I need a plan!

[michaeljacknnugg]

DS2 is nearly 12 weeks and a predictable-ish pattern is starting to emerge  . I can generally get 3 naps (early I know, but he has long A times), with the first normally being a decently long one in the sling at the yard. The other two are hit and miss but a lot of the time I can get one in the bouncy chair with white noise on. Generally we are looking at 3-4hrs of day sleep, with bedtime around 6.30pm and wake up around 7.30am. This week I've tried to work with a set wake time (more or less) to help make the rest of the day more predictable.

We feed around 3.5hrs but I will happily bring that forward and we normally get an extra feed squeezed into the day that way. He will often go 5-6 hrs over the first part of the night.

Naps in the morning and afternoon are realistically only ever going to be on the go, due to horses and school run. And at weekend most will be based around DS1's activities. But a lot of days we can squeeze in one nap at home.

Which brings me to my need to plan! Currently we are so way off IS it is untrue. In the bouncy chair he needs the vibrate function on plus me rocking it plus white noise to go off, and he has not once been able to transition between sleep cycles in it. On me he might, in the sling he will, but not elsewhere.

At night he is in bed with me. I'm going to embrace it for now as I am so much more rested as a result, but by the summer he probably needs to be in his own bed. And it means that I'm getting no evening at all, not even the chance to brush my teeth or go to the toilet once he's asleep.

I think that with a bit of help I can get him to sleep in his baby hammock instead of his bouncy chair; I can use the white noise and bounce the hammock for him at first. We've been starting to cuddle up with a muslin at night so he can have that, too.

My question is, when do I start to try and make the change? I've only just managed to get him to nap in the chair, but if the 4 month sleep regression is coming should I be trying to get him into the hammock before then?

I want to start with the at-home naps and eventually progress to him sleeping at least the early part of the night in the hammock. Does that sound ok?

[michaeljacknnugg]

Oh, and at present we are cluster feeding a lot of the evening - a lot of nights this means him falling asleep at first and then waking seeming uncomfortable and unable to settle for a while. So from 6-9pm he's often only getting 30mins of sleep. Not sure what to do about that. I don't know if it's to do with a blocked nose he's had for weeks; I keep trying but just can't clear it!

[trimbler]

Hi there - wow, 12 weeks already Where did that time go?

Well, we were much the same with naps until around 4.5mo, they were almost all in sling during preschool runs or in the park with DS, I did manage to get one cot nap in most days, but usually short, although I worked on resettling and sometimes we got lucky! We also worked on going to bed in the cot (well, crib thing, can't quite remember when she went into the big cot but probably around the same time we did lots of sleep training around 4.5mo), so she did sleep there for the night. I think your plan sounds reasonable, and I think I would try for the hammock for at home naps, since you want him to sleep there at night before too long - it will give him more opportunities to learn how to sleep in there. Actually I'd probably choose personally to tackle both that one nap (on days when it's possible) and BT at the same time. But of course it's up to you what you decide will work best for you all I don't think it's too early to start at all, just remember it may be really frustrating to begin with, but if you get him to the point of being able to fall asleep in the hammock with just a shh and pat (wean gently from the rocking when you're ready) then once the 4mo SR hits he'll be in a good position to get through it. I think personally, I'd pick a time when you have a bit more support - eg over a weekend, or if your DH has a few days off at some point, then you can share the work IME, the good thing about having to do other naps on the go, is you have less to worry about if it all goes pear shaped, especially if he'll resettle in the sling

Do you want to post a sample day's routine? Settling in the hammock may be much easier with the 'right' A times etc...

Oh and with the evening unsettledness - what are you gut feelings? OT built up during the day? Discomfort from gas or something from all that feeding? UT if he's really LSN?? Or of course it could well be blocked nose - poor thing

[michaeljacknnugg]

Since I posted that it has all gone to pot  . Yesterday he had one long nap, 9-10.15ish in the sling and then despite my best efforts could only sleep for 2x20mins for the rest of the day. And then was too OT to get to sleep at bt and stayed up until 9.30pm  .

