for at least the first year. Also she is exclusively breast-fed.

Absolutely any advice or help would be incredibly useful. We plan to try pick up put down at some point but it sounds like we should wait until more like six months. So any advice for what should we should be doing in the next six weeks to try to get her to's go to bed alone and sleep longer stretches, Or generally get over this regression would be helpful.

[deb]

My first thought is that an hour isn't nearly enough time for her to be awake and get tired enough to sleep more than a catnap, and yes, the short naps can lead to restless night sleep - sleep begets sleep.

This is how we ended up handling short naps with my then 3.5-month-old, who was a MAJOR refluxer (which was part of the problem): How Tracy Helped Josie and her Family Get Past 45-Min. Naps!

I don't know how you'd feel about the suggestion, but will she take a pacifier/soother? My second had a VERY strong need to suck, and as a strongly introverted person, I had an equally strong need to have some time where I wasn't attached to another human, but wow, would she suck away on one of those win-win! Just a thought - not every parent wants to go there, and not every baby will take one, but it was a lifesaver for us.

[Nikkirod]

Thank you Deb! I'm an introvert too 

So she never took a paci despite her insanely strong need to suck.  Her doc didn't want her having a paci after 4 months so I gave up after two months of trying to give it to her and failing.


Your old post was super helpful- I read the whole thing twice. Clearly you understand what I'm going through! First, what are the "three stages"? Also, I appre your thoughts on the duration between naps. If she has a good nap she makes it two hours. So I should stretch her more than an hour even though she has all the sleep signs sixt minutes post cat nap? I've always been too afraid of OT.  I'll try your suggestion tomorrow for sure.

Last night I tried to dream feed but she woke up fully-it was awful!

Also, I've tried sitting next to her and sticking my nipple in her mouth is he instant she stirs (41 minutes) but that has only worked twice and she wouldn't let go of my nipple either time.  I also tried waking her five minutes before the 41 minute mark and nursing her back to sleep, that worked once but usually she just fully awakens.

[becj86]

The most important A time to stretch is that one first up in the morning, that should set you up for a better first nap and longer A times through the day. Don't worry too much about OT. An OT waking from a nap is much easier to resettle, as LO is tired average at this age is about 2hr A. The sleepy cues are likely habit by now, rather than truly being properly tired. 

[Nikkirod]

Thanks becj!  Its super helpful to hear that from both you and deb.  I am certainly going to try stretching her A time longer tomorrow.  Thanks for the tip about the first stretch being the most important--I actually normally get her down 45 minutes after she wakes because she seems so tired!!  Tomorrow will be different.

Does anyone have suggestions about getting her to sleep?  Is she too young to expect her to begin to soothe herself?  We have either nursed or rocked her to totally dead asleep her whole life.  Today was a supremely tired day so probably not the best day to start, but we did try putting her down for shh/pat tonight.  The first time it actually seemed like it was going to work.  Then she got worked up and we picked her up, tried again and she was totally out of sorts.  We need to try on a better day, I realize.  Husband is up there rocking her now.

But given that she's 4.5 months--should I be trying to get her to sleep in ways other than nursing or rocking or is this normal for this stage and at more like 6 months should I expect to be able to lay her down?

I've never been so tired in my life!  I know you all understand

[deb]

Somewhere there's a post about Elizabeth Pantley's "Gentle Removal" plan to help wean your baby of the nurse-to-sleep association. It's from her book "The No-Cry Sleep Solution," which you should be able to find at library or bookstore. Maybe mods can find the post and link?

I'm trying to remember the 3 stages of sleep; that kid turns 13YO at the end of this month, so some of this is hazy for me now. LOL

[Nikkirod]

No problem, Deb, and thanks again for replying.

I have Pantley's books next to me   I have tried both her suggestions for nipple removal (finger on chin below lip and finger with pressure under chin).  Neither has worked  

BUT I have only tried a couple times so maybe I just need to keep at it.

[becj86]

I think you're best off with shush pat given you've not really done any of this consistently. Shush pat is about teaching her to self settle, she doesn't just magically do it at a certain age. You're teaching her how to relax and go to sleep and gradually over time as you put her down more awake, she's doing more of that on her own.

At 4.5 months this will be easier than at 6 months. Around 6 months, they have a mental leap that results in them having trouble resettling back to sleep at every sleep cycle (every 45min or so) if they're not sleeping how they were when they went to sleep, so if you were there when she falls asleep, you'd likely have to be there to transition to have a nap of 1.5hr. This is actually a great age to sleep train

[deb]

No problem, Deb, and thanks again for replying.

I have Pantley's books next to me   I have tried both her suggestions for nipple removal (finger on chin below lip and finger with pressure under chin).  Neither has worked  

BUT I have only tried a couple times so maybe I just need to keep at it.

Yeah, that does take some doing! We ended up skipping it but only because DD would get sick every time we got started and she'd need the paci for comfort, so next time he wasn't sick we went cold turkey - but this was also at 6-7 months, so a different baby developmentally. The 2nd kid was the one we let have one till 2-1/2YO. But had #1 stayed healthy, I think we would have been done with it in 4-5 days; we were already makng some progress when she'd get sniffly or end up with an ear infection. :\

[Nikkirod]

Thank you beck and deb!

