is/was your LO a really bad sleeper? support and advise thread!

[lisa1980]

And he's awake again

The only thing that's consistently true about my LO is that he's inconsistent.

 

[AngelUK]

Question about naps and sleep: So I know that sleep is supposed to beget sleep and having a routine is important. But what would you do if the nap falls to a different time than usual? For example, after their lunch bottle my boys should sleep for about an hour and a half. This is their main nap of the day. But very often they both wake up after 45 mins and pretend to be well rested, refusing to sleep any more. Now of course this isn't a problem with Sebastian but Dominic gets really cranky after about 30 mins of being up while not being willing to go back down, naturally. Today I had to go buy some stuff and I thought he would then sleep some more in the car. Nahuh! He did drop of at the shopping centre and a lil on the ride home. But that was at the most 30 broken minutes. So when we got home I put him in his bouncy and he instantly fell asleep there. I didn't want to wake him even though he should have been fed at 3:30. In the end he was fed at 5:00 which in turn should have put his bedtime bottle to 9 instead of 7:30! I fed him at 8 instead and am now in the middle of the nightly battle of him staying asleep. I am worried that because he was overtired and cranky twice this afternoon and didn't get the naps at the right time, he will sleep even worse tonight. So what I was wondering is, does it ever happen to you that your lil one takes the longest naps later than they should and if so do you wake them to keep on schedule with their feeds? xxx

 

[firefly15]

absolutely!!
you know, i was thinking after you re-appeared, who was the 4th mum i was referring to (the other initial 3 were: you, lisa and flippty) and i came to the conclusion that the forth one was me!!
anyway, there's many more now chocolala, mrs edgehog, angel, bid, etc etc to all

that made me laugh out loud! Fingers crossed we all get at least one half decent block of sleep tonight. I was hoping for a birthday lie in this morning but got the 6am wake up call so maybe I'll be lucky and get more sleep tonight instead?! A girl can dream!

 

[kosh]

And he's awake again

The only thing that's consistently true about my LO is that he's inconsistent.

(sorry!)

 

[flippityflop]

Question about naps and sleep: So I know that sleep is supposed to beget sleep and having a routine is important. But what would you do if the nap falls to a different time than usual? For example, after their lunch bottle my boys should sleep for about an hour and a half. This is their main nap of the day. But very often they both wake up after 45 mins and pretend to be well rested, refusing to sleep any more. Now of course this isn't a problem with Sebastian but Dominic gets really cranky after about 30 mins of being up while not being willing to go back down, naturally. Today I had to go buy some stuff and I thought he would then sleep some more in the car. Nahuh! He did drop of at the shopping centre and a lil on the ride home. But that was at the most 30 broken minutes. So when we got home I put him in his bouncy and he instantly fell asleep there. I didn't want to wake him even though he should have been fed at 3:30. In the end he was fed at 5:00 which in turn should have put his bedtime bottle to 9 instead of 7:30! I fed him at 8 instead and am now in the middle of the nightly battle of him staying asleep. I am worried that because he was overtired and cranky twice this afternoon and didn't get the naps at the right time, he will sleep even worse tonight. So what I was wondering is, does it ever happen to you that your lil one takes the longest naps later than they should and if so do you wake them to keep on schedule with their feeds? xxx

Now that I actually have some semblance of a routine I will wake my Lo by 5pm so he can have tea and be ready for bed at 7. Before I would just go with it and let him sleep whenever he wanted as I was just so desperate to get him to have any kind of nap. That said I didn't really let him sleep past 4 (not that he ever had an afternoon nap - was generally awake from 2 till bedtime and be crankmeister general).

To be honest now I would still let him nap as long as he wants in the day and will fit feeds in around him. But before he had no sort of feeding schedule so it didn't make any difference.

 

[flippityflop]

absolutely!!
you know, i was thinking after you re-appeared, who was the 4th mum i was referring to (the other initial 3 were: you, lisa and flippty) and i came to the conclusion that the forth one was me!!
anyway, there's many more now chocolala, mrs edgehog, angel, bid, etc etc to all

that made me laugh out loud! Fingers crossed we all get at least one half decent block of sleep tonight. I was hoping for a birthday lie in this morning but got the 6am wake up call so maybe I'll be lucky and get more sleep tonight instead?! A girl can dream!

