Will I be helping settling him to sleep for ever? 5.5mths

[malibu_nikkus]

On about 3 occasions in the last 3 mths my lo has self settled to sleep, and twice he has slept for over 30 minutes.  When I put to bed, we wind down with a sleeping bag and song, then bed with paci.  I say goodnight and walk away. He will usually play with his Paci and the cry out for me.  I don't pat or anything, all I do is roll him on his side and keep one hand firmly on his shoulder. 

It's really frustrating, he makes no attempt to self settle. I'm done with this. All my kids were self settling by this age. I've worked so hard with him. He has even started a new thing where he will try and look at me and smile, rather than sleep.  He then ends up in a screaming overtired mess. I'm so done!!! Any thoughts or ideas? How can I get him to self settle? If I leave him to it, he will also just play with his Paci and then cry because he can't get it back in...should I burn the paci? tempting. 

[malibu_nikkus]

I demand feed my baby during the day which ends up 3.5-4hrly breast  feeds, so why is he waking consistently at night about every 3hrs for a feed? We've lost our long luscious 5hrly block. Is he really hungry? Should I supplement with formula? If he wakes before 3hrs I will resettle other ways, usually paci in with a hand on him (I put him to sleep for the night the same way).  EASY for yesterday

7.30am wake and feed
9.45 sleep
10.15 wake
11am feed
12.30 follow his lead, bed. Took  while to settle
1.30 sleep
2.00wake took a while but resettled, slept another 30mins
3.00pm wake and fees
6.00pm feed and bed, asleep by 6.30
9pm feed
12am feed
2.30 tried to resettle but couldn't get just lais wide Wake
3.30 am feed
6.30 wake and feed


Yes he has crappy naps regardless of when he goes to.bed so I've had to stop caring about wake times.  I follow his lead when he grizzled or rubs eyes.  Once a week he will have 1 nap longer than 1hr. If I try to replicate the same wake time for the next sleep or next day, it's pointless, we have short naps. He's happy when awake though.

[jessmum46]

Could you post your routine for us?

[malibu_nikkus]

This was yesterday's annoying routine.  The day before he had the same wake time for the first play session, SCREAMED going to sleep but then slept for 1.5hrs.

[jessmum46]

Hugs, I can feel your frustration!  I think you may have forgotten to add the routine to your post but I see you have another thread where you've posted what I assume is a fairly recent day?  I've now merged the two as I suspect the issues may be linked

I know you've said you get inconsistent naps with same awake times, but what I notice is your awake times are quite short for a 5.5/nearly 6mo and that may be part of the problem.  He may resist because the A time is too short, sometimes short nap because of UT and then at other times long nap as a 'catch up' after a broken night or series of short naps.  I'd bump to 2h30 consistently (at this age tired signs are less reliable) and then up to 2h45/3h if still getting a lot of resistance. 

At night it may be a combination of short A times and the fact that he isn't an independent sleeper which is causing the frequent waking.  He may well also be hungry at times, it's not uncommon nearing 6 months for night feeds to increase (esp for breastfed babies) until they are established on solids in addition to milk.  Personally I wouldn't feed more often at night than in the day, so would persist in resettling by other means if he wakes before 3.5-4h.  He will make up in the day what he misses at night if it is genuinely hunger. 

I think longer A times will make this easier on you, and I'd assess the effect of that before changing much else, but ultimately if you want him to self-settle you have to pick a plan for sleep training and see it through. If he's used to settling with a firm hand on him the maybe try a gradual withdrawal technique - e.g. Lighter pressure, then move to hand on until drowsy but not asleep, then til calm, then just sit next to bed, then move away etc over a period of several days.  Of course PUPD is also an option if you wanted to stop using the paci?

What do you think?

[malibu_nikkus]

Yes.  I want to stop using the paci. If left awake in the cot, he just keeps playing with and not being able to replug. Then gets into an overtired state because he won't go to sleep without it and is awake when should be sleeping. Do you think it would be best to get rid of it, or is this a stage with tummy use that will fix itself? My other kids didn't use one, so I don't really know the ins and outs of dummy use.

The thing with longer wake times is after 30mins I can now resettle for another 30mins during his second nap...hooray!!!! But he Screams going to sleep like he's really overtired. Is it just his body getting used to a longer wake time? I thought if a baby goes to sleep fairly peacefully, that's a sign of a good wake time, no?

After a 3hr wake time just now (by default.  We went for a walk and of course he doesn't nap in the stroller!), I got him to sleep fairly quickly, but he is jolting a lot in his sleep.  Would you say 3hr is too long for him right now? He's handling the jolts on his own, they aren't waking him fully.

