Overtired - confused

[Sungrl]

aww thanks Michelle!  I sure am enjoying her and just feel like I finally have what I have always dreamed of!!  Even with the crying and the confusion and the worry...and all that fun mommy stuff.    Every day is a total treasure with her.  I just want her to be happy and do well, as we all do as mothers.  I took her to visit some coworkers last week and she cried the whole time and I`ve not heard a word from them since (no emails saying how cute or sweet she is), so it is disappointing that it went that way and they didn`t get a chance to enjoy her and see how special she is.     Anyway, I am also going to ask her doctor if we still have to wait another month to take her off her medication.  You never know how that affects her with sleeping, etc. 

Well one thing I must say... I cannot BELIEVE how easy it is to get Zoey down for the night now!!!  I struggled with this for pretty much her whole life, and now it takes literally about 5 minutes to get her winded down and in bed (and put to bed with eyes open).  I made up a song for her for bedtime and I swear her eyes start to close as soon as I sing it to her!!!  Naps are still another story though.  She seems much harder to get to sleep for naps.  Often she cries and fights sleep and it takes quite a while to get her down.  Which brings me to a question...if I am aiming to put Zoey down for naps when she does not appear really tired, would I expect her to fuss and cry and how long should it take to get her to fall asleep??

Today was a pretty great day with Zoey.  She was so happy and we just had a great time.  Unfortunately, the one long nap she managed to take today was from 5:30-7:20pm (I kept trying to wake her and she wouldn`t stay awake!).  BUT, I did manage to get her in bed asleep by 8:20pm AND was able to give her a nice massage and stuff too, so we`ll see what happens tonight.  She has been up and wide awake at 5-5:30am the last few mornings so it really can`t be any worse! 

So, here was her day today...
E: 5:30am
A: 5:45 - 6:45 (changed her diaper and let her lay unswaddled on her change table (smiling and cooing away) for about 15 minutes until I tried getting her to sleep again)
S: 7:00am - 8:40am.

E: 8:45am
A: 9-10am
S: 10:10 - 10:50

A: 11:15 - 11:45
E: 11:45
A: 12-12:20
S: 12:30-1:15

E: 1:45
A: 2:00-2:30
S: 3:00 - 3:45

A: 4:00-4:30
E: 4:30
A: 4:45-5:30
S: 5:30-7:20!!!

E: 7:30
A: 7:30-8:00 (PJs and massage)
E: 8:10 medication and a bit more breast feeding
S: 8:20

I am hoping to do a dreamfeed around 10-10:30.  It did extend her sleep one hour last night; instead of 1:30 she woke to eat at 2:30am.

Tomorrow she has a doctor appointment at 11:45.  I also have to go to the bank to renew my mortgage.  I`m a bit anxious about the whole thing because the doctor is about 25 minutes from home and she really doesn`t like the car these days.  DH is going to come with us since it`s suppose to be brutally cold out tomorrow and we wouldn`t want to be putting her in a freezing car, etc...but we will be out for at least 2 hours, if not more so it is going to be tricky.  We may just stop over at my best friend`s house to visit and then Zoey can nap,but otherwise I sure hope she sleeps in the car!  Wish me luck!!

Shannon

[Sungrl]

binxyboo (Michelle) - I don`t have a sling...perhaps I should get one.  How long can they go in those for??

Sami - I started putting Zoey in her crib for all her naps and that seems to be when the 40 minute naps started.  Did you go back to putting your LO in various places for naps after the week of observation??  I really want Zoey to be able to sleep in other beds aside from her crib since she does have to sleep in a bassinet or playpen once a week when my 3 year old step daughter is sleeping over and in her room.  I also feel like she spends SO much time in her crib... I miss her!!!  I miss the days when she would nap anywhere.

owelley - thank you...that definitely makes more sense!

Stacy - Zoey seems to be quite `mad` when I try to get her to nap and she is not tired.  She will go from totally happy to screaming that overtired scream as soon as I swaddle her!  I am not sure if she is just not tired yet or if she is somehow already overtired.  This seems to happen whether she has shown signs of tiredness or not... although not EVERY time I put her for a nap.

Shannon

[binxyboo]

LOL, I carried Riley in a sling when he was 7 -8 months old and weighed 25 lbs, in the nursing position, and I am 5ft2, 115 lbs ish.

I love slings, I can still use one now, he sits on my hip. But they are especially useful at that age. I feel they are fine and won't create "bad habits" at this age, I don't know what the BW viewpoint would be on this though. Great piccie by the way

[riuliani]

Hey Shannon,
I am still feeling for you for all your car issues.  I would love to say it gets better but my LO is 5 months and no light at the end of the tunnel yet.  Hopefully you have better luck!  Especially now that we have hit those cold Alberta winter temperatures.