Happy Birthday! X

 

[chocolala]

Question about naps and sleep: So I know that sleep is supposed to beget sleep and having a routine is important. But what would you do if the nap falls to a different time than usual? For example, after their lunch bottle my boys should sleep for about an hour and a half. This is their main nap of the day. But very often they both wake up after 45 mins and pretend to be well rested, refusing to sleep any more. Now of course this isn't a problem with Sebastian but Dominic gets really cranky after about 30 mins of being up while not being willing to go back down, naturally. Today I had to go buy some stuff and I thought he would then sleep some more in the car. Nahuh! He did drop of at the shopping centre and a lil on the ride home. But that was at the most 30 broken minutes. So when we got home I put him in his bouncy and he instantly fell asleep there. I didn't want to wake him even though he should have been fed at 3:30. In the end he was fed at 5:00 which in turn should have put his bedtime bottle to 9 instead of 7:30! I fed him at 8 instead and am now in the middle of the nightly battle of him staying asleep. I am worried that because he was overtired and cranky twice this afternoon and didn't get the naps at the right time, he will sleep even worse tonight. So what I was wondering is, does it ever happen to you that your lil one takes the longest naps later than they should and if so do you wake them to keep on schedule with their feeds? xxx

I've woken Lily in the past, not for feeds though, but to make sure, try to any way, that we don't end up going to bed too late. She always ends up very grumpy because of it, so almost not worth it.

 

[flippityflop]

And he's awake again

The only thing that's consistently true about my LO is that he's inconsistent.

This was Cormac. I used to stop telling people if he happened have a good stretch of sleep or a good nap as they'd go, "this is it, he's got it", and they didn't understand why I was so pessimistic. I said the ONLY thing I could ever guarantee is that he is inconsistent and will not do that again tonight. He's known as The Enigma in my family.

 

[AngelUK]

Happy Birthday firefly
Thanks for the answers ladies. Another question though: If your LO has a bedtime at say 7:30 how long before would you try and keep them up? The last nap of the day is actually the most difficult one for me. Very often my boys want to catch up on sleep that they missed at their after lunch nap and I always worry that this might then interfere with their sleeping. Well, with Dom's sleeping really cause Sebastian is that fabled easy and angelic baby that every pregnant lady thinks they are gonna have

 

[flippityflop]

Happy Birthday firefly
Thanks for the answers ladies. Another question though: If your LO has a bedtime at say 7:30 how long before would you try and keep them up? The last nap of the day is actually the most difficult one for me. Very often my boys want to catch up on sleep that they missed at their after lunch nap and I always worry that this might then interfere with their sleeping. Well, with Dom's sleeping really cause Sebastian is that fabled easy and angelic baby that every pregnant lady thinks they are gonna have

I'd do 2 hrs, so if bedtime was 7.30 then they'd need to be awake by 5.30.

 

[chocolala]

Yeah, at four months I'd of done 2 hours as well.

 

[kosh]

yes,prob 2 hr at 4 months. i do 3 hours now.
and re your other question angel - i never wake him up. it happened this week actually, he had a nap at 5 and woke up at 6:30. he ended up going to sleep at 9:30 instead of 8pm,but apart from that his night was not worse than usual

--- edit: happy bday firefly!!

 

[Claireyb1]

Last night I had 4/5 wake ups from bedtime 7pm to 11pm. and then more through the night
She went down at 7pm no problem at all,it's just the staying asleep that is the issue.It varies so much from night to night though?
She had 3 nice 45min naps yesterday,so 2 1/4 hours (slightly more than normal) and she woke more than normal....surely it can't be too much day sleep at this age? What total nap times do all your LO's have?

