3 month old and overtired often

[KatO79]

So my son seems to often get overtired and I'm thinking I'm missing the earliest signs of when I should start putting him down for his naps. Sometimes though he'll wake up and feed (I breastfeed) and then be drowsy towards the end but once I take him off the breast because I can tell he's done, he suddenly seems more awake but yawns.

Any tips on the earliest tired signs and what to do when he suddenly seems more awake but is yawning?

 

[1nceUponATime]

I breastfeed and I nurse to sleep.... not sure whether it's good or bad as she is only just past 4 months... but I notice she yawns, she stops wanting to play, she becomes fussy (making her little complaining noises).... sometimes I just know when she will become tired, like she has a max awake time of so many hours and I kinda know when we are approaching that. Sometimes they just fight their sleep though. I know my baby does, which is why I nurse to sleep, she enjoys it and it's comforting to her... and there's nothing cuter than her cuddling with my boob lol the only issue is I think she kind of neeeeds it now to get to sleep lol so then I have to be super stealthy to unlatch her and place her in her crib... otherwise like you said, they wake right back up.

 

[KatO79]

I breastfeed and I nurse to sleep.... not sure whether it's good or bad as she is only just past 4 months... but I notice she yawns, she stops wanting to play, she becomes fussy (making her little complaining noises).... sometimes I just know when she will become tired, like she has a max awake time of so many hours and I kinda know when we are approaching that. Sometimes they just fight their sleep though. I know my baby does, which is why I nurse to sleep, she enjoys it and it's comforting to her... and there's nothing cuter than her cuddling with my boob lol the only issue is I think she kind of neeeeds it now to get to sleep lol so then I have to be super stealthy to unlatch her and place her in her crib... otherwise like you said, they wake right back up.

Yep my son gets the same way although when I try to get him to sleep it's like it's already almost too late by then and it's an uphill battle getting him to sleep where it can take up to 40 minutes I've also sometimes resorted to nursing to sleep, sometimes because he seeks out my breast for comfort, and admit that it's often hard to transfer him to his cradle/cot without him waking up and then getting those wide eyes What do you do when you're daughter wakes up after being nursed to sleep?

 

[1nceUponATime]

Well, unfortunately it ends up with another nursing to sleep session. She doesn't seem to quiet down any other way. So I will try other methods of comfort... rocking, shushing, walking around.... but I end up putting her back on the boob. And again, i can't say if it's good or bad because maybe I am making her dependent on nursing for sleep, but I can't bare just to let her cry it out or something.

You aren't alone. It took me over an hour or more of clusterfeeding/comfort nursing to finally get my DD to sleep last night :-/

 

[caz_hills]

My daughter is he same. If she feeds to sleep it's fine but when she needs to nap I too think I miss the signs. I end up madly rocking her like you described for 10 minutes until she sleeps.

I seem to miss the signs too which is annoying. My friend said controlled crying but to me it seems too early as she is so tiny and I couldn't possibly do it until she is older.

 

[KatO79]

Wow 1nceUponATime, I'm amazed you can handle all that nursing, my areolas get sore if I let my son nurse so often Unfortunately for me, my success rate of transfering him from the boob to his cot has a very low success rate (especially if he's overtired!) so I've dropped trying to nurse him to sleep like that, my nipples would fall off in the end if I did that every time

caz_hills sorry you're in the same boat as well. I'm a bit jelly though that you only use 10 minutes of rocking, with my son I'm often up on 20-40 minutes depending on how much he's decided to fight sleeping and that's even during the night hours so often results in me getting very little sleep as I often need 20-30 minutes to fall back to sleep again I agree with you on the controlled crying, I couldn't do that either and definitely not when he's so young.

Glad to know I'm not the only one with this problem. I tried asking a lady in a Mommy & Me Group I'm a part of and she told me that when she puts her son down for a nap (our sons are almost exactly the same age), she just puts him in his baby carriage or cot and yeah he complains for a bit but falls fast asleep shortly after. I was thinking wow, do babies like that exist When I just put my son in his cot that way, he gets those wide eyes like he's saying "No way am I sleeping!", I call them his "speed eyes" because it looks like he's on something

Ended up this morning (after a night of almost no sleep) walking around with him in his baby carrier for about 1½ hours with very few and short breaks (he'd start waking up if I sat down for much more than 1 minute) and think I've gotten him over some of the worst of his overtiredness this time. Tried to get him to nap after he'd been awake for almost 1½ hours after giving him a quick feed but he wasn't interested. Ended up putting him in his carriage, rocking him for a while and he's sleeping now so FXed he gets at least 2 hours.

It's not only me that has problems with my son, my DH has issues getting him to sleep as well and my MIL that had 3 kids finds him challenging as well.