Teaching nap sleep to a 3mo old when shush pat doesn't work?

[annesmama]

Yep we will keep working on it. Last night she ate at 9:30pm and went right to sleep after.  But she woke for 3 night feeds, 12a, 2:30a, 5:30a. I couldn't get her to sleep without feeding and especially those first two seemed early.   She woke herself up at 7:30a, which is probably the WU time we will be enforcing.

[becj86]

There probably will be a bit of disruption to the rest of her night pattern until she's more used to it. I think it will revert once she's more settled. You're essentially shifting her night earlier by a few hours.

[annesmama]

We've decided we will do BT feed/pajamas around 8pm and enforce BT at 9pm if she doesn't go to sleep earlier.   

Yesterday was a day of all-short naps (woke up happy though), followed by a looong evening A (4pm-9pm).  She went right to sleep at 9:10pm.  Only two NW (feeds): 1am, 5am.  I feel a lot more rested today!  Today morning she woke up at 8:10am.  We started trying to wake her gently at 7:50am (turn off white noise, turn up lights, gently shake her shoulder), but it took a bit.  Possibly we should try harder tomorrow.

I guess I'm a little concerned my presence might be becoming a BT prop -- I go to sleep when she does, and she doesn't seem to settle until I'm in bed next to her, not nursing, but just there, usually with a hand on her.  Should I worry?  But I'm so happy she went to sleep at BT with no nursing & no follow-up wakings!  And I'll be there when she wakes up in the night, so is it so bad?

EDIT: Also-- starting to try to extend A, but it's actually harder now that she self-settles!  When she's tired, she'll stick her thumb in her mouth and go to sleep in my arms.  (I'm usually carrying her toward the end of A-time because she wants cuddles.)  And for her first A, it's always 2 hours or less.  Second A sometimes gets up to 2h30m, but often it's less, and we're supposed to be pushing 3h by now...  Should I try to introduce some more stimulating activities?  Would that help?  Unfortunately, going anywhere by car isn't great because she always falls asleep in her carseat.  Walking sometimes puts her to sleep too. =\

[becj86]

It does sound like you might be setting up a prop with having to be beside her before she'll go to sleep. Is it something you would prefer not to continue long-term?

Its hard to know re: extending A time. Probably you need to be a bit more interesting to extend the A... talking to her, showing her things? I'm not sure there, my LO is an energiser bunny, I could count the times he's gone to sleep without prompting in the last 6 years on one hand.

[annesmama]

Right, long term we want to move that bedtime back to a more reasonable hour.

Two more nights of 12a/3a/6a feeds. Two nights ago BT wasn't great - lots of crying between 9 and 10 when she fell asleep. Last night was fine although off schedule - BT feed at 9 and then she only cried a little before going to sleep at 9:30. I think she is hungry, though, because she eats on both sides (fusses  if I try to give her just one) and she's still hungry for WU milk in the morning.

Is t possible it's hunger preventing her from doing longer A times? She often needs 3 hourly feeds when her naps go short, so maybe she just can't do more than 2:30 awake before she gets hungry?

[becj86]

It is possible. You can try a topup feed about an hour after the first E of each set so its more EAEAS. Eventually those topup feeds become time for solids...

She may be in a growth spurt at the moment if its particularly bad right now.

Who's waiting for who to be ready for bed? You waiting for DD or DD waiting for you? Just thinking she's almost certainly OT at BT with A times that long and from all the screaming and the waking shortly after going to sleep for the night. If you can get her down after a shorter A time, it will probably help a lot.

[annesmama]

Well, we start trying around 8pm but if she's happy, we leave the nightlight on. 9pm is our hard lights out, happy or no. She has never in her life stayed asleep when we put her to bed before 8 and we have tried many times. I think she just needs to adjust to an earlier bedtime more gradually. Last night she fell asleep at 8, but then she was awake and playing in her crib 8:30-9:30ish (don't know exactly as I fell asleep before her, I think.). She slept until 1:30 (feed) and woke up for a feed at 4am. At 6am she woke up for the day. So today's schedule has been quite odd

On the plus side, she hasn't been screaming for that interval before she really sleeps - she mostly plays in her crib and sometimes fusses.  And it's definitely getting shorter.

EDIT: A good night! Down at 8:15 with no trouble, fed at 9:30 and went back to sleep until 1:30 and 5;00 night feeds. Woke at 8:15. A new record!