I am trying to put into practice both of your suggestions. Last night I was able to shush/pat her back to sleep after her first feeding. Boy did I feel like a million bucks.  Then she woke up again around four and just generally was very awake, I tried again but it didn't work and we ended up just letting her wake up for 45 minutes and then go back to sleep. I think the problem with that wake up is that she still goes down so early, 6 PM, Because she is so tired by the end of the day because of the short naps.

I tried stretching her two hours this morning before her first nap, and it was wild to see that you were both right I really don't think she was that tired at that hour mark. She's napping now so I'm curious to see what happens though I do think it's likely she will wake up after one cycle because she's been moving a lot.

I really appreciate the support and encouragement. It's clear to me that we need to start working on these things right now especially given the six-month development that I am now a little scared of. Can I ask a question about initiating shush/pat? Is it okay if basically I try it all the time but only push it when I can tell that it's going to work? And then can I hope that over time she will be more used to it and I can move into a place where I'm enforcing it more strictly, say after a few weeks. I guess what I'm getting at is I don't think I'm ready to just start using that method for every nap and every wakingright now, I would prefer to kind of ease her into it over a week or two weeks because she is so used to the breast. I am certain that she would not except this method for naps right now and I just don't think I have the energy to forgo naps. Also, I just generally would like to get her used to the method before expecting her to conform.

[Nikkirod]

Also, about Pantley's nipple removal. Can I ask about the sequence of events? Is the idea that I would nurse her till very sleepy remove the nipple while she's drowsy but awake in order to lay her down for shhh/ pat? Or were you thinking to use this as a general message for removing the nipple once I have nursed her to asleep in order to lay her down?

[deb]

I'm going to be no help with shh-pat - we failed at it miserably. LOL

The nipple removal....somehwere on BW is a Sticky with instructions.....AHA! Gentle Removal Plan

[becj86]

I tended to bank a good nap or two in the morning to keep the day on an even keel and do the other one or two naps and BT with shush pat. That gave me a good balance and actually if I'm totally honest, I had L on a solid routine where his body was used to sleeping at that time and I knew he was the right amount of tired before I used shush pat, so he wasn't OT, UT or learning what tired feels like as well as how to go to sleep.

I think you either want to nurse to sleep or do shush pat and teach independent sleep though. Nursing is lovely, I fed L til 2.5. If you're keen to keep nursing to sleep though, You may find independent sleep hard to come by, as you're providi a sleep association. I used it as an APOP (accidental parenting on purpose), so when L was sick, teething or OT, I would nurse him to sleep but other times I would expect he'd go to sleep independently. He still will ask me to stay in his room now if he's OT or scared or something and that's fine with me but I know he can go to sleep on his own. I imagine you could do IS for naps and nursing to sleep for BT if you're going to bed share. You may want to read a few threads on toddler sleep to see what you could be getting yourself in for there before deciding. Tracy said start as you mean to go on and that's pretty sound advice. Have a think how you want to be sleeping in a year or two and whether you want to do the work now or in a couple of months/years. It's always possible, takes longer the older they are though, if you're doing it whe you're ready. It can be really quick if you wait til they're ready but that could be waiting a long time, its different for every kid.

[Nikkirod]

Thanks becj. Thanks deb.  All of that is super helpful.

Can I ask for some support?  We had a hell of a weekend.  Each night Sylvie was up every hour or two.  I know you understand the exhaustion level.  So for this morning's nap I felt very strong willed about getting her to sleep on her own.

Basically I nursed her, took her off, shussed/patted her, repeat repeat.  There was a lot of crying involved--far more than I expected.  I could see it starting to work after 15 or so minutes and I felt like it was worth it so I continued.  It took about an hour, and maybe twenty removals.  She calmed down right away when I put her back on my nipple.  In the middle of the whole thing, it looked like she was giving in to it.  I would put her down and she almost tried to get comfortable.  Then she rejuvenated her anger and the last four or so rounds were hard--real crying.  The majority of it was hard fussing, but there was real crying by the end.  I am feeling awful--that is by far the most amount of crying she has ever done, and it was imposed by her mother!  I know I was right there with her, but I am feeling awful.  Are these methods supposed to work with no crying?  Or is limited fussing/crying expected and considered normal?

If she sleeps longer than one cycle, I will be encouraged to keep going.  But if it the same kind of nap, short non-refreshing, I will have a hard time believing all of that was worth it.

What do you think?

[deb]

When we had to ditch the paci for DD1 - she was waking CONSTANTLY for it, and she was the one who kept getting sick every time we tried the GR plan - we ended up going cold turkey and it took 3 days for her to get past that. The younger, however, WOULD NOT, no way no how, give it up, and we ended up caving after 4 days of screaming and short-napping. (She didn't do well with GR and I was suffering from depression and had zero emotional stamina to keep at it.)

I think Pantley suggests 10 days as enough time to really see success, but hopefully you'll see some encouraging signs after a couple of days as DD gets used to the new drill.