Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[mellyboo]

Her routine is shifted a bit later than most, but I don't think it's bad. I'd go with the CC for night wakings.

Me either i feel like we establish generally a good routine.. she is a routine baby she likes her things at different times or you can tell she gets cranky and irritable! I think really i just have ran to her every cry and whine since she's been born and you can kinda tell shes " testing" me some times because for the pass couple of nights she has started doing this screaming thing and i kid you not my friends kids do THE SAME THING.. and it all happen at the mall one day we were there with them her kid started doing it and jordyn was copying now jordyn does it in her crib at night when shes suppose to be " going to bed" and she screams and yells mamamamammaamamam!!! for 10 mins.

 

[stephie_corin]

Ooh Stephie, I hadn't though of that. GREAT idea!

Noelle, I can't take credit - I'm pretty sure this was Polaris' advice to someone else! Good luck x

 

[polaris]

Stephie, , sorry you had such a stressful journey back. What a horrible way to end such a relaxing holiday. I agree that you definitely need to give yourself a bit of time to settle back to normal (whatever that is!) before you can really assess where you are at with regard to his sleep. Hopefully it will improve again, at least he did have a few better nights.

In relation to the morning nap, my understanding (what I can remember) from various sleep books is that it serves a different function to the afternoon nap, it is more of a continuation of night-time sleep (similar brain waves to night time sleep) whereas the afternoon nap is a different sort of sleep. I'm not sure if you will really have much choice about dropping or keeping the nap to be honest. If he's not developmentally ready to drop the nap you would probably find that it impacted negatively on his mood during the day or on his overall sleep over a 24 hour period. This has definitely been my experience with Thomas whenever I have tried to drop a nap that he is not yet ready to drop. I think some babies are more flexible and can more easily reorganize their sleep patterns so nap transitions are easier, but I still don't think it would be easy to encourage him to drop the nap unless he was already very close to being ready.

Notnic - delighted that you had a good holiday. It sounds like F is sleeping really well too, yay! So exciting that he is close to walking!

Matilda - welcome to the thread! I would agree with the advice from seaweed and steph. What age will he be when you have to go back to work? I am currently WIO but have tried other stuff in the past. But I am not back in work now until January when Clara will be nearly 17 months and I am optimistic that there will be at least some improvements by then. From other threads/forums it seems that 14-15 months seems to be when a lot of babies sleep begins to improve naturally although I'm sure Clara is not aware of this timetable but I am hopeful that she might be at least a little bit better by then. For a lot of babies CC works really quickly and effectively so that is a possible option for you or you could try gradual withdrawal where you stay in the room with them while they learn to self-settle. It depends on how you feel about methods involving crying.

Mellyboo, your routine looks good to me. I hope CC works quickly for you if that is the route you decide to take. At least she does sleep well some nights so it won't be such a big leap for her, hopefully she will learn quickly. Enjoy your holiday!

SE - so glad to hear that Munchkin is better and also that his sleep has improved. Is he back doing long stretches again now?

 

[seaweed eater]

Yeah, we always have the 45-minute waking from overtiredness, but usually he's asleep until around 2 after that, which I'm happy with. Or at least, the past two nights have been like that.

 

[NotNic]

Thanks everyone. It turns out that Finlay is a bit like that Michael MacIntyre (sp?) sketch, where he hopes the reason his son isn't talking, is because his son is in fact French !! 10mths of squiffy sleep and we finally realise Finlay's a Mediterranean baby! Not sure how we'd be able to cope with that schedule on a grotty November day though! So far he's doing one long sleep a day, so perhaps we are transitioning now?

Seaweed - the molars have taken forever to cut! They started playing up while he had chicken pox, and then early on in the holiday we had a few dodgy nights (up 4-5 times which probably was teeth) and then we had one day he was really ratty and inconsolable which was probably instead of our regular horrific teething night! The Spanish teething gel worked well for us. So much so the front tooth cut with hardly a whimper and his second molar has just broken the skin and I had to look into his mouth to realise. And his gums have been bleeding. I'm thinking about exporting the stuff in! No wonder it cost me 10 euros!!!

