new member- several sleep questions

[Vanessa L]

Hello,

I have been loosely following the EASY routine (not so much the times but the structure) and have some issues with my 12 week old son.

He has slept in his crib in his room since birth and usually sleeps well once he's asleep for the night.
We've had sleep stretches as long as 9.5 hours. I'm usually just doing one nightfeeding.

Our biggest problem is that I try and get him settled for bed around 8 pm and he just refuses. Sometimes I can get him to sleep but he wakes screaming after 45 minutes and is wide awake. Most commonly he gets re-fed at 10 pm and finally settles at 10:30 or 10:45 pm (too late!) He is extremely fussy from 8 pm onwards, obviously b/c he is overtired! I am wondering how to put him down for the night at 8 pm (or there around)??

He usually takes 3 naps during the day: one is about 45 minutes, one for a couple of hours, and another for about 45-60 minutes. During the day, we also have a really hard time getting him to take a long nap in his crib. For some reason the only thing that works is the car seat. I don't understand why he can sleep for hours and hours in his crib during the night, but no more than 45 minutes during the day???

I have noticed that when he goes from the activity time to being tired it happens really quickly- one minute he'll be happy and smiling, then he's in despair minutes later.

Any advice would be much appreciated- thanks!

[RachelC]

Hi and welcome to the boards.

Can you outline his day with rough times?  For example:
E - 7
A
S - 8
E - 10
A
S - 11

That will give us a better idea of how to advise.

[Vanessa L]

ok, this was our "routine" yesterday:

slept until 8:15 am
E: 8:15 am
S: 8:40-9:40 am

A: 9:40-11:15 am
E: 11:15 am
S: 11:30 am -12:15 pm (in crib 

A: 12:15 pm- 1:20 pm

S: 1:30- 4 pm (in car seat/stroller while we were out)

E: 4:10 pm
A: 4:40-5:40 pm
S: 5:45-7:15 pm

E: 7:15-7:40 pm
A: 7:45- 9:00 pm
 started bedtime routine at 9:15 pm

E: 9:25-9:35 pm
S: 9:40 pm  (this early of a bedtime is a big accomplishment!)

then slept 6 hours, ate, then another 3 hours.

Today so far:

awake: 7:30 am
E: 7:30 am
A: 7:50-9 am
wind down 9-9:15 am
S: 9:15-10:45 am
E: 10:45 am
A: 11:10 am

Today we're following the routine better so far, yesterday was off at the beginning of the day.
However, I caught his sleepy cues for bedtime before he got over tired and irrational, and it took me a mere 20 minutes to get him fed and to sleep (a record!)

Thanks for any help!!

[vadensmommy]

First thing, welcome!  Looking at your EASY, you are doing a terrific job in getting your lo on a more structured routine, and that is great!  A few things you might need to tweak. 
1) a 12 hour day is typically what is best to work with - so if your lo is up at 8:15am, he needs to be asleep by 8:15pm, so a 9:40 bedtime is probably too late for him to handle.  Same holds true for how you said your day today is going - up at 7:30am, needs to be asleep by 7:30pm.  Don't be scared of an early bedtime - I've found that if dd is overly tired (like right now from a crazy busy weekend visiting the gparents) going to bed earlier actually gets me a later wake up time.  For instance - she went to sleep last night at 6pm, and didn't wake up till 6:30am this morning, and I'd been having a 5:20am wakeup recently

2) You might consider limiting the long pm nap to no more than 2 hours.  Anything over 2 hours can interfere with night time sleep.  There are times of course where I have let my daughter go over two hours - illness, shots, severe overtired, etc.  But only on certain occasions, and you just have to use your best judgment on what your baby needs.

3) At 12 weeks my daughter was able to do about 1.5hr A time.  Some of your short naps maybe related to short A times, sometimes it is biological, but I always tell moms to play with that A time to try and get a longer nap.  I would try and gradually move your A times to 1.5 hours maybe 5min a day so that eventually your routine would look something like this:

E 8 (or whenever he wakes/or you set a wake up time for him)
A 8-9:30
S 9:30-11

E 11
A 11-12:30
S 12:30-2

E 2
A 2-3:30
S 3:30-5

E 5
A 5-6:30
S 6:30-7:15 just a short catnap to make it to bedtime without being OT

E 7:15 - sort of a cluster feeding, to tank up his tummy before bed
A 7:15-8 Do wind down here for bedtime - bath, diaper, jammies story, whatever you typically do
S 8 for the night

10 or 11pm Dream feed and cross your fingers till morning.

Probably in the next few weeks he will be able to stay awake more and more.  By about 14 weeks we were doing a 3.5hr EASY, and around 16 or 17 weeks we were at a 4hr EASY, but your lo has to be able to stay awake for 2hrs to do a 4hr EASY.  I hope that makes sense, and if you have questions post back!!

[Vanessa L]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post!

