HELP: 30 min naps + lots of crying !!

[SuperToniosMum]

OK, so we are now trying to get my little guy to nap with holding or rocking and that seems to be going fairly well.  We get him sleepy and then put him in his crib and shh pat to sleep.  My husband is really good at this .  But he only sleeps 30 min, not a minute more.  I've tried holding through it, but his eyes bling open and we are back to square one.  How long am I supposed to hold him?  He is very overtired and when we try to get him back down after the "hold" fails, he just wails and wails with no chance to calm him down.

I really need some advice on what to do here as his wailing is tearing my heart out.

HELP.
Barb

[*Natasha*]

First of all HUGS how old is your DS and could you post your routine?

[SuperToniosMum]

Hi, thanks for the interest.  My LO is 16 weeks old and over 14 lbs.  His an easy going baby who doesn't like to sleep, but the lack of it is starting to show on him!! We are on a 3 hour EASY starting at 7 am.  Eats take 30 min usually ( I have to cut him off!!) and we used to be up for an hour after that, but since he seems so exhausted and 30 min naps indicate overtired we are only doing 30 min A after the 30 min feed.  Feels like he in constantly in his crib!!  We do our last marathon feed at 7pm with bedtime at 8pm.  There's usually a feed at 2 am and after that feed everything goes to pot.. he wakes up every two hours if we're lucky and we "paci -fy" him till 7am when the madness begins all over again.

Today I tried W2S holding through his 3 jolts, 5 minutes apart and he slept for 1.5 hrs.  But I haven't tried it again so we'll try it tomorrow.  2 things:  I can't seem to get the catnap down (takes too long, then he gets too crabby) so sometimes we move bedtime feed up.  Secondly, I'm desperately afraid to try the dreamfeed.  He is so hard to get to sleep (and burp) I can't imagine waking him up..expecially since 8 - 1am is his best stint!! 

I'm ready for all you have to offer.  We are making progress I think, just soooooo slowly.  It seems like a cruel joke that babies need to be taught how to sleep!!

thanks, looking forward to any help you can provide!
Barb

[*Natasha*]

Could he be ready for a 4hr EASY as at 4months that is when most move to 4hr eating?
That is great you had some luck holding through the jolts keep that up for a little longer to see if that helps. At this age lot of babies can handle 1.5-2hr awake time could you try and extend the awake time a little to see if that would help.
As for the dreamfeed i don't have any experience with this as i never had to do one. However if you are happy to get up once a night to feed then i say leave things as they are.

[Nic and Jackson]

all i can say is i'm hearing you.  and then youi are so tired you dont have the energy half the time to try anything different.  how come puppies dont have this problem?  next time i'm having a puppy!  sorry i'm no help, but HUGS to you and hope it gets better soon.

[ej020575]

You could have written my post on the same thing - sorry I didn't see yours. And my little boy is the same age as yours!

We don't have the crying though, he goes down very well really.

Have you had any luck?