 

[firefly15]

Well, someone must have heard me last night! We actually had a pretty good night in the end after LO deciding to wake up every 10 minutes from 9.30 til 10.45. He then woke at 1.30 and then again just before 5am!!! That's one of the longest stretches we've had in a really long time! He was still up for the day just after 6 but then he went to bed early last night, so I guess that's fair enough. Yay for more than 2 hours sleep in one go

Re. the naps - at 4 months I would do 2 hours awake time before bed too. LO was still having quite a late nap at that age, but would generally be awake by 5pm and bed for around 7. Sometimes he would nap til 6, and I just left him to it as he was a nightmare if he was woken up before he was ready.

 

[firefly15]

Last night I had 4/5 wake ups from bedtime 7pm to 11pm. and then more through the night
She went down at 7pm no problem at all,it's just the staying asleep that is the issue.It varies so much from night to night though?
She had 3 nice 45min naps yesterday,so 2 1/4 hours (slightly more than normal) and she woke more than normal....surely it can't be too much day sleep at this age? What total nap times do all your LO's have?

For us total daytime sleep adds up to 1.5 hours (2 45 min naps) on a bad day and 2.5 on a good day. I wouldn't think 2.25 at your LOs age was too much at all. Our naps and night wakings are totally unrelated as far as I can tell. Yesterday naps were rubbish and he had one of the best nights in ages, then we'll have days of brilliant naps and terrible nights

 

[AngelUK]

Our night was terrible too and I had a hard time sleeping at all. Dreamfed the boys at 20 to 12. Dom cried at 1, 2, 2:15, 2:45 and at 3:30 at which point I fed him and had to change him completely as he was leaking yet again. Then I fed Seb. Got to bed again at 4 since Seb is still reluctant to eat. Slept till 5:45 when Seb started crying. I checked and yep he was leaking too. Changed him and he fell asleep again. 7:15 Dom started crying so I fed him but he only wanted 120ml of his 210ml Lay down with him thinking he might drop off again with me there but no. He did poo though so I changed him again. Tried feeding Seb at 8 but no luck, he only had about 30ml. Both boys were smiley and happy to see me but where rubbing their eyes so it was relatively easy to get them to fall asleep again then. And here I am thinking should I try to get back to bed at 8:30am? But really I only had about 1h45mins of sleep and I feel like a spat out chewing gum

 

[lisa1980]

Angel and ClaireyB I'm sorry you had such a bad night. It sucks to feel so tired all the time. I'd definitely try to sneak in a nap if at all possible today.

Firefly - happy belated birthday!! And yay for a better night

Our night was average. He woke a fair few times but only fed twice and was pretty easy to settle each time so I don't know if that's an improvement or if I'm just always looking for a silver lining

Re the awake time, at 4 months my LO could go for 1.5-2hrs before needing a nap. His naps were always 30mins on the button (you could set a watch by him) but at some point around 6 months I think he just randomly started having longer naps which led to him dropping one and having a morning and afternoon nap lasting around 1-1.5hrs each, which is SO much better as now I can actually get stuff done. I did NOTHING to get him to do this - he just did it himself randomly.

I also personally don't find that sleep begets sleep for my LO. Some days he has amazing naps and his nights are screwy and vice versa. It all seems totally random (if there was a pattern I'd have cracked it by now as I've been analysing EVERYTHING he does since he was born trying to predict him!)

Re waking before bed - i find that now he can do around 3-4hours awake time before a nap so now I will wake him if he sleeps past 4.30pm to try to preserve bedtime (almost never happens though).

 

[AngelUK]

I thought I was doing something wrong with his naps lol cause it doesn't seem to me that sleep begets sleep either. Nightsleeps are crap with Dom and excellent with Seb no matter. So yeah

 

[lisa1980]

I don't know...it feels a lot of the time that these 'truths' are bandied around as if they apply to all babies and if yours doesn't 'comply' then you're doing it wrong.

It's rubbish. They're individuals and they clearly haven't read all the sleep books that I have so they don't realise what they're meant to do

 

[chocolala]

Lily is another one who doesn't go along with the sleep = sleep thingy. She makes up her own rules.