failing routine

[Eden's Mum]

i need some help ( again. Good grief i am rubbish at this.)

i need to get the baby to sleep more at night as i am so exhausted. it used to be that i would be woken at 4am with a DF at 10.30pm. then we would all wake at 7am ready to start the day. Now the baby wakes at 9pm, 1ish, 4ish, 6ish and won't settle again. i am also being woken by the older one having nightmares, i suspect brought on by the fuss and noise duign the night.

The nights broke down when breast feeding went wrong, and the baby refused to feed properly from me. this was three months ago and i have been unable to find satisfactory help becuase he is still gaining wieght although not quite as quickly as he was. He is really whingey and unsettled all the time and rarely smiles unless i really work at it. I have been to the doctors who says nothing is wrong, the HV thinks the probelm is that i am depressed not that he isn't feeding. the breast feeding consultant again is unconvinced there is a probem.

Anyway, i have been trying to space out his sleep more to make him more tired and hopefully to sleep better. he can just about manage 2 hours awake time before he becomes unbearable, and we do 45minute nap in the morning, 2 hours mid day and 1/2 an hour in the afternoon. It hasn't helped so far but i don't feel i can reduce the sleep anymore without torturing him and myself.

he won't take a bottle at all so i can't use tthat option to help at all. I have no idea how i am going to get back to work next month wiht all this. Anyone any ideas on what to do about any of this? i am getting to the point where i want to leave it all to someone else. i can't cope any more wiht the two of them.

[Deb_in_oz]

Clare I know where you are at right now and it is a very hard place to be!! so first off {{{HUGS}}}

Let's break it down and try to sort some of this out.  I also went through BF problems from the beginning but because olivia was waking to eat a lot in the night (when she fed best) she kept gaining weigjht so i got no support.  we ended up switching to the bottle at 3 mo - we took 2 weeks of battles to get her to take it from me (she had been taking bedtime and Df from Dh) because i thought that woudl solve the problem.  it did not (alothough i did take some of the pressure off as Dh could do extra feeds wen home) what i realise looking back is that a lot of the problems were probably connected to my stress levels. itis a vicious cycle especially feeding troubles because the more you stress the worse they feed and then you stress even more. and if to make up for it they wake for extra feeds at night, then you get less sleep and stress more

sooooooo - 1st advice - take lots of deep breaths and try to relax and tell yourself you are doing a good job (stop telling yourself you are rubbish at it - you need to build up your confidence not take it down)

2nd advice - don't think about a month from now - think about today and maybe tomrrow - one step at a time 

3rd - post your full routine (are you on 3, 3.5 or 4hr EASY?)  as i suspect we need to tweak it a bit as the following bit makes me think he might be overtired - but let's look at the whole day if that is ok with you.

Anyway, i have been trying to space out his sleep more to make him more tired and hopefully to sleep better. he can just about manage 2 hours awake time before he becomes unbearable

questions: what is his temperment? what are the tired signs you are observing and when do they generally present (meaning how far into A time), what are you doing for a windown routine / do you have any things you do evry time to signal it is sleep time?

we do 45minute nap in the morning, 2 hours mid day and 1/2 an hour in the afternoon. It hasn't helped so far but i don't feel i can reduce the sleep anymore without torturing him and myself.

i woudl not reduce anything and i think he might need a little more in the 1st nap IF POSSIBLE and/or get the catnap to 45 min at least (if 1st nap does not extend past 45 min).  Is there anythig different that happens that gets midday nap to 2hrs - are the kids napping at the same time??

Clare - i also think you need to look into getting some support if possible - i forgot if you have any family around.  can anyone come and help you a little so you can focus on the baby a bit?  Can Dh take a mini-vacation to help you get things on track before you go back to work??  You are doing great - i have seen you ask questions right from the beginning and care so much about getting him smoothly trucking along. I know how hard it is with the 2 little ones and it is even harder when the littlest one is not settled 100% at 4 mo (BTW this was our turnaround point 4-5 months if that gives you any encouragement).

[Eden's Mum]

Hi Deb. thanks so much for replying. You have been so great for the last 4 months!

I have no family or in laws locally and dh is studying and working so is stretched to his limit, so i am on my own here! DS1 is in nursery 3 mornings a week which helps a nit but that is it.

My routine is like this on a good day:

wake 7am ( should feed but never does)
solids 7.30 / 8am (if i am lucky)
nap 9am - 9.45am
feed any time between 10am and 11am
nap about 11.30 / 12pm - 1.45 / 2pm
feed 2pm
nap 4pm - 4.30pm (ish)
feed 5pm
bed 6.45pm

The sleep in the day is consistant. the feeds are not. the wind down is simple in that i take him upstairs, change his nappy, zip him into his sleeping bag draw the curtains and put him down on histummy then leave! he always puts himself to sleep as that is what we have always done  He is clever like that. I always left him to re settle if he woke too early at the midday nap so he is used to being left at that time. I used to allow him to sleep for longer at this nap and the later one but his night time sleep broke downa nd reduing the sleep helped at the time.