Given that he always has short naps, how will I know the wake time is right? Or are you expecting with a rapid increase in wake times, he should start to sleep longer?

How come after all this time of settling him.IN his cot, he still isn't good at self settling? By the same age, my daughter would settle on her own with you sitting next to the crib.  Ugh! That's why I'm wondering if the paci is causing all the issues...what do you think?

Thanks again  for all of your help

[malibu_nikkus]

One more question. Would it be worth supplementing with formula for the night feeds, perhaps giving formula as a dream feed. Would that help at all?

[KBolton]

Hi there,

Welldone on getting him to resettle! It's great when you have a break through like that.

As you are so close to weaning age, I personally wouldn't give formula as in a few weeks food will start to help out. I'm not being snobbish about breast is best, as I give breast and formula to my LO due to a low milk supply. I would have loved her to be solely breast fed. Are you doing night feeds with a bottle? This might make those night wakings easier.

I have a 5mo and she started waking every few hours and I kept on feeding and resettling but she wasn't taking full feeds. I therefore knew she was waking out of habit more than hunger. In my research I came across The Core Night method. Essentially after the dream feed (or waking up) the baby shouldn't be fed again before 4am. Obviously, you don't want to starve your baby, so I normally start resettling and see how much resistance I get. It worked really well for us. I never had much success with dream feeds, as it really disrupted her sleeping pattern (and she would wake every couple of hours after) so I let her wake naturally. However, if she wakes again I resettle her now without a feed. There was a bit of resistance at first as I was breaking a habit but she now does 1 night feed and wakes around 6.30am.

in my research other causes for night wakings are too much nap time during the day (from your post, I don't think this is you). I think Tracy says, no naps over 2 hours.

In the baby whisperer there is a section where Tracy discusses a baby who needs less nap time. I was trying to get my LO to take long lovely naps, but she's really not interested and never has been a big daytime sleeper. She's bright eyed and bushy-tailed after shorter ones (she is completing sleep cycles). I get one big nap a day and two 45mins. It makes following EASY impossible, but she refuses to nap for longer and is ready to play after recharging her batteries. I went through a patch of resettling her for longer nap, but she really fought me and if She did go down, she slept less at night. I hope you get good long naps, but if your baby is happy on shorter ones and is completing sleep cycles.... I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Best of luck!

[malibu_nikkus]

Hmm.  Completing sleep cycles.  Is a 30min nap completing sleep cycles?

[KBolton]

Each baby is different, but normally they are around 40-45minutes.

I forgot to mention, that my LO used to scream to sleep for around 2-3months whilst 'nice' sleep training. She has stopped now, but if I mess up timings and she gets overtired she does have a bit of a cry.

[jessmum46]

I never used a dummy so am not best placed to advise, but they can certainly learn to replug themselves from 7/8 months onwards.  I think probably though that he is playing because he is UT - if you lengthen the A times you may solve that issue   If he is jolting but not waking fully, I'd say he's getting used to the longer A times - just try to hang in there.  There's always an adjustment period

I wouldn't personally add formula - if he's hungry, just breastfeed him more often   Formula can cause some tummy upset for babies new to it, and I don't think that hunger is likely to be the sole cause for your NWs.  But if you wish to you obviously can try it - it's totally up to you!

30 mins naps are classically OT but can be accumulated OT rather than the A time being wrong per se.  I've also seen LOs wake happy at 30 mins when they are very UT....

[malibu_nikkus]

So something truly amazing has happened. My little guy now sleeps 1 x 2hr nap a day and 1 x 30min.  His golden wake time is aeound 3hrs.  My question...why is he still waking every 2-3hrs at night, mostly 2hrly and after 3, i cant put him back tonsleep and ends up in bed with me.  I now mostly just stand next to his crib and put dummy in and juat wait till asleep. Sometimes, he will need me to roll him on his side.  Bottom line is, even if he self settles in his cot, he is still waking often in the night. If he wakes before 3hrs, i dont feed. I dont know what to do.

[jessmum46]

Is the longer nap morning or afternoon?  If he's only having 30 mins in the afternoon he could well be OT at bedtime which may not be helping.  Could you post the EASY for us?

Just to check - no chance discomfort could be playing a part?

I do wonder if the paci is the issue.....If you are sure pain is no issue then I think realistically the next step has to be committing to proper sleep training where you see your plan through to sleep at bedtime and all night wakings, even if that takes a long time.  PUPD is definitely an option if you are ok getting rid of the paci?