Today I have resorted to a walk in the rain with the sling (got 20 mins) and even feeding to sleep. He's had approx 1hr20 since WU at 7.30am. He's smiling and chatting though, but I'm tearing my hair out!

There is no typical day yet, but I'm aiming for something like this:
WU & E - 7 am
A 1hr45-2hrs
S 9-10.30 in sling at yard
E 10.30
A 1hr45 -2hrs
S 12-12.40 in bouncy chair at home
Then it all goes a bit awry, and depending on what we are up to he might or might not get a decently long nap in the afternoon. Obviously we got nowhere even near this today but I'm assuming the 12 week growth spurt and just feeding whenever it feels right.
I keep an eagle eye on him and rush him to bed as soon as I can, but with getting dinner etc the earliest it can really be is 6.30pm. And then I am stuck in bed with him, can't even get up to brush my teeth or change. My gut feel is that he needs the calories as he is growing so fast (has gone from 25th to over the 75th centile at last weighing) and when we do get a nice settled evening he then typically goes longer overnight.

I think I want to start with naps in the hammock. It feels too much to attempt bedtime too when things are all over the place, yk? At least I get to lie down at bedtime at present!

I don't think DH will be much help really. He refuses to try the sling and won't bounce him hard enough in the chair for him to go off  . Says he needs to learn to sleep with less input, ha!

[trimbler]

(((Hugs))) I remember how frustrating I found this stage! I'm always surprised when 3mo LOs manage 2h A, since mine barely managed that until more like 5mo, but I'm sure you've experimented with all sorts of things and come to realise he needs long As, right? Just be aware that some LOs go a bit crazy/hyper/happy when OT, so they may not seem tired but still have a hard time settling.

One question about visual stimulation - just because mine always struggled to get to sleep if there was any light - are you able to get the sleeping room pitch black? Are there distracting noises nearby? The white noise should help with that. When in the sling, can he look around or can you arrange the sling so that he can't look out? The only way we got decent naps by this age on the sling was by blocking out visual stimulation.

I'm sorry you don't feel you have much support from DH when it comes to sleep :\ Could he lie next to him for a bit so you can go to the bathroom etc?

[michaeljacknnugg]

I've mainly watched him in the sling, where he will fall asleep of his own accord in his own time, and yes he's pretty much on 2hrs every time. DS1 is also a long A time guy so it fits, yk? It's when we get busted naps and can't recover that we get the OT creeping in.

DH is home late and then takes over with DS1's bedtime, homework etc. It works most of the time but it will be pretty much me working out sleep. That said he did take both for a walk this afternoon to ensure a nap.

One question - this guy seems to like his long nights. He went 13hrs last night (start to finish, few feeds thrown in!) and I've got a feeling this is his way of catching up after the 'off' days. I've been wary of letting him dictate wakeup time because it means we have so little predictability, but after we've had 'one of those days' I'm tempted to let him sleep in. Otherwise we perpetuate the OT, right?

[trimbler]

Ooh that's good - glad you got a break this afternoon then I hope you made the most of it?

That's brilliant that he likes/can pull off long nights Great to know you can use that to help him catch up on OT I would say could you make BT earlier and catch up that way, but you already said you can't... Is there any way you could aim for a 7:30am WU on a regular basis and shift the whole routine accordingly? Or does that mess up horses and school runs? We actually had WU deliberately at 8am for a while with DD as it was the only way I could do bf (took forever!), nappy and school drop off (1h round trip) before she needed to nap, and I wanted that nap in the cot - mind you, she couldn't stretch that long until around 4.5mo I just suggest that as it means you could always do 6:30pm EBT when needed but have a bit less of a rush on other days where naps were better.

[michaeljacknnugg]

I could try, at least on days when we don't have to be anywhere. It does have a knock on effect on the rest of our plans, since I'm planning on hanging around at the yard until he's finished his first nap. Means planning on being there until around 11 which is a long time given that I turn around again at 3and am out of the house until about 5 doing the school run and bringing the horses in. It will get easier in a month or so when they will be out later and DH can potentially get them in on the way home.

So you'd let him sleep in to catch up, then? How long for? He does seem to tack on - after a particularly bad day he then slept 10-10.