Today he was pretty good and did all of that wiht no problems except the 2pm feed should be from a bottle now and it took me an hour and a hlf to get him to feed. however he did take it in the end and had 4 oz  yay!

he then had all his other feeds  as normal. he woke at 9.30pm wanting a feed. i would usully wait until 10.30pm but he wouldn't re settle so i fed him at 10pm nd am now on my way to bed as he has now resettled. DS1 waking several times a nigh and getting up too so am averaging about 4 hours sleep a night at the moment!  health visitor thinks i should stop feeding more tahn once at night after the dream feed as this would bring breakfast back in. she says it means letting him cry for a few nights but thinks that wiht a bit of alternative reassurance from me, he is skilled enough to manage.??

any ideas would be well recived.

Thanks

[Deb_in_oz]

well Clare - you are certainly not rubbish at this. you are doing great! if those A times are resulting in consistent sleep and he is not upset when you do put him down then i think your general routine is good (on first glance i am amazed that he copes with such long A times since he was such a sleepy baby - bet you never thought that woudl happen  :lol: )

what i think IS an issue is his daytime intake of milk - i know it can be a bit of a catch 22 with nightfeeds and then not taking much at the first feed, but i can tell you that even after dropping the night feed and then Df Olivia is still not a morning eater and i doubt she will ever eat a huge breakfast... so you have to see if that does change in the future (it may or may not)  In the meantime since he does not take a great 7am feed and your last BF is at 5pm i am not surprised he is waking between 9-10pm hungry. Is he looking for food at 5pm?? if not seeking it I would wait until just before bedtime and get a good feed in then.  then do a DF as late as you can stand between 10-11pm - then try to get him to hold off for a feed until at least 3am = your only night feed. The theory wouldbe that if he can go 3-4 hrs between feeds in the day when he is active, then that shoudl be his minimum gap at night when he is inactive (apart from Growth spurts which the genuinely need to tank up for growth).  it is something to aim for. 

she says it means letting him cry for a few nights but thinks that with a bit of alternative reassurance from me, he is skilled enough to manage.??

not sure what "alternative reassurance" means - sounds like controlled crying (going in every 10 min???) I think that if he wakes after a decent Df at 10-11pm  then you can then use whatever technique you currently do for resettling at naps (PU/PD or pat/shh +/or dummy) rather than leaving him to cry for any length of time.

also since you need to increase daytime calories - maybe try to play with that first feed.  if he does not want it on waking offer it at a different time (no law that says they must feed upon waking- you can offer BF 1/2 hr after waking and the solids after that, or instead of trying to get both of those into a non-mornmng eater have you thought about trying to do solids at dinnertime (so do cereal at 5 and Bf at 6:30) the cereal woudl digest slowly and could also help him make it to 10:30-11 for Df and help overall for the night.

I have no family or in laws locally and dh is studying and working so is stretched to his limit, so i am on my own here! DS1 is in nursery 3 mornings a week which helps a nit but that is it.

i am in the same boat so know how hard it is to do this (2 kids) with no support as there is little downtime.  great that DS1 is at nursery!!

i hope some of this has helped - i think it looks like a food/nightwakings issue so i will try to help you through it or you can seek additional advice from the nightwakings mods who can help you through resettling without extra feeds and without CC/CIO. not my area of "expertise"...

keep telling yourself what a great job you are doing and don't worry - he will get there!! 4 months is still young so i think it is a realistic goal to aim for only 1 nightfeed and then aim for sleeping through the night.

[Eden's Mum]

Thanks Deb. You k now that is how my head is at the moment that i actually missed out two attempts at feeding when i posted my schedule!!! :roll:

i do another one at 6.30pm before bed and then wake him for a df at 10.30pm! However i do think you are right about the day time food being a huge issue. since posting last i have adjusted a bit in that i have added a solid feed at 5pm instead of the milk feed which was always rubbish anyway. he had a huge two cubes of sweet potato yeaterday and then his 6.30pm feed was fab. Also he was more settled for the bath routine befreo bed. he usually yells throughout it. So that has helped. i also found he woke twice last night when he shouldn't have been due a feed so i left him to it until he was clearly distressed rather tahn just fussing and then picked him up, cddled him until calm then put him back downa gain and left him. he fussed for ages, about half an hour, but didn't scream or cry properly but went backt o sleep int he end. this meant on waking he had a very small feed and a weak attempt at a solid breakfast, since hislast feed had been 2.30pm. he has been a bit more settled onthe breast since offering the bottle at 2.30pm as he hates it so much that he is starving by the next feed and takes the feed really well. It makes it worse i guess that i am trying to achieve so mucha t once, but i return to work in january so need to get him sleeping and takin the occaisional bottle by then!

Thank you for myour ideas. it is helpful to hear another take on it, and to confirm some of the things i thought i might try as being reasonable ideas!