CAN'T GET 3 MO TO SLEEP EARLIER

[dhaksha1979]

Hi

My 3 mo daughter will not settle for the night until 10/11pm.  I bath her and feed her if necessary then put her to bed. (I do the same ritual for bed and naptime - 5 min quite time etc etc)  She sleeps for about 45-60 mins and is then up until 10/11pm.  Do i try pu/pd?  Also her face is a bit dry and she tends to scratch it so I put on a mit to prevent her from causing scabs.  Is this ok?

I swaddle her with one arm out.  As soon as i swaddle her she gets upset and makes naps/bedtime so difficult.  Sometimes she goes down easily but most times it's a battle...   :cry:

What do I do?

We started on EASY at the begining of this year but her naps are too short so she is awake 30-60 mins before her feeds.

Many thanks

Dee

[Aarismom]

Hmm...

Best advice, try pu/pd, pat/shh. Also, try making your bedtime routine different from your naptime routine. Bedtime can be longer; maybe add a bath in there (every night, not just occasionally, not necissarily for hygenic reasons, but to calm and soothe as baths tend to do for most lo's), some storytime, maybe swaddle and rock some, whatever you wish, use this time as pure mommy/daddy time, keeping it toned down, and start the routine 1/2-1 hour before bedtime. But it might help to make the two different. It'll take some time, but eventually she'll make the distinction.

To move bedtime back, move it back slowly, not all at once. Maybe a half hour every few nights. Use her wakeup time in the AM as your target bedtime at night, maybe a half hour-an hour later than that.

You can use a mit if you wish, although if she's a thumb sucker that might be part of the problem. Something you can try, put some moisturizing cream on her face if it's a little dry, even some anti-itch cream if that helps. Just be sure to rub it in good.

Hope something in here helps!

*HUGS*
Sonya =P

[dhaksha1979]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I give her a bath every nite and give her a bit of a massage if she isn't too tired.  She is not a thumb sucker although she does sick her hands at times - I've never seen her use them as a comfort when she sleeps. 

But I will make the bedtime routine a bit different, use a different song and rock her a bit, spend more time.

With bathtime can both my husband I do it or is it better it it's just one of us? Usually hubby baths her and I dress and put her to bed. (he dresses her sometimes)

If we are doing pu/pd, is it ok if my husband and I take turns or does it   have to be one of us doing it per nite? 

So for eg, if I put her down around 8pm and she wakes up 45 mins later, do i use pu/pd or should i go in around the 30-45 mark and wait there in case she wakes up from light sleep?  or should I pick her up and use sh/pat? 

Many many thanks once again.

Dee

[Aarismom]

With bathtime can both my husband I do it or is it better it it's just one of us? Usually hubby baths her and I dress and put her to bed. (he dresses her sometimes)

If we are doing pu/pd, is it ok if my husband and I take turns or does it have to be one of us doing it per nite?

Do it anyway you like If both of you enjoy spending this time together with her, then feel free to do so. It's always a good idea to mix it up anyway, as you don't want her to get too use to one parent doing it all the time (in case the other one has to do it some night). But if one of you decides to take this responsibility every night, that's fine too (it may not matter to your lo). I have my DH take over nighttimes because it's time he gets to spend with her, as her bedtime is 6 pm and he gets home from work 15 mins before.

If she wakes, see if pat/shh works first. If she gets too worked up, pick her up, calm her down, put her down, and continue with pat/shh. I've found that the shh part can be pretty overstimulating for my LO, so I only use pat or put a hand on her back and rub it gently. Whatever works is fine, as long as she's not consistantly falling asleep in your arms.

Hope this helps!

*HUGS*
Sonya =P[/quote]

[dhaksha1979]

Many thanks. 

I can't recall the last time she fell asleep in my arms!  I take her up to her room at naptimes.  I just get so anxious when it's nap and bedtime.  When her cries/screams get louder it really frustrate me! 

Do you think it's ok to rock her gently until she is drowsy then put her in her crib? 

Sometimes when i put her to put bed/nap she is quiet and I say good night etc...  when i hear her cry do I go to her immediately?

Also she wakes between 11pm and 8am for a feed, should I feed or try to get her back to bed?? She is 3 months old.

How long have u been on EASY?  How well has it worked for you?  What do you do when you go out?
 
Sorry for all the questions!! 

Regards
Dee
xxx

PS: Where are u based?

[Fife_Mum]

Dee,

That picture is very cute  . I saw the title of your post and had to read it because we have exactly the same problem. Arwen is about 14 weeks. We do a consistent bedtime routine finishing at 7:30 at the latest (along with her big brother), then she generally falls asleep OK but wakes up and NOTHING I try can get her to sleep before about 11pm!  :?
Most mornings she would happily sleep until about 10/11am if I let her (or if we have her in the car/buggy and I can't keep her awake.