I printed out your suggestions and am going to try them. One thing we have happen frequently is Gavin goes to sleep on schedule for a nap and sleeps for half an hour or 45 minutes. Then he wakes up and is not ready to eat, but wide awake, so we're sort of in A time again?

As well, I've never attempted the dream feed. Gavin is currently quite difficult to put down- I usually nurse him down. For middle of the night feedings I can put him back down only half asleep and he'll settle himself but not for the first bedtime.  So therefore I'm reluctant to pick him up while sleeping to nurse. Something I've considered is "stuffing" a bottle of expressed breastmilk in his mouth as a dream feed to avoid picking him up. Any thoughts on this?

I'd love to have Gavin down for an earlier bedtime to have some adult time with my DH. Hopefully we eventually get to a 7 or 8 pm bedtime.

Thanks again!! 

[vadensmommy]

The feeding to sleep will probably get more and more difficult the older he gets, and the more aware he is of his surroundings, so working on breaking that habit now (while not easy or pleasant) will be easier than when he is older.  Here is a link to the props boards and you can post a question about how best to break the habit of feeding to sleep:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?board=28.0

We bottle fed, and dd too was often fed to sleep.  She was a good bit younger than your lo, but we did everything very gradually will it got to the point where I could put dd down awake and she will put herself to sleep which is FABULOUS.  Best thing I ever did for either of us. 

A few more thoughts on naps.  30min naps tend to mean that your lo is overtired/had too much A time.  45 min naps can be biological, but they can also mean that A time is too short.  And in your case I would work on getting A times more consistent and closer to that 1.5hr mark, and that will hopefully help. 

Dream feeding:  I was so terrified to try the df because once dd was asleep I sure didn't want to be waking her up.  All I can say is give it a try.  Some babies take right to it, and others never do.  Ours took to it right away (we started around 8 weeks) and we are still doing it!  If he already takes a bottle of breast milk well, then you could try that, and I've heard of some parents feeding the lo right in the crib, but that always made me nervous.  DD was a puker from day one, and I hated not to have her at least a bit upright while feeding just so she wouldn't choke.  I really do contribute the DF to getting dd sleeping through the night very early - about 9 weeks.  Pick a night and experiment-it's the only way you'll ever figure out if it will work.  You may have a terrible night if he wakes, but then again, what if he started sleeping through better?  And since he settles better at night, then I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even open his eyes when you picked him up and latched him on.  Or you could still use a bottle for that feeding if you wanted.  Just some thoughts

One last thought.  Don't be afraid of putting him to bed earlier.  I was always so scared that dd would have an earlier waking for the morning if I did that, and most of the time she actually wakes later.  We start pretty early (I work part time) so a normal wake up for us is about 6:15.  We were out of town last weekend visiting the gparents who live out of state, and had a very hectic weekend.  I knew dd was overtired, so I put her to bed at 6pm the other night and she actually slept (with a df) till 6:30am the next morning.  Up until then she'd been waking around 5:20

I hope all this helps a bit and I hope you are able to get more structure into both your days and get some of that precious Y time for you and your DH.  Good luck, and let me know how you get along!!

[Vanessa L]

Thanks again for all your advice!  So I've determined if my DS gets over tired to the point of crying, I'm completely out of luck at getting him to sleep in less than 2 hours (this happened 2 nites ago)

However, last night I watched his cues very carefully, started his wind down routine early, and got him sleeping for good at 8:30 pm- it was amazing!  He had to eat at midnight (I guess in lieu of a dream feed), and at 6:30 am, but it's now 9:30 am, and I'm up and he's just starting to stir.  I think the next step is to try to dream feed (as you said) and get him through to the morning w/o me doing 2 feedings. He hadn't gone to bed this early (and stayed down) for 2 months. As well, he's a lot easier to put down with minimal prop usage when he's not over tired yet. His night time awakenings only took me 15-20 minutes (inclusing eating), whereas I'm usually up for 30-40 minutes,
Also, he can take a bottle flat on his back and seldom spits up, so I may try that for the dream feed- perhaps my DH could do it???



I feel thrilled to have progress already, and will work on not overdoing his A time to get the 1.5 hour naps.
Thanks again!

[vadensmommy]

So glad you are starting to see some good results!!!!  That is so exciting! 
My Dh is responsible for our DF as well.  I went back to work when dd was 3mo old, so my new wake up time was 5:30 am and we had been doing the df at 11, so there was NO way I would be alive to work if I had stayed up that late.  So my bedtime is about 9pm, and dh has been doing the df at around 10:30 ever since.  it is FABULOUS!!!  He is much more of a night owl than I am so it works out really well.  I know that one of the sleep interviews with tracey that is posted somewhere that she used the dream feed to prevent that midnight or 1am waking from getting established because she says it is one of the hardest to eliminate.  So even after introducing the dream feed it may take some work to fix that waking if he continues to wake even though he recently ate and isn't really hungry.  Might take some shh/pat or other methods I would recommend you post in the night wakings board if this happens for more help.  Keep up the fabulous work, and post back with how things are going!!!