Sorry my post is long and not more organized. I've been reading the forum for months and wanted to post our story for help. I finally found the time to do it and I'm just trying to include all the information I can think of.
I have an angel/textbook baby who is a week shy of 6 months. You know the drill - she slept wonderfully at night until about 3 months. I started her on EASY at 6 weeks, and we transitioned to 4 hour around 5 months old. Her sleep is becoming VERY fitful at night and I do not know what I am doing wrong!!
She used to at least give me a 5 or 6 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, but now she usually wakes up after 2.5-3 hours and then it's every 2 hours after that. I usually try to send DH in to put her back down at the first waking, then I feed her at the second, then he goes back in for the third, and then I try to not nurse again after that but sometimes I give in because we are so desperate for sleep.
We used PU/PD and shush/pat around 3-4 months to get her sleeping in her own crib and it worked great. She responded quickly to it and it was an easy transition. Somewhere along the way though we stopped doing it. She goes down on her own pretty quickly for bedtime. Sometimes I have to pick her up and sing another song if she isn't drowsy enough but usually no problem there. For NWs when I feed her I nurse to sleep and DH had been rocking her back to sleep in his arms then putting her back in the crib. One week ago we decided we'd had enough and committed to PUPD again. I was prepared for many rough nights but it worked great and FAST! The first night she slept through the night with only a 10 min PUPD at 10:30, the second night she only woke once to feed, the third night similar. I thought we were in the clear!!! And then....it's all been slowly deteriorating since then. We've now had 5 nights in a row of horrible sleep and we are right back where we started. I do not know what happened but it just seems PUPD stopped working.
During our PUPD sessions she will often get quiet and roll over like she is going back to sleep but she just wakes right back up crying within a couple of minutes. Over and over and over again. Or we will sneak out of the room and as soon as my head hits my pillow she wakes right back up! She is very mobile - rolling and tossing in her crib all night. Also THREE nights this week she woke up at 4 or 4:30 and we tried getting her back down for 1.5 hours before just giving up and getting up with her. I do not know what to do, I feel like my there must be a way to solve this baby puzzle but I feel like I try everything and nothing works! We combo feed because I have a low supply. She is average weight and I do not think she is eating at night for hunger. We stopped swaddling months ago and she does not rely on a pacifier - only started taking one a month ago so sometimes we give it to her at night but not always.
One good thing that resulted in PUPD is that it extended her naps - she used to wake at 45 mins always but all this week she has been sleeping for a good 1.5-2 hours. During the daytime she is an angel. Sometimes I wonder if her body clock is taking over a bit and it's not just about her awake time. Her body may be used to falling asleep at certain times of the day and on days that the schedule gets thrown off she is a nightmare to put down until her usual nap time. Or maybe she just needs longer awake times and I don't realize it?
Here is her EASY.
Wake 6am
E 6am (nurse + 3 oz bottle)
A (2h-2h15m)
S 8:00-9:30-9:45
E 10am (6 oz bottle)
A (2h-2h15m)
S 11:30/12:00-2:00 (long nap here at daycare - they sush/pat her to extend her nap till 2)
E 2:00 (6 oz bottle)
E 3:30/4:00 *
A (3 hours - It used to be 2 but she won't fall asleep until about 5pm now)**
S 5:00-5:30
Bathtime 6:15
E 6:30/7:00 (Nurse + 4/5 oz bottle. She usually doesn't nurse well for this feeding but I still try. She will take the bottle though)
Bedtime 7-7:30 depending on her last nap* I pick her up from daycare at 3 and like to nurse her when we get home around 3:30-4:00 to reconnect and also bc I have a low milk supply and don't respond well to pump, so I'm trying to get in some extra nursing.
**We dropped to 3 naps a few weeks ago bc she had a week straight of refusing the 4th nap. Now it's getting harder to put her down for the 3rd nap too. All this week she won't fall asleep until 5 pm. Lately, sometimes I just nurse her to sleep in our bed for this nap so we can take a catnap together, or I'll run some errands with her and she falls asleep in the stroller.