Since starting EASY a few weeks ago I have been waking her in the mornings and also trying to move her bedtime earlier to no avail.

I think you asked about a nightime feed too? You are lucky to have only one feed! I would stick with it since she is still a young baby and lots of babies seem to need a night feed for much longer.

I'll be watching for anymore advice you get, but for us we are living with it for a few more weeks (until we move to Seattle and have to sort out the time difference first).

[dhaksha1979]

Hi Vicky!

Thanks... She 'is' a real cutie but a minx when it comes to sleep...

What the hell is wrong with these kids hey!   :lol:   My head is so sore from thinking and reading and I feel so drained emotionally... 

Yesterday we went out in the afternoon and I was so tired when I got back and hubby was tired after work too.  Baby was awake for quite a while so we thought we would put her down for a wee sleep before bathing her. We did but she got up like 20 mins later.  I fed her around 7:30pm and she had a bath around 8pm (it's usually around 6:30/7pm) and we both sat and read a book with her etc.  This is different from the way we normally do it.  We swaddled her, put her in her crib and kept singing and patting her.  She was rubbing her eyes and kind of whimpering... trying to get off but we could see it was hard for her.  We stayed until she was quiet then left the room.  That was around 9:00pm.  She woke around 10pm so I fed her from both breasts and she fell asleep and stayed asleep until 7am this morning.  I was a bit worried and had to check up on her!   

I'm thinking that maybe due to the day out and her not sleeping as much she was tired and that's how she slept through.  Maybe feeding her from both breasts fills her up.  I am doing that at most feeds now.  We shall see what happens tonight.  I am going out again today... 

Do you find that the A time is very little??  I find she naps better if I put her down after 45 mins of being awake?

Moving to Seatle - WOW.  Exciting! Hope the move goes well and that both your babies settle in.  It might be hard at first but things will work out.

PS:  I put her down to nap at 7:45 - It's 9:50 and she is still asleep!!  Wish I could have got back to sleep!!

[greentomato]

I was really pleased to see your post as I have exactly the same problem with my 2.5 month old daughter.

I have been trying to do EASY and she's on a good 3 hour routine. She naps well in the day and sleeps 6 or 7 hours at night (after her last 'dream' feed at 10.30/11pm) so I feel quite lucky really. But she refuses her bedtime, sometimes she will go to sleep at about 8pm but only for an hour or so, and sometimes she won't sleep at all. Its so exhausting trying to calm her down and get her to sleep when she's obviously very tired that sometimes we give up at 10pm ish and I feed her and we all go to bed, when she goes to sleep perfectly well!!

At the moment she sleeps in our bedroom at night but in her nursery in the daytime, maybe this is confusing her.

We give her a night-time routine, my husband gives her the bath and we are calm and quiet with her, but she likes the bath and doesn't seem at all sleepy afterwards! I have tried shush-pat but it seems to wind her up even more - she screams even louder when I try it.

She sleeps a lot in the mornings after her first feed - she'll happily sleep for 2 hours or more - so I am now thinking of trying to wake her up more in the morning as perhaps her body clock is thinking that bedtime starts at 10pm and finishes at 10am!! Overall she sleeps about 13 hours a day.

I am new to this forum but it looks really useful - would be good to hear how you get on with this problem!!

[dhaksha1979]

Hi.

Sad to say we are still having the same problem.  To make matters worse she has a cold and her nose is blocked and she seems to have problems sleeping due to that...  :cry:   Does this job get any easier!

Her naps are not good either.  Need to work on that when she is well again.

I will keep you posted - that's if we have any success.

What time does your day usually start? Maybe you could try waking her up after 1.5 hours of napping and putting her in her nursery at bedtime... see if that makes any difference.  If you are not ready to put her in there overnight, then don't do it. 

Let me know if you have any luck!

Regards
D

[lkc]

Hi--

DD is almost 12 WO and we have been having this problem for almost three weeks now.  DD started to wake after 45 mins at bedtime around the same time her naps got shorter.  I don't know if this will help but this is what we have been trying to do over the last couple of weeks.  So far, dd has slept through a couple of nights, and last night she put herself back to sleep.  Tonight she slept through again.


First, there are a lot of us having this same problem.  Some of the posts I have read said this may be caused by overtiredness, overstimulation or maybe going in too early when they make a noise.  I have been trying to keep the actiivty throughout the day very low key.  No tv, no playmat, nothing like that yet.  Then we have really concentrated on the winddown before naps and bedtime.  You can also try to do a quiettime before the winddown.  We sit in the room with dimmed lights and do the last feed in there as well for bedtime.  I have also been waking her at 8 am every morning to keep with her biorhytmical clock.  I, too, used to let dd sleep until 10 or 11 am and I think that is what may have confused the clock since she seemed to sleep well after that time at night.  Lastly, if she does wake, I wait a bit until she really starts crying to see if she can resettle herself.  That part makes me so nervous as all I want by this time of day is to relax with DH. 

