miserable with short naps and so many nightwakings...11 wks

[mandykittie]

Well, we've been working around our reflux issues to keep on EASY, but it's been tough, and seems to be getting worse. The reflux is back under control (we switched to a 'better' drug), but he's still napping just 45 min at a time and waking up all night long. Between this and a currently whiney, sour 2.75 year old, I'm pretty spent! I think I just need some advice from someone with a clear head   
Anyhow, here's how our day's been going...

7:30 ish, awake, breastfeed
8:30 ready for a nap, asleep by 9
9:45 (precisely) awake, asking to eat, cranky, crying, fussy, but I can't feed him more often than every 2 3/4-3 hours or he spits it ALL up
10:15 feed
naps every 1 - 1.5 hours the rest of the day, feedings every 2 hrs 45 min or 3 hrs if I can stretch it. Sometimes I can resettle one nap (with rocking, then I have to hold him) and he'll sleep for two hours or so. If not, he's really cranky. Either way, he generally cries and is fussy off and on for the entire day, rediculously overtired.
7ish, bed. He's so tired he won't stay awake any later (I'm trying to keep him up later tonight, to see what happens with naps tomorrow).
Wakes 11:30 (if I'm lucky, sometimes it's 10:30), and usually every 2-3 hours after that, awake and feeding for 15-20 minutes at a time. -- sometimes up to five times per night
7:30ish am, wakes for the day

he's just so fussy all the time, I think because he won't sleep more. I'm wondering if he's sleeping too much at night? Could this make his naps shorter? He's falling asleep in his bed, by himself (I soothe for three minutes, he fusses for five more, then is asleep for 45 min...to the second). If I go in and pat, it just seems to wake him up more. If I pick him up and rock him he'll sometimes go back to sleep, but then I have to hold him for at least 20 min or he'll wake up. Tough with a toddler! If I can't resettle him, he is really, really crabby instead of merely fussy (screaming as I carry him around the house trying to soothe him).  I've thought that if he would take a pacifier we would have better luck resettling, since he roots around, but he just won't take any of the ten pacis we've tried (on rare occasions our finger will do, but not often).  If I offer a feed, he'll often fall right back to sleep. 

Any ideas? I'm so far past the end of my rope I can't even say.

My gratitude knows no bounds, truly. 
Amanda                  

[GG]

Bumping this back to the front of the queue... sorry for the delay in answering.

I believe that Jasper may be waking up so often at night in part because he's hungry, in part out of habit.  You said he nurses for 15-20 min, but how does he eat each time?  Is it hungry gulping?  Do you think he eats well?  I have a feeling that he likes the nursing-to-sleep part as well so, when he wakes up, he expects to nurse whether he's hungry or not.  I can sympathize with how tired you are but, if possible,  try to keep track of how he eats at each waking and see if you can notice a trend.  If you do, you'll probably have to do a pat/shush on those times that he's only waking up to suckle.  (I recently experienced this and, although my ds wasn't happy about it, I had to PU/PD so that he didn't nurse to sleep.)

Regarding his sleeping too much at night, that's not the case.  It looks as if he's getting 12 hours, which is fine.  If he was getting enough sleep in the day then he wouldn't be so cranky.  You definitely need to work on the naps.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's an easy way around it... you need to do some pat/shush as he's waking up to get him back to sleep.  Try to be there just as he starts waking up and start pat/shush.  Don't do it before because it may wake him (which seems to be the case according to your post).

An alternative is to make sure you are getting him down for a nap exactly when you see his tired cues (even if it's at 1 hour or less of awake time) and add an extra nap at the end of the day.  This won't be too much sleep for him since he's only doing 45 min naps.  That was how I solved my ds's 45-min nap problem.  Many days he refused to sleep more, even if I tried getting to him as he was waking up, so I let him wake up but watched him closely and put him down for a nap by the end of the hour.  This worked out to 4-5 naps a day but, with his short naps, he was still good for a full 12-hour bedtime.

I also recommed looking over Tracy's special sleep interview.  It's pretty long but you only need to skim it to find the information that pertains to your baby.  I found it unbelievably useful.

If anyone else has any reflux help, please let us know.

HTH