Matilda - I'm a WIO person. I'm not opposed to sleep training (done consistently it works wonders for a lot of people), but for us we've tended to swing from periods of good and bad sleeping, so there's never really been a right time to try. I will do CC if I know Finlay is genuinely overtired, but I won't do it other times. From reading other people's stories I think sleep associations and good sleep habits are the remedies to most bad sleepers and probably a much gentler way to coax baby into sleeping properly. I'd work on that if I were you.

Also a while ago someone suggested I post about 'motion addicts' . I've now forgotten who was asking AND who recommended that I saw the message, so sorry to both of you. Much of what I've picked up came from this TV program. Hope it helps you guys too: https://bedtimelive.channel4.com/hints-and-tips/

 

[stephie_corin]

SE, you're right - his good sleep coincided with the brief period he was self settling for naps. I thought one nap might be the solution because he is fighting both naps now (and has done all week). Maybe it was just holiday excitement? Today he was was up for the day at 645 (which is late for him!) and he took a 30 minute nap around 2.5 hours after waking... 4 hours later he is just going down for his second nap. I've been trying since around the 3 hour mark to wind him down but all he wants to do is play. Even nursing to sleep didn't work - he kept biting me and giggling!

Great news about Munchkin's sleep! You must feel so relieved. Are you still in his room or back in your own bedroom? Did you make a decision about sleep training?

Melly, one thing that stood out to me is that her first nap is only 2 hours after waking but she has around 5 hour awake times after that (depending on nap length). Nothing wrong with it if it is working for you but you could experiment by pushing the first nap a bit later (try 2.5 hours) and bring the second nap a bit earlier. She might be waking from overtiredness.

Noelle, did you try the cat nap? Did it work?

Polaris, thanks for your perspective on dropping a nap. How did you know when Thomas was ready? Did you try him on one nap and it was a disaster? How has bedtime been for you?

NotNic, I laughed when you described Finlay as a Mediterranean baby! I hope you can find a routine that works for you

I ended up giving Culver nurofen last night because he was crying badly every time he woke up. He ended up doing two hour stretches all night! It was pretty amazing. I think 9 months is going to be a really interesting age. He's definitely realised he can cry when he wants something or if he's not allowed to play with something and he seems a lot more cheeky and headstrong than usual.

I'm really not sure what to do about naps. How do you 'go with the flow' with a baby that has to nurse to sleep and will only sleep in a quiet bedroom? How do you anticipate naps? We sat upstairs for 1.5 hours today because I thought he wanted a nap... I'm rubbish without a formula that tells me when he wants to sleep. Since last week, nap times are all over the place. He's just now falling asleep and yesterday he'd been up for 30 minutes after an hour long nap at this time... ?

 

[stephie_corin]

And when do I do bedtime?!? I assume he won't wake for at least 45 minutes which will be 3pm. Do I still aim for a 5 hour awake time? How do I know when to do bath?!? Lol.

 

[AmyS]

Melly - That's kind of cute that she's started imitating the other kids! Have you been trying CC for your night wakings? If so, how's it going?

SE - Nice stretch of sleep until 2am! How's daycare been going? Naps getting any better?

NotNic - What is this Spanish teething gel? Can you get it on Amazon? Molars scare me! The top front teeth scare me!!

Stephie - Two hour stretches are amazing! Hope you were able to get some good sleep in too! I'm not good with advice on "go with the flow", because I'm more of a scheduler too. It drives me crazy if daycare forgets to write down when she woke from her afternoon nap, and hubby didn't ask. Then, I just have to wing it for bedtime, and that makes me nervous!

Matilda - Sounds like you've gotten some good advice! I was on the fence about CC/WIO too about that age. I stalled so much, that I guess I did just WIO for the most part, and my LO's sleep did improve greatly! She is 8 months old now, and has been sleeping great for a few weeks. We also had to transition out of a strong sleep association - she was still sleeping in her rock 'n play at night, which I'm sure extended her sleep regression beyond the normal.

Noelle - Can't wait to hear how your nap transition is going!