I'm thinking I could maybe log his sleep total for a week or so and see what he averages. Is possible to need an average amount of sleep yet have long A times, or is that just a barking mad thought?

Managed to get a nap in his own room today . He's on my lap but it's progress! I put the white noise on and it's definitely starting to act as a cue for him. We have a little white noise thingy for the car seat, too. So I think I need to persevere with establishing cues and watch him for a routine that makes sense. What do you think?

[trimbler]

Wow - 10-10! Tbh I'd find it easier to set WU later and then do EBT when necessary, but I suspect it doesn't matter so much at this age if WU wanders around a bit - I guess how long you let him sleep in depends on how late you're willing for BT to be, iyswim? You'll probably find there's a bit of a compromise with the rest of your plans anyway, but I guess if you're waking him much earlier than he'd naturally wake, he may need A times shortened a little to compensate. Sorry, not much help I know, I guess you'll need to experiment a bit to see how far you can let him sleep in without messing the whole day up. I'd personally not go more than half an hour beyond your nominal WU time, but others will go an hour...it's about what works for you all

I think my DS had average sleep needs (sometimes even slightly low) but needed A times on the shorter side, which meant that he was always on the later end for nap transitions. If yours is the other way around, ie average sleep needs with long A times, I'd expect him to be dropping naps a little earlier than average - which fits with what's happening now, doesn't it?

[michaeljacknnugg]

Yes, we are generally on three naps if they are decent, four if we get the super short ones thrown in.

[michaeljacknnugg]

Short napped this morning but now asleep in the nest (hammock)  . Let's see how long it lasts.

Mind if I post his sleep times for a few days??

[trimbler]

Well done on the hammock nap Yes of course, post away, I should have some time tomorrow afternoon but out in the evening...

[michaeljacknnugg]

I haven't logged yet, will do a few days and then post. Ta!

[trimbler]

Ok

[michaeljacknnugg]

Checking in! I've logged the last week, now to find the time to post (ha!).

In the meantime, a summary:
We had fairly horrendous short naps all week, with a bit of resorting to feeding to sleep. Two hour A time seemed about right, but by the end of the week he was so tired and I had to get him into bed so quickly in the evening that there was barely time to eat.

So on Saturday when we had nowhere to be, I decided we would go for sling naps to get him caught up. One two hour nap later my eyes were out on stalks, and then he did it again! Since then we've had two long naps plus one short nap a day and he is SO much happier. Couldn't settle last night for bed, but I think that was wind as none of my usual tricks worked.

So we've gone forwards wrt routine and total sleep, but are still no closer to independent sleep. Tbh I'm quite happy to wear him for now, I can get loads done and don't have to worry about checking on him or resettle him when he wakes. Things will go a bit awry for the rest of the week now but I think we'll try and get at least a few days when he can just sleep and not have to fit around the school run etc (I can walk to get DS1 as the weather improves).

How does this sound, for now? We did get a couple of hammock naps and we will try again, probably on a nap that doesn't matter if it's short.

[trimbler]

So glad you managed to catch him up in the sling When we had preschool runs for DS we used to walk, the round trip would take me around an hour so DD would get a good nap in the sling and continue for a while after we got home - I never managed to get anything done with her in the sling though, not without waking her up, so I'd kind of sway and type away on here or on fb We then made a habit of lunch in the park after morning preschool, so again DD would sleep there and DS would get lots of running around time whilst she slept!

I really think your system is working for you, so keep at it until/unless it becomes a problem. By all means keep working on those hammock naps, try to be as regular as you can with them so that he gets a chance to learn, and if you can gradually 'help' him a bit less that will make things easier for you in the long run. If you do have a few days with DH (or someone else) around to take care of DS1, you could have a serious attempt at ST at that time - I waited until my DH had a week off work when DD was 4.5mo, it was a good age for us actually.

[michaeljacknnugg]

Yep, I think I'll carry on as we are for now. Since Saturday we've had such lovely long napsand our routine feels a lot better. I realised today that he'd only cried once!

I'm a much happier mum when naps go well and my big horse is enjoying some serious pampering with all the time we're spending at the yard   

[trimbler]

Brilliant