[becj86]

Yay for a good night. Now is a good opportunity to push those A times a bit given she's had a long night.

Does she sleep with the nightlight on? If you have it off through the night, I'd put it off at when you put her down for the night even if that is 8pm so if she wakes, she thinks its night time.

[annesmama]

Yes, her A times have been (inconsistently and slowly) extending... yesterday, we had a morning A of 2:45 followed by a long nap!  She's self-settling for all her naps now and usually self-settles for BT too.  It's only when she wakes up an hour after BT that we have to help settle her.

"Nightlight" wasn't quite the right word, I guess.  It's the light on our nightstand that we leave on the dimmest setting while she winds down in her crib.  We turn it off if she's settling to sleep, and we turn it off at 9pm, settling or not.  Also, just to clarify, she doesn't spend the whole evening with NO naps at all -- she usually gets a 10 minute CN or two in the car or in the carrier.  We've just observed that if we let her take a full 40-minute nap after 4pm, we have more trouble at BT.

Today has been weird -- she's had short A times but is on her second long nap despite that.   Quite odd... 

Here was yesterday's EASY -- I think we're transitioning to 2 naps... seems like her natural rhythm might be 8-8?

WU & E 8:15
E 9:30
S 11:00-12:40 (1h40m after A=2:45)

E 12:50
S 3:00-3:40 (40m after A=2:20)

E 3:50
E 7:00
BT 8:30 (after A=4:50, with a 10 minute CN in the car)
  NF 9:30, didn't resettle to sleep until almost 10:30. Might be dealing with a prop here -- DH was trying to resettle her 10:00-10:30, but she settled quickly once I came in.
  NF 2:00
  NF 4:30 (half feed? I think I fell asleep)
  NF 6:30
WU 8:00 (still ate well at 8:15, despite all the night feeds)

[becj86]

BT 8:30 (after A=4:50, with a 10 minute CN in the car)  NF 9:30, didn't resettle to sleep until almost 10:30.

This is far more likely OT rather than a prop. There could be a prop component but OT is probably the main issue at play here. Even a 30min CN rather than 10min would likely help.

[annesmama]

Wouldn't we have more trouble putting her to sleep the first time if she were OT?  She's self-settling when she first goes to sleep...  I'm hopeful this won't last too long, though -- we're extending out the daytime A's and naps and we're slowly moving her BT up, so that evening A is getting shorter and shorter.

Yesterday we had two long naps!  Weirdly spaced, but long.  But at BT again, DH was home alone for that first night resettle and she didn't go until I got home.  I ended up feeding her because she was just soooo stressed and upset (and by that time it had been over 2.5 hours since last E).

WU 8:00
E 8:15
E 9:45
S 10:00-11:20 (1:20 nap on 2:00 A time. She fell asleep eating, oddly)

E 12:30
S 12:45-3:15 (2:30 nap on 1:25 A time, again fell asleep eating!?)

E 3:45
E 6:20 (then Mommy went to see her friends)
S 7:30 (Daddy put her to sleep without too much trouble after 3:45 A time)

NW/F 8:15-9:15 (DH tried to resettle until Mommy got home to screaming baby at 8:45.  Mommy tried to resettle without feeding, but she kept calming down and then getting upset again.  After a feed, she went to sleep until first NF at 1:30am)

[becj86]

Sometimes when OT, they crash then wake again and have a hard time settling.

Fell asleep eating milk or solids?

[annesmama]

Milk - solids are still just occasional tastes right now.

[becj86]

Very common - milk has sleepy substances in it.

[annesmama]

Hullo!  Been a while, so just posting an update.

- She's been waking up between 8-9am and mommy is too tired to wake her earlier.  We don't have any pressing need to do an earlier BT/WU, so we'll just work with this.

- A time by itself doesn't seem to affect her long/short naps.  Long A times (~3h) have generally led to short naps.  Short A times (1.5-2h) have led to long naps.

- The extra E seems to correlate to long naps, but no guarantees.  Today morning was a fail, for example.  E right before nap seems to lead to long naps, but don't want to make a habit of nursing-to-nap.  Playing around with the timing of the extra E now.

- The earlier we move bedtime, the worse the first NW gets.  With a late BT we either get no early NW at all or a short/happy one.  I'm suspecting she just prefers a later wakeup+bedtime like her mommy...

- Still doing 2-3 NFs