18 weeks, so many problems!!

[4isstillnighttime]

Hello!

This is my third baby, you would think I would know what to do!!

DS3 is nearly 5 months. Had a tongue tie divided at birth, otherwise really well. EBF. Slept well (easy to settle, 1 or 2 night feeds) til 4 months....then we had a sleep regression combined with a really bad cold, combined with a drop in his weight. So I upped his feeds (did an EAEASY), fed him at every NW, added a DF.....and now it has all gone wrong.

The wrong starts early in the morning, when his sleep is really fitful from about 5. I feed at 6 and aim for 2h awake....although the first nap has to fit around nursery drop off so sometimes it is more. That nap is always short and in the car. Even if I keep driving, try to transfer to cot, transfer to buggy, it doesn't get any longer. But then he is shattered for the whole of the next A time and will go to sleep again after about an hour if he is in the sling or something, do another short nap and then we are ok.

He usually manages one long nap in the day and 2 short, or sometimes 1 long and 3 short. I try for at least one nap in the cot per day, lunchtime one if we are home and morning one on non nursery days.

He is now waking at least every 3 hours overnight for feeds. I can sometimes settle him with a dummy if it is less than 3 hours, but he is often just awake and chatting (loudly!!). He doesn't really like his dummy but is an obliging soul so will suck it if I really want him to, quite often falls asleep without it though at bedtime (naps are in the sling or with dummy in the cot)

I feel like I maybe need to reduce his A time in the day (had tried increasing it to 2h15 or 2h30 to try and get longer naps but I wonder if he is OT.  But the first nap can't be earlier than 8 or later than 8:30 due to nursery.

I'm in such a mess and I can FEEL my sleep anxiety coming on....he looks exhausted, he has been awake for an hour and is yawning away. All these questions in my head - I don't want to night wean, but do I need to properly ST? Is he OT or UT? Is the BF a prop? Should I put him in his own room?

Please help!!

[trimbler]

Hugs for the sleep anxiety, I know all too well how that feels You're right in the thick of the 4mo SR, so do hang on in there... You shouldn't need to night wean at this stage, he's still so young, of course there's the 4mo GS too! And maybe a ww or teething or who knows what else going on too... How's he going to sleep for that cot nap? And BT? If not independent (mine weren't completely IS at this stage, but working towards it), you could take steps in that direction. Is it possible to get a longer/resettled nap out of him in the sling/pram/car at all? With both mine, I survived on knowing I could get one nice long nap a day that way. So when he short naps in the car on the way to nursery, maybe you could take him out in the sling a little later for his next nap, and try and resettle him if he short-naps, so he can have a good restorative nap? Then he may be more able to do a good cot nap next, or even if not, he's still had a good sleep so won't be quite so tired come BT? I'd be surprised if he needed more than 2h A, but then again mine were always on the low side for A times. Perhaps post a couple of recent days EASY?

[4isstillnighttime]

Thanks for the reply!!

At bedtime he has a massage and clean pjs, sleeping bag, breastfeed then bed. He usually drops off during feed, but I make sure he is awake when his head hits the cot. He then looks at his mobile and goes to sleep, sometimes with a dummy, sometimes with me stroking his head. At nap time if it is in the cot it's clean nappy, sleeping bag, dummy and I stroke his head til he is asleep.

I don't have any accurate EASY to post as it made me SO ANXIOUS last time  but I am doing one today! Yesterday, more or les, he did:

Awake 6:00
E 6:00 and 7:00 (not all that hungry, has been feeding all night!)
S 8:30 - 9:00 in car

E 9:00
Fell asleep 10:30 in sling on the way to our baby sensory class. Slept for about 30 minutes so up again at 11.
E 12:00. (Cranky!!)

S 1300-1430 in sling at home
E 14:30

S1600-1630 in sling again (we had lots of jobs!)

BT 7:00, fell asleep really quickly. NW 10:00, 0100, 0400 then was awake at 6 when DH got up - not sure how long he had been awake though!!

His sleepy cues are hard to read because he is always so smily and happy unless he is REAPLY overtired!!

[4isstillnighttime]

But yes, inevitably he gets at least one nap in the sling so rather than thinking about that as failed parenting I will think that I am getting him some restorative sleep!! Thanks for the tip! And I am logging a proper EASY for your perusal tomorrow. I think maybe I have pushed his A times too far, too fast. And also he is definitely growing, and he rolled over today, and he is chewy and dribbly....so it could be all of those things!

Thank you! I think prob he is fairly normal and I need to chill out a bit!!

[trimbler]

But yes, inevitably he gets at least one nap in the sling so rather than thinking about that as failed parenting I will think that I am getting him some restorative sleep!!