________________

We had a busy day yesterday! Chloe finally started trying to crawl! Yippee!!! She just started getting up on all fours and rocking on Monday, then when I picked her up at daycare yesterday, they said she was slowly army crawling at one point. I caught her on video yesterday, and it's more of a frog leap than army crawling - her belly is in the air.

She did not nap at all yesterday at daycare!! I take Wednesday afternoons off now, so she ended up taking 2 naps with me - a 45 minute one, and then a 2 hour 15 min one. I thought last night would be horrible - she woke up 3 times, but ended up sleeping in a little later than normal.

 

[Noelle610]

Yay Chloe! Having a mobile baby is a whole new world!

Charlie has done the "no nap" days... They're awful. You're lucky C was at daycare so that you didn't have to deal with the fussiness

 

[polaris]

Stephie, I can so totally relate to your post! I am such a scheduler and I just want to know what time naps etc will be happening and it drives me mad to have to try and wing it! I have lengthened all of Clara's awake times except for before the first nap and it seems to have really helped her to settle more quickly. We are now doing (approximately) 2.5-3/4/4.5-4.75. However I do her first nap by the clock at 9.30 and I also wake her at 10.30 from her first nap and at 4 from her second nap regardless of how long she has slept in order to try to keep the day on schedule. This gives us predictable nap times of 9.30 to 10.30 and 2.30 to 4. This means a late bedtime at 8.30 or even 8.45 but it seems to be working better for her than trying to maintain the earlier bedtime which is what I was trying for ages. Her night time sleep is worse than ever though so maybe don't listen to me!

To answer your question about dropping to one nap - yes, I tried unsuccessfully to move Thomas to one nap when he was 13 months. He was only taking a catnap in the mornings and his afternoon nap was getting quite late and I thought it would be just generally a lot easier if he was just on one nap. It didn't work out at all, he just got really over-tired and cranky and started waking a lot at night whereas he was previously sleeping pretty well at night. I think it was another couple of months before we successfully moved to one nap, I can't remember exactly but I think about 15-16 months.

Amy - yay for crawling!! So exciting!

 

[Noelle610]

I don't think Charlie will fully transition until 15-16 months.

So we didn't try the cat nap... My daycare took her to the park in the morning and then she had a 2.5 hour nap after lunch. She was in a great mood at home that evening, but I'm not sure how she was in the morning. They're going to try it today!

 

[polaris]

Just a quick update - Clara properly self-settled tonight for the first time in ages! She always rolls over and puts herself to sleep after coming off the boob but she's generally half asleep at that stage already and if she can't get to sleep straight away she just gets frustrated and rolls back for more boob. But tonight she rolled away when she was still quite awake - I was sure she would roll back to feed some more but she didn't, she just wriggled around a bit and took herself off to sleep in about five minutes!

 

[Noelle610]

Yay Clara!

 

[seaweed eater]

Noelle, how did the catnap end up going?

Polaris, that's wonderful!! She's grown up so much recently! I hope it means her sleep is better tonight.

Stephie, truly "going with the flow" has never really worked for us, and it seems like Cully may be similar in that regard. If we don't have a routine in place already, tired cues are not a good guide to when Munchkin should be napping. So for me going with the flow just means having a slightly larger latitude: trying to stick to a routine but not letting myself get too frustrated if he won't nap at the right time, things like that. It helps to have contingency rules like "Try putting down for a nap for no longer than half an hour, then wait for another sleepy cue before trying again." Do you think that would make sense? Maybe you are already doing things like that. I do think it may just take some time for him to get back into his usual habits after your trip. Especially if he's also working on developmental things he's excited about (and aren't they all, really?) I don't know when you ended up doing bedtime, but I would probably have tried for something like 7:30 if his usual time is 6:30ish and he woke up at 3. I hope you have another better night tonight. Getting through your own hour and a half sleep cycle is a big deal if you don't have that experience very often!!

Amy, congrats on your crawler!! That was fast! I believe Munchkin first rocked on hands and knees over two months ago I'm sorry about the no nap day but I bet it had to do with the excitement of being mobile. Glad it didn't affect the night too much. I hope things calm down soon.

