Baby Can't Resettle

[CO.Momma.11]

Hi There,
I'm new to this and am at a loss with our daughter. She is 3 months old and has an awful time transitioning through her sleep cycles. She goes down fine for naps & bed- I nurse her until she's sleepy, she goes in her crib or pack n play, and usually falls asleep within minutes. Her naps end exactly at 45 minutes, which is fine with me. Her night routine is the worst, though! We do bath, lotion, PJ's, nurse, swaddle sack, and into bed. She usually falls asleep without help, but wakes up exactly 45 minutes after she falls asleep and is hysterical. Some nights I can nurse her until she's calm, but other times she screams and screams. We do the pu/pd and have also done shh/pat. Both used to work, but in the past few weeks..it has gotten awful. Her sister was the same way and I am wondering if it is just the way our kids are. She sucks her hands for comfort, but even at night it isn't enough. Any ideas? I hate being stressed at the end of the day and most nights end in tears for both of us!

 

[Larkspur]

There's a four-month sleep regression that she might be going through (was she overdue? Is she 3.5 months, not just-turned-3-months?) but in the bigger picture, yeah, it sucks but it's pretty normal.

There are so many myths around how babies "should" sleep and the truth is that many babies wake very frequently for many months, and need a lot of help to go back to sleep before they are ready to learn on their own.

My belief is that you just do whatever works best for you. Co-sleeping, nursing, shh-pat, sleep training (preferably gentle), rocking, dummy, taking shifts with your OH, change evening routine, nap during the day, whatever. Just get through it as best you can.

I found that it was much more stressful thinking that my baby "should" be some way other than the way s/he was, and that I "should" be finding some way to "fix" him/her. Once I accepted that my babies slept how they slept and my role was just to be there to support them while trying to maximise the sleep I could get around it, I felt less resentful and stressed. Tired, yes, cranky, sometimes, but the acceptance took a lot of pressure off.

 

[jessmke]

My 3 month old was doing the same thing. I started doing a 30-45 min nap with her right before bedtime. So instead of bedtime at 7 pm, she has a nap at 7 pm, then she goes to bed within an hour after waking from her nap, so we usually start her bedtime routing 15-30 min after she wakes up. This stopped her from waking after her first sleep cycle when she goes to bed. From what I've read, if they are over tired they have a hard time re-settling after their first sleep cycle, so I think this nap before bed prevents over tiredness. We give her a pacifier which helps her settle, but it also means I have to sit by her crib for half an hour when she goes to bed to replace the paci when it falls out.