Yes, definitely I know it's hard work though I'd tend to agree that his A times seem quite long, given his short naps. Eg the day you posted I'd have probably tried to get him back down again a bit sooner before the class, ie iiwm I'd have left home earlier and taken a longer walk there, in the hope that he'd have got off earlier. Actually by this age I'd often try to ( safely!) cover their face in the sling a bit, to block out some of the visual distractions, otherwise there was just too much to look at. But anyway, the last thing I want to do is encourage you to get obsessed by sleep However IME the second time around you have other restrictions on routine due to the older LO(s) and so some of the tweaking is taken out of your control, which is kind of freeing in a way

[4isstillnighttime]

Ok, I have 2 EASYs. A good day and a car crash 

Wake up 0600
E 0630 or so
S 08:10 - 08:45
E 09:30
S 10:30 - 1300     
E 13:00
S 15:15 - 15:45
E 16:00
E 19:00

Didn't go to sleep til nearly 8  - twins creating and was v OT. Went to sleep with dummy. NW 0100, 0300, 0400, 0500. Up for the day at about 6 but had been awake and chatting for a while before that

Today: can't remember the e times but napped:
0815-0845 in car
09:35 -10:20 in car on the way back from shops
11:30 - 12 - fell asleep feeding.
1:45 - 3:30 - fell asleep feeding again and slept on me.
17:45 - 1800 in car

So today he has been v sleepy and grumpy, not keen to feed at all, teeny tiny A times. Like a newborn!

So hopefully today was a blip and we can work more towards yesterday. My questions are thigh:

1. Shall I aim for A of about 2 h after good nap, 1:45 after bad?
2. If he has a little evening cat nap to get him to BT, do I do another 1:45 til bed? He has just fallen asleep feeding so this was obviously a bit long (2h)

Thanks!!!!!   

[4isstillnighttime]

And you are right - there are some things that are set, so there is nothing I can do about nursery times for example....so it gives me some fixed points in my day which is nice!!

[trimbler]

Well I would say that 1h 45 seems a bit long after a 30min nap, but it seems to have worked yesterday Oh it's hard isn't it! Um... How did he seem after the 30min pm nap yesterday? Really tired, or just like he'd had enough sleep and didn't need any more? Think it may be more a case of keeping an eye on how he is after a short nap  to judge whether it was OT or UT. A times will be increasing around now, but you don 'to want to push too hard and get OT.

In answer to your second question, I'd keep the A time after an evening CN as short as possible really - most LOs it seems tend to accumulate a lot of tiredness during the day and then can't manage as long an A time before bed. Consider the A time overall over the day when you think about what time to aim for BT. So yesterday he'd had about 10.5h before he went to sleep, right?? Ok I know you tried for BT earlier. I know you want to fit all the feeds in, but have you tried cluster feeding, say just 2h apart, or even less, before BT? Sometimes just 1h is all they need after a teeny CN before BT. Sounds like he was just really OT by BT yesterday and I reckon that contributed to the unsettled night and sleepy day today - glad he managed to catch up with himself a bit though, it seems.

Hope you feel better about tomorrow

[4isstillnighttime]

I think I have been worrying too much that by having too short an A time in the morning I will reinforce his early waking. I've got 4 days at home now (nursery is only mon-wed) so I am going to try a short first A and a nap in his cot then. For a bout a week he has only really slept fitfully from about 4 - might feed back to sleep but wakes up if I put him down, wakes up with any little noise. I think because of that even if he does drop back off he is pretty tired when he finally gets up!!

So the plan for these 4 days is: 1.5 h first A (if he is UT) he can have a short UT nap and try to address any residual OT. I like the idea of covering his face in the sling too - he is such a nosy parker!!

Thanks!

[trimbler]

Hmm tricky, I'm not sure about 1h 30, I guess I was thinking more like no more than 2h, possibly 1h 45 but I probably wouldn't go too much shorter... Hard to tell until you try, of course! Many LOs at this age like their first A a bit shorter than the others, but as you know they're all different

Do you try to resettle after a short nap in the cot? Some prefer not to bother and just get them up and make that A time short and go out to attempt a longer nap in the sling afterwards. I used to try to resettle DD if DS was at school or watching a DVD, but otherwise just got her up.

Oh I'd meant to ask whether you swaddle, keep the room really dark, use white noise etc? Not that you need to, but it can help - although I probably wouldn't introduce a swaddle at this stage if he's not used to it. Also wondered whether some of the NWs might be sleep associations, if he goes to sleep with you stroking his head and a dummy, when he wakes at night he may feel he needs to have those conditions recreated in order to go back to sleep, etc etc, I'm sure you know all that anyway, just something to bear in mind

[4isstillnighttime]

Well....we had another dreadful time from 4 onwards...but did finally settle and sleep between 6 and 6:30 ish. So I popped him in the sling and he slept 8:15 - 9:15, then 11:30-1:15 in his cot with no resettling (amazing!) then 3-3:45. But I couldn't get another nap, try as I might, and I couldn't get him into bed til 6:15, then he didn't settle til 7. Twins were really OT too as they had a no nap day but it was horrific at bedtime here, as soon as I got one settled one of the others would start up again and wake them!! So he was a screaming mess by the time he went to sleep and I'm sure I will pay for it tonight!!

I don't swaddle, no white noise (although that's a good idea and I might start it!) and the room is not v dark. Def things to work on! I do resettle on cot assuming the twins are out of the way though, but only for 10 mins as it is too stressful!!