Anyway a couple of thoughts came to mind while reading this post.  The first is I was told or read it in one of the whisperer books that babies spend their first 3 months sorting out their nighttime sleep habits, then the next 3 months is their daytime habits.  This seemed to have come true for us.  Perhaps that is why Zoey is so amicable for bedtime but not for naps.  It may be a case of hang in there and she will whisper you when she is ready to sort out the daytime stuff.  I have been finding my LO tends to get things sorted out in the end and I usually jump the gun with my impatience.

The second thought was the naptime wind down.  Again when we were having some nap issues I was given some good advice.  I think I told you we did two weeks of sleep training (started at 11 weeks).  I actually cleared my calendar to achieve this.  I spent the first week observing like crazy and watching the clock.  I came to realize his natural naptimes everyday.  At that point in time I was waiting to see cues.  Unfortunately, he seemed to only show cues about 2 minutes before he was over the edge on his way to nuclear meltdown.  One of the moderators suggested that I start my wind down 20 minutes before his cues showed up (of course I only knew the timetable based on my previous observations/notetaking).  I actually found with my LO that I had to start 30 minutes before meltdown.  It didn't take me that long to actually do the wind down, so I would do a 20 minute wind down and then put him in the crib about 10 minutes before meltdown would normally be expected.  After a few days I found he gradually got better at predicting when he needed to sleep and there were no more meltdowns.  Hopefully that all makes sense.  It worked for me, so I thought I would share.

As per the posts above it may be very helpful to set a more structured (clock watching) routine in the short term then you might be able to be more flexible (cue watching/predicting) in the long term.

[yaya]

just wanted to add that my DS was same, seemed liek angel baby till 6 weeks then TOTALLY chnged and then changed again around 4 mo. I think they do constantly change and u just need to adapt. A few tricks to help with the car situation: If she 's having a screaming fit, put the music on LOUD it distracts then and often they will go to sleep. Also, having a feed a little while before goign in the car ensures they r not crying from hunger. If u have automatic windows, sometimes taking the window up and down distracts them too! or singing loudly (my DS still lieks row your boat!)
re: bath, DS was the same, have u tried bathing ehr in the morning? I found DS was actually just too tired for a bath in the evenings and it would wake him up rather than realx him so switched to the mornings till he got more confident and now he LOVES his bath.

HTH

[samijoe]

shannon-
i did yes.  i made sure she slept in the crib while i was getting the routine down pat.  you will notice too...once you get her into a nice routine, it isn't so hard to switch it up once in awhile.  it is the establishing the routine that is difficult.  my dd went back to sleeping in different places, but once we hit the 4hr EASY i always put her in her room at nap time (you are past the sleep phase).

[Sungrl]

Hi gals, thanks so much for all the great advice.

Yesterday went out the window - we were out for 6 hours with Zoey!  I did manage to get her to have 2 40 minute naps in that time, and then she slept for just over an hour when we got home.  She cried in the car a whole lot, but all in all we did ok for being out for so long!  I had her in bed before 8pm and she woke once at 2:30am.  She was WIDE awake then though, and it took a while to get her back to sleep after I fed her.  The great news though is that she then slept until 8am (instead of 5 or 6)!!   

I did a nap wind down at 9am and she was asleep by 9:10 with no fussing!  She did wake up after 40 minutes... I left her and she kept falling back to sleep but waking up again.  Once she started to cry I went in a resettled her, she woke again after 10 minutes and I've just resettled her again.  Hopefully she will stay asleep this time.  We have to go to a funeral this afternoon so she needs her sleep.   I am hoping I can get her to sleep through the service in my arms like the funeral we went to a few weeks back.

I have been giving Zoey a dreamfeed at 10-10:30 but I don't think she is getting enough as she still wakes after about 4 hours.  I can only get her to nurse from one side, then she just refuses to open her mouth!  I suppose I can pump and try a bottle but she's been rejecting a bottle lately when awake so I'm not sure it would work.  I wouldn't want to pump and then have her not take the bottle and not get a dreamfeed at all....should I maybe breastfeed her the one side and then try to give her a bottle of EBM after that??

Shannon

[Sungrl]

Ok girls...Zoey has me confused again!!!

