Restless 13w old - bedtime too late?

[Tabyria]

Hi there,

I've posted about short naps as LO does only 30-45min naps during the day. Her A time is right so we're working on extending with W2S and getting her used to falling asleep alone in a room.

But now I wonder if she isn't OT all day due to a bedtime that's too late. What makes me wonder is that she used to be very noisy and fidgety for the second half of the night but since she's started going for a longer first stretch (7h to 8h), she's also restless during the first part. It's a mix of moving around/doing little cries while asleep and waking up/struggling for up to 50min to go back to sleep by herself (but she eventually does). She only sleeps deeply and soundly for the first 2-3h of the night. She doesn't seem as rested and I'm definitely not.

Now, the thing is, she is awake for far too long in the evenings but I don't know how to get around that. She totally refuses to nap/catnap after 6.30pm. If I'm lucky I get a nap there just in time to bring her to 7pm but there are days where her timings mean that she wakes from her last nap at 5.30 or 6pm and she won't go back down for another nap later. That's a long gap until bedtime which is at 10pm. 

We don't chose that time, it's her natural rhythm: it used to be midnight until three weeks ago when it moved to 11pm and ten days ago we've brought it to 10pm. This week I've been trying to put her to bed at 9pm with mixed results: she went down at 9.30pm once but yesterday she fought it and fell asleep at 10.30pm instead. She doesn't cry when she's awake, more looking sad and tired. She still cluster feeds.a bit before bed.

Every day is a bit different and we're not on a 3h EASY yet but for example the 9.30pm day looked like this:
E 08.35
A 08.50
S 10.04

A 10.42
E 11.40
A 11.52
S 12.00

A 12.40
E 14.08
A 14.13
S 14.49 (took a little while to settle)

A 15.31
E 16.27
A 16.33
S 17.33 (took a while to settle)

A 18.18
E 18.56
A 19.12 (just sitting in bouncer while we were eating dinner)
    20.00 bath (brought forward from 8.30 due to early nap)
E 20.30 (long 35min feed in dark bedroom)
S 21.46 (in bed trying to settle for 40min)
Slept through until 6.45am (10h is unheard of but might be because of her jabs) but was restless.

We've tried in the past for a bedtime 1h30 after the last nap.(7-8ish) but she screams her head off just like for catnaps. It seems a bit of a witching hour for sleep.
Also, we're a bit scared to bring bedtime earlier and disturb the fact that she's now sleeping through! Although I might preferred being woken up once for a feed if she was less restless and therefore gave us both better quality sleep.

I'm planning on trying to bring bedtime earlier by 15min every couple of days and see if that works. Does it sound like the right plan?

[becj86]

I'm planning on trying to bring bedtime earlier by 15min every couple of days and see if that works. Does it sound like the right plan?

This is certainly one way to approach it. Essentially, we tend to recommend that at this age, you're shooting for a 12hr night, so if WU is 8:30am, BT should be around 8:30pm. If you look at it like that, you're probably not as far off as you think.

Also, we're a bit scared to bring bedtime earlier and disturb the fact that she's now sleeping through! Although I might preferred being woken up once for a feed if she was less restless and therefore gave us both better quality sleep.

I think this is a good reason to consider a dreamfeed. It may or may not work for you, but if you put LO to bed at 8pm (then if she's upset, you stay with her and help her settle to sleep but the lights don't go back on, you keep it dark and quiet so she can tell the difference between night and day. The DF is meant to shift the long stretch later in the night, so you'd feed her whilst she's asleep 3-4hr after she falls asleep for the night. I never did it because it meant me staying up much later than I normally would and I got more sleep by just getting up to feed when DS woke. It works well for plenty of people who go to bed around 10-11pm or later.

In terms of not wanting to go to sleep at BT, this can happen for a multitude of reasons, some of which she may grow out of, such as witching hour, etc. others of which, you may have to help her learn to cope with, eg. overstimulation from DH/siblings getting home at the end of the day. Ways you can help her include:
- bath (if it is calming for her - if its exciting, bath her some other time of the day)
- massage - heaps of videos on the web and classes with mothers groups, etc. give you ideas on how to do baby massage
- shush/pat or some variation that works for your DD that you use consistently every time it is sleep time. This works still for DS who's nearly 7. The songs I sang him instead of shushing when he was a baby still send him to sleep now if he's struggling.

A lot of the issue with BT is probably that she's OT after all the short naps all day and she's waiting to crash which could be why she's sleeping so well at night.

WRT the wriggling and noises - most babies sleep like this. Adults wriggle too, we just don't notice it as much now. Its hard not to hear every little noise they make and panic but as you get used to her noises, you will be able to sleep through them better and wake only for the times when you're needed. Maybe have a read of this: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64515.0

[Tabyria]

Thanks a lot for the answer!

We've managed twice to get her to fall asleep 9.00/9.15 in the last couple of days, by moving the bedtime routine to 7.15. It's long still (!) but I think she cluster feeds. She eats for 25min, falls asleep at the breast (in spite of me really trying to keep her awake. As you say, she crashes) but wakes up crying and will eat avidly for another 30min if put back on the breast. She does that two or three times and then she's good to fall asleep for the night (either by falling asleep on the breast, which bothers me or if I manage to wake her up enough, by settling in her bed. This takes longer but is ultimately what we want).

Re: dreamfeed. If we manage to get her to sleep around 8pm I might try that. I tried twice in the past. The first time she was so asleep she wouldn't open her lips at all. The second time, she woke up and screamed the place down, and the whole night was awful after that.

We don't really have overstimulation in the evenings. No siblings and DH is pretty low key when he comes back home. He gives her the bath and massage. She hates sush pat but we caress her head and put a hand on her chest and that works (when something can work that is...).

[becj86]

Re: dreamfeed. If we manage to get her to sleep around 8pm I might try that. I tried twice in the past. The first time she was so asleep she wouldn't open her lips at all. The second time, she woke up and screamed the place down, and the whole night was awful after that.

As I said, its not something you must do, its just something to consider.

Hope you're able to get the nights a bit more manageable for your family soon