I'm sure the dummy and head stroking is a prop, but it is how I sleep trained the twins as it was minimal crying and anyone can do it - helped when I went back to work as I do nights and it meant that it is easy for DH to get them back to sleep. Also one of my boys is a thumb sicker and his teeth are a mess already so I am keen to avoid an other one. I know the issues though - that was part of the trouble tonight, as soon as I thought he was asleep he would knock the dummy out and wake up.

If I get another day like this and can't get another CN in....do I then just try for bedtime as early as I can? And if we have another rotten night, do I just AP it all day and hope he sorts himself out?

Thank you  I am working so hard on keeping this in perspective. Tomorrow is another day, I haven't done him any harm by letting him get OT, he will sort himself out.....

[trimbler]

You're doing so well 4mo is just so hard, and with toddler twins too - amazing! He's probably on the cusp of doing 3 naps anyway, yk, 2 longer ones and one CN. By all means try EBT, he may just surprise you... But so hard when you have the twins' BTs to deal with too, right? I often found at this stage that I'd try for another nap in the sling, at least it was kind of down time, if it clearly wasn't working it would be straight into BT routine.

Sorry didn't have much time just want to say keep on as you are, and let's celebrate every wonder-nap like today's At least you know he can do it, even if it's not every day!

[4isstillnighttime]

Sorry for not replying straight away, everyone has been ill again and we are frazzled! I have been following your advice and going for one good nap per day in the sling, then whatever else happens, happens. I am also very reluctantly thinking I am going to have to do some sleep training after he woke up a million times in the night and would only settle with BF - we are all shattered. I think there has been too much AP going on. Will wait until he is well again and start - hope it is easier than with the twins, that nearly sent me over the edge.

I just have one more quick question for you - what do we do about the early morning waking? Obviously the clocks have changed which isn't his fault, but he was wide awake at 4:30 this morning and just lay in our bed chatting while I held the pillow over my head and tried to nap.
I have been giving him a 1h45 first A time which is a pain but he has then for the last few days had a long nap then. But he has been waking from his last nap at 3:30 or so and so he is ending up having a hard-won cat nap at about 6, as I just can't get him to bed before 7. He still goes to bed fine (I feed him or rock him to sleep if he is v OT) but nothing will get him to sleep later in the morning. And he looks exhausted.

Should I try and extend that first A time? Or shorten the nap? This morning it was only 20 mins after an A time of 2h15.....but what can I do? If he gets up at 4:30 the day is just so long til bedtime!!

[trimbler]

Hiya, sorry not to have got back to you until now - in a similar boat here with illness...

So was he waking at 5.30am before the clock change, and now consistently 4.30am, or is it a bit more variable than that? You're probably right in needing to do a little more ST once he's well - and I doubt very much that it could possibly be harder than the twins, I honestly have no idea how anyone manages to do that From what I remember this early morning waking is pretty normal around this age, with all that's going on. Any chance he's hungry and a quick bf would help settle him? If not, I guess there are probably two different approaches to choose from: (i) gradually shift his WU time later by attempting to shift the whole routine, (ii) try to resettle after he wakes early until a time that you decide to begin the day, and try fixing the first nap time, or fix it within a range that you're comfortable with. You may end up with more OT going the second route but perhaps you could use the sling a bit more to help him catch up, until he knows when the day begins?

Personally, I had to fix the time of the first nap at this age due to preschool drop off, so if DD woke early, we wouldn't get her up until whatever time it was (7.30 I think) and I'd get her down for 9.20 when we got home. Yes it meant OT which wasn't fun if she didn't resettle, although sometimes she did. Then the second nap was a longer nap in the sling whilst I collected DS and we had lunch in the park. So that reset her, at least that was the idea! She'd then do a 3rd nap of variable quality at home and EBT if necessary, since I could never get a 4th nap out of her by this stage. I don't know if that helps, it's just one possibility of many

What do you think you'll try? (((Hugs))) 4.30 is hard!

[4isstillnighttime]

Yes, this is exactly what I was thinking! That I will set the first nap and just deal with the fallout later. He made it til 5:30 today (asleep in bed with me with a nipple in his mouth  ) so I popped him in his cot at 7:30 and he went down beautifully. Only did 45 mins but then that worked out quite well as we went to nursery at 8:30 and I had a bit of time on my own with the twins first. My DH gets up at 5:30 (so does DT1 quite often) so maybe asking him to sleep through that is a bit much!

So, I think i will do (as I have today):

WU 5:30
Nap 1 7:30-8:30 at the latest
Nap 2 10:20 - 12 (in sling - then he will hopefully catch up)
Nap 3 2:15 - ideally 4ish (in cot at the moment)
Aim for bed at 6:30 or so.

That will mean I can leave the twins downstairs watching peppa while I settle him (hopefully!) and then have my hands free to have a nicer bedtime with them at 7:30. Last night I was feeding a grumpy OT baby, wiping a pooey bottom and trying to talk DT1 out of having a tantrum in the bath. It was not a great parenting moment.

Thank you so much for all your help  hope the kids are better!!