I haven't had too much luck yet but I am going to stick with it and see what happens.  Maybe it will take a bit longer for her clock to get straightened out.  I am trying to have faith that it will all work out soon.  I just wanted to share since we seem to all be in the same boat.  Please post any results you have or any other methods you have tried.  I will definitely keep an eye out.  Good Luck.

BTW, there are a couple of posts regarding this issue under the "Moms of Sept/Oct '05" in the EASY forum.  Go to the last couple of pages and we have been talking about this a bit.

Lori

[greentomato]

Thanks for your replies and suggestions and I'll have a look in the other discussion you mention.

Last night we tried keeping things very low-key - I've banned my husband from using toys in the late afternoon/evening! After her bath and massage, I fed her in the bedroom with low lighting and held her for a bit until she was sleepy then put her in the cot and tried to help her to sleep. But it didn't work, she woke up and wanted to play (all smiles and giggles) and when I did get her to sleep she kept waking up after a couple of mintues. Eventually she fell asleep on me at 9.45pm, which of course wasn't what we were aiming for, but you get so exhausted there is only so long you can carry on trying and it was nice to at least get a little bit of time with my husband! Then after her dream feed she went back to sleep great, on her own - so she can do it sometimes.

She usually wakes between 6 and 7am, and is quite sleepy afterwards so we had been putting her back to sleep after her feed and change, but I think she may not have been realising that it was daytime (especially at this time of year when its so dark in the morning). So this morning we kept her awake from 6.30 - 8am and I put all the lights on etc, then she had a nap at 8am and I woke her after 1.5 hours and didn't let her carry on sleeping. I'm not sure if that is the best thing to do.

We are planning to move her into the nursery overnight soon,  but because we did a lot of travelling over Christmas we wanted to wait until she was settled back at home and into a routine before trying it - not changing too many things at once, and all that. Also I guess I'm scared of ruining the one thing that does work well at the moment - her night sleep!

So we'll see what happens tonight!!
thanks again
Jane

[Lara's Mum]

well ladies... its good to know that i'm not alone (but not so good for u guys huh.... :? ), problem is dd DOESN'T by any means whatsoever go to sleep before 2am..... i've tried everything, and if she does sleep at 7 or 9 or even 11, its on;t a catnap and then she's up again...i give her her bath at 8 and try to make her go to sleep but nope, she doesn't

after that she stays asleep for 7 hrs, till 9, up 1hr., asleep 3 more up1 hr. asleep 1.5 up 1 hr, then asleep for 1.5-2.5hrs.

i've been trying to wake her up at 7am for the [past couple of days to get her to sleep at least at 12, but so far to no avail...

she sometimes drops off on her own at 11.30 or 12 but not based on anything i've tried??

i've tried clusterfeeds

and the only dreamfeed she'll let us give her is the morning one...

can you say MIND OF THEIR OWN

[greentomato]

Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having. I feel lucky that our daughter goes to sleep by 11pm then!

By the way I can't find the 'moms of sept/oct '05' chat that lkc mentioned - can anyone point me in the right direction?

[dhaksha1979]

why why why... why won't these kids sleep.  :cry:  I too only used sleep around 2am for many many nights but then I was not on any routine. 

Thanks for your the suggestions Lori. 

This morn DD got up around 3am, I fed her and she fell asleep so I put her in her crib and went back to  my room.  Just as I was getting into bed I heard her cooing etc so I thought I would leave her and she would just go back to sleep - yeah right!  She started crying and eventually and I had to go in.  I tried to get her back to sleep with shush/pat but no chance. Had to use pu/pd and finally she went down around 5am.  Had to use cotton wool in my ears because the cries were so loud! She woke again at 6:20am.  Thank goodness hubby went to check on her.  I was beat, back was aching and just felt like a bus hit me. Could not bear getting up early.

Just feel like crying... I hate the fact that I have to see to her every time she is up in the middle of the night.  I know, I know - hubby has to work but I just feel depressed about it.  Anyone else feel like this??

[dannygirl]

Lara's mom- My DD use to not go to sleep till one or two either. I still have no idea why she did it, but what I did was move her bath time up adn her bedtime routine up by 2hrs and eventually she went to sleep earlier. but I am having the same problem now,  she will fall asleep between 8 and 9 and then wake up and won't go to sleep again till 10 or 11. I have tried everything. right now I am trying just leaving her in her bassinet, giving her the paci and rocking her to sleep again, so she will learn that 8 is bedtime.
As for the "Mums of sep/oct 05" it is under easy, and then Activity.