Wondering what you ladies think. Munchkin's NWs have been very regular for about a week now, aside from two weird nights from the illness. He wakes up around 1:30-2, then three hours later, then an hour after that he's up for the day. I'd like to work toward dropping one of those feeds (eep!) but I'm not sure which one. I'd love to be rid of the second one, because I'm always afraid he's going to be up for the day and could do without that suspense at 4:30 AM, but for that exact reason it also seems like a riskier one to mess with. What do you think?

Or should I wait until his napping is sorted out so that he's not as likely to wake early due to being overtired? I just don't know when that will be :/ it's still a disaster. Usually his first "nap" is 10-15 min in arms and his second one is around 20 minutes in his crib. That's it.

One more question. He's also waking at 45 min most evenings (he didn't last night, but basically every other day recently), and he never goes back to sleep within a couple minutes so I nurse him. Is that waking habit-like enough that he could learn to sleep through it (or resettle himself) if I stopped nursing him? My guess is no, because it has more to do with having trouble getting into deeper sleep, not with associations? What do you think?

Stephie, to answer your question about sleep training, I don't really see a need to change things at bedtime at the moment since he's sleeping so much better now (CURSE! stay away!). But I would eventually like to see if he'll drop some night feeds, which certainly isn't WIO, so I guess that makes it sleep training.

 

[stephie_corin]

Amy, congratulations to Chloe on the crawling! It's such an exciting development! Poor baby not managing to nap! It always surprises me how resilient these babies are. Has she managed to nap at daycare since? I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets nervous about winging bedtime!

Polaris, what you describe with Thomas is just what Cully is doing; cat nap in the am and a later and later afternoon snooze. It's a real effort to get him down for his naps too. I'll persevere with the two naps though. It's interesting what you say about Clara's wake times. Are sure she's not sneaking downstairs in the night and telephoning Cully? He seems to follow her pattern of waketimes so closely. He's lengthened his middle awake time to 4 hours too! Maybe check your phone bill for any phonecalls to the UAE... Congrats on the self settling! How did she sleep!?

I like your approach to naps. I think I'm going to have to institute something similar to try and get some kind of predictable pattern to our day.

Noelle, what a great one nap! Clever girl Charlie! I hope she wasn't too cranky in the am.

SE, I like your ideas of contingency rules! Cully is a funny one and doesn't exhibit tired signs until he is at the point of complete meltdown! I do think I will make a rule of 15 minutes trying for a nap, 15 minutes playing and then repeat it until he falls asleep. He seems to have an incredible ability to just go and go and go unless I rock him to sleep (with much protest from him).

Wow, Munchkin is surviving on such little day sleep. How is his mood on such short naps? I'm surprised he only takes 10 minutes in arms - is this with you or daycare? Although you said he now self settles to sleep so maybe he doesn't like being held any more. Is the wake up from that nap happening when he is being transferred? Or is he just waking up?

I don't think there is any harm slowly working towards dropping the feeds, even if naps are bad. Do you have any other way of getting him to sleep at 430am other than nursing? Will he rock to sleep or could you bring him into bed with you for snuggles? When C was waking really early I kept rocking him (sometimes for an hour or more) and wouldn't let him start the day until at least 6am. He now sleeps until 6am but does wake at 430am and 5.15am for a quick nurse to settle back to sleep, so I'm probably not the best person to offer advice!

With the 45 minute waking after bed time, I agree that this is trouble falling into deeper sleep. Cully does this too and I have to help him back to sleep - although I'm sure the sleep associations are what is stopping them from falling into deeper sleep? Sorry, I am being so unhelpful! When you did sleep train was he waking at 45 minutes?

We ended up aiming for a 730 bedtime and he finally fell asleep just after 8. We had hourly wakings until 1am and then a 2 hour stretch and a 1.5 hour stretch. I realised on nights he does the 2 hour stretches (and I get through my own sleep cycle) I actually have dreams! I used to have really vivid dreams pre baby and I haven't had a dream in what feels like months. If anyone is curious, I dreamt that I was gifted a large silver fish in a half filled plastic bag and I was on the hunt for an aquarium because I was worried he was going to die. I wish my one dream had been more interesting!