On Friday we had to go to a funeral so we were out with Zoey from 1:30pm until around 6:30pm.  She slept in my arms for 40 minutes during the service, and then again for probably less than that time at DH's aunt's house later (very loud, lots of people).  She cried all the way home and was quite overtired.  I fed her and put her for a sleep as soon as we got home (thinking she may just stay asleep for the night) and she woke up 40 minutes later.  We were eating dinner so I put her in her swing and she was very happy and content until we gave her her medication at 8pm.  I then put her to bed with no fuss.  She woke at 9:30pm and since she hadn't eaten much I fed her again and she went right to sleep again.  I then gave her a dreamfeed at 11pm and she slept right until 4:30!!!   

So yesterday I thought I did everything right...I had her napping before she even showed any signs of being tired.  It was very easy to get her down for the first few naps.  We were having company for dinner so I wanted to make sure she was well rested so she'd be happy when they came...

E: 8am
A: 8:15 - 9:00
S: 9:10 - 9:50 - 11:00am when she woke after 40 minutes I went and resettled her.  I laid her back down and she woke 10 minutes later. I went and resettled her again but she woke right up and fussed every time I tried to lay her down.  In the end I held her for the next 40 minutes while she slept.

E:11am
A:11:15-12:15pm
S: 12:30-1:10pm again I went and resettled her but this time she would not stay asleep.  I held her again as she kept waking up and falling back to sleep until 2:00pm!

E:2pm
A:2:15-2:45 - at this point she hadn't even been awake for 45 minutes when she suddenly started crying.  DH was cooking and I thought maybe all the smells were upsetting her so I took her to her room.  She screamed the overtired cry and so I swaddled her and settled her to sleep (took longer as she was overtired now).
S:3:10-3:50 - again she woke and I tried and tried to resettle her. She would not stay asleep, even if I held her.  At 4:30 our company arrived so I gave up.

E:4:40pm
A:4:55-5:25 - she was fussy and tired now
S: 5:25-6:05 - tried to resettle but could not. 

A: 6:15-6:35
E: 6:40pm
A:7:00 - PJs, etc.  I tried to get her to sleep now but she was awake and would not fall asleep.  She was fussy but we swaddled her and put her in her swing and she did ok until about 7:45 when we gave her her medication with about 2 oz of EBM.
S: 8:00pm
E:10:45pm - dreamfeed (she took the whole bottle)

She woke at 2:15 and again at 5:20!      I figured she wasn't hungry at 2:15...but she kept crying and I was so tired so I just fed her and she went right to sleep.  Same thing at 5:20.  She then slept until 8:15am.

She was fussy and overtired all evening but I can't imagine what more I could have done...I know she should have had longer naps and that holding her while she sleeps is not a good solution, but I was just trying to do whatever I could to ensure she could sleep.  Anyone see anything??    Any ideas why she woke at 2:15???

She's happy as can be this morning...

Shannon

[binxyboo]

I think two night feeds is typical at this age, esp if she eats and just falls straight back to sleep. That's good that she's taking the bottle again, now many ounces were in it? Is she starting to get more distracted during feeds now that she is older, or is she stll a down to business kind of gal?

That's rough on your DH, losing both his grandma's close together like that.

[Sungrl]

Thanks ladies, I guess I am just hung up on the fact that a few of the babies in the Aug/Sept birthclub are sleeping from 7pm until 7am with only an 11pm dreamfeed!!  Of course they are also 3 or more pounds heavier than Zoey...maybe that has something to do with it??  Also, she could go for 5 or even 6 hours at night for the first 5 or 6 weeks of her life...and now since I got her going down earlier, she is always up around 2:30.  If she is always waking between 2:15 and 2:30 would that mean it's a habit and not hunger?  If I can't settle her but she goes to sleep after a feed does that mean it's hunger?  To me she should be able to go longer than 3 or 3.5 hours from her dreamfeed.

Zoey has been all over the place the last 2 days...it's been crazy!!  We've either been out or had a lot of company for about a week straight though so I think it's just a bit too much for her.  Last night it took me 30 minutes to get her to sleep (normally takes 5-10 minutes)...and then she woke 40 minutes later and would not go back down!!!  She was awake (smiling and happy as can be...no signs of sleepiness) until after 11pm!!!  It was nuts...and she STILL woke at 2:30am and then again at 6am... and then again 8.  Today she suddenly fell asleep while nursing at 7pm...and it is now 8:30 and she is still sleeping so I think she's down for the night!   Little munchkin loves to keep Mommy guessing!

Here she is today...she was having a blast in her Papasan chair!!!   

Shannon

[binxyboo]

 Those pictures are too adorable! No wonder she doen't want to go asleep, too much fun ti be had! Those do sound like hunger wakings to me. Although I know lo's will wake if they are hungry, I don't think wakings are just related to that and size. Rememer in the book it explained how in the early months, babies who are fed via IV, who never feel the sensation of hunger, still go through the same cycles of wake-sleep as those who are fed either on demand or on a schedule?But it changes as they get older and other factors come into play. I do also think though as a nursing mom it is harder to be consistent at how you deal with nightwakings. I know there were days when Riley would not have met his diaper count by bedtime and then I would feed him everytime he woke.

But glad to see you are having improvements overall

[Sungrl]

Arg!  Well now little Zoey has decided to mix things up AGAIN and I cannot get her to bed before 9:30 or 10pm!  Today went like this...

E: 7am
A: 7:15-8:00 - showed signs of sleepiness
S: 8:10-9:00

A: 9:15-10:00
E: 10:00
A: 10:15-10:45
S: 11:00-1:00pm - managed to resettle her after the 40 minute wake

E: 1:00
A: 1:00-2:15
S: 2:30-3:15

A: 3:15-3:45
E: 3:45
A: 3:45-4:00 - showed signs of sleepiness
S: 4:10-5:00

A: 5:00-6:00
E: 6:00
A: 6:15-7:00 (PJs, etc)
S: 7:15 - I was actually hoping she would be down for the night here...

but she woke at 8pm
E: 8:00
I tried to get her back to sleep (with shhh/pat in my arms), every time I laid her down (just about asleep or even with eyes closed) she started to cry.  She finally drifted off at 9pm.

At 9:15 she woke again    I tried leaving her for about 5-7 minutes to see if she would settle but she just cried and cried, getting more upset.
I tried shhh/pat again she just cried and cried...whether I held her or left her in her crib...after about 15 minutes of that I gave up and brought her in my room. 
I unswaddled her to see if something was wrong and she started smiling away!  She was so happy all of a sudden.  So, I let her stay up (I would rather let her stay up than lay in her crib or my arms crying for an hour) until DH and I gave her her medication at 10pm (was going to give it in a dreamfeed) and I tried to feed her.  She wouldn't eat so I went to put her to bed and she went down in about 5 minutes.   

This also happened the other day!  Yesterday I had her down at 9pm but last week she was in bed by 8pm with no problem every night!!!  What should I have done differently? 

Shannon

[riuliani]

At a quick glance it looks like Zoey is sometimes having trouble transitioning through the 45 minute sleep cycle mark.  You could try the wake to sleep method.  Essentially at the 30 minute mark after she has gone to sleep go in and nudge her a little until she stirs but don't nudge her so much that she wakes up.  Tracy's theory is that this essentially resets the sleep cycle and then they can make it through the 45 minute mark.  I had great success with this when my LO was 3-4 months when we were having 45 minute nap difficulties.  Tracy also suggests doing this at least three days in a row for those sleep times that she is regularly waking at the 45 minute mark.  The thought is to develop a new habit of breaking through the first cycle instead of the old habit of waking.

I know what you mean about the crying.  I give in just about every time.  I am trying to work up the nerve to do a proper Pick Up/Put Down session for our nighttime difficulties but your LO is too young for that yet.

[Sungrl]

Well, she had a horrible sleep last night and today she has been a total crab.     I had a bad case of insomnia and was awake from 2am (she amazingly woke at this time to nurse) until 6am last night and Zoey was up for the day at 8am (she fell asleep nursing but I kept waking her in hopes that she won't be up super late tonight again).  I feel like a zombie and today we have both my step daughters over night tonight.  The youngest one gets up at 6am.  I am so not looking forward to all this.   

riuliani - Zoey definitely suffers from the 40 minute naps.  I have tried the wake to sleep method and never have had any success.  She still seems to wake at exactly the same time.      The past 2 days I have been really observing her and here is what happens.  She stirs the first time at 35 minutes after falling asleep.  I have picked her up at this point and held her to get her through the nap.  She then stirs (quite aggressively) off and on (about every 3-5 minutes) for TWENTY to TWENTY FIVE minutes until settling (no longer stirring) again!!!    She then seems to be able to sleep about another 30-40 minutes before stirring again (at which point I don't try to settle her).  In the past, I have watched her settle back to sleep many times after the initial 35 minute jolt, but after about 10 minutes of settling only to stir again she cannot take it anymore.  If I pick her up after 35 minutes I can hold her for the next hour and keep soothing her through the stirring.  It's not a good solution but the poor little girl is so overtired!!!  She often cries in her sleep and makes sad whimpering sounds about 10 minutes into this battle to stay asleep.   I don't know what to do...it now seems to be affecting her bedtime, etc. 

Shannon