I hope everyone has great nights xxx

 

[NotNic]

Tired today. Finlay was sick, very sick in the night. Between 9.30 and 11.30 we were up mopping up and comforting him. He then woke at 1am retching, bit he was comforted quite easily. 5hrs sleep is not enough for this mummy! Someone pass me the coffee - stat!!

Congrats Clara on self-soothing, Chloe for crawling and Charlotte for coping with one nap. Clever girls!

Hope everyone else had peaceful nights.

 

[polaris]

Well, unfortunately the self-settling at bedtime didn't make any noticeable difference to her night time sleep! Oh well, at least it's a step in the right direction.

SE - I don't think there's any right or wrong answer but personally I would try to drop the 1.30/2 a.m. feed. I would be too scared that he wouldn't go back to sleep at 4.30/5 without the other one. With Thomas I kept the 5 a.m. feed for ages because I was afraid to mess with it, I was too worried that he would end up being up for the day at 4.30/5 a.m. if I didn't feed him at that time, he did eventually drop the feed on his own. ETA actually now that I think of it, once he dropped that 4.30/5 a.m. feed he did start waking for the day at 5.30!

Clara always used to do the 45 minute wake-up after bedtime but she amazingly seems to have stopped that for the moment and now tends to do 1.5-2 hours after bedtime which is great! I'm sure she'll wake after 45 minutes this evening though just to prove me wrong! I didn't do anything to encourage her to sleep through this waking but I do think Munchkin would be able to learn to resettle himself without nursing if you stopped nursing him at that time. I am thinking about doing this with Clara for early evening wakings once she is over a year.

Stephie - I think Clara must actually be doing longer stretches now because I do actually have dreams again. I remember that phase of never getting far enough into your own sleep cycle to dream. I was actually a little bit crazy at that stage I think! I think Clara usually goes into a deeper sleep and does a long stretch from about 3 or 4 a.m. through till 6.30/7 when we get up and that's when I have dreams now! As ever, Clara is the opposite of most babies who go into a lighter sleep at around 4 or 5 a.m. LOL.

Notnic, what a horrible night, I hate when they are sick like that. Even on a practical level I always run out of towels and bedding! Hope he's feeling better this morning.

 

[stephie_corin]

NotNic, I'm so sorry! What a horrible night! I hope F feels better soon.

Polaris, sorry to hear sleep was still bad! But you're right, the self settling is definitely a step in the right direction!

Did I say C was stretching out his middle awake time?! Silly me... I should have known he'd want his second nap only 2.5 hours after the first... Lol. I want my predictable napper back - it was the only part of sleep that was easy for us!

 

[Noelle610]

Just one nap yesterday and no catnap (daycare took them to the park again - beautiful weather). It was 3 hours and bedtime was uneventful I may try the cat nap tomorrow when she's home if she seems tired before noon.

SE, I think I'd drop the midnight feed and stick with the 4am one for now. Most moms I speak with say that's the hardest one to drop. That's just one opinion though! You could nurse him for less and less time gradually. That 45 minute thing? Charlie did it for months around Munchkin's age. No idea why. She wasn't overtired, she was going to bed awake and putting herself to sleep. It drove me bonkers. She just grew out of it. I know that's not helpful, but time was the solution for us!

 

[AmyS]

polaris - Yay for Clara!! That's amazing!

SE - I hate any wake ups after 4am!! That's such a tough time for getting and staying back to sleep. I like the other ladies' ideas of dropping the first feed.

Stephie - Chloe had one good nap at daycare yesterday, and that's because they held her! I think I'm going to have to stop holding her for naps at home, so our sleep will probably get really bad again before it gets better. I'm dream analyzing you! You must be a nurturer by nature, because even in your dreams, you find something to take care of! I like your 15 intervals for sleep - I think that will be less stressful than trying to fight a baby who isn't quite ready yet!

NotNic - Hope Finlay feels better soon! Poor baby!

Noelle - That's quite a nap! I think I would like a 3 hour nap myself. Hope your cat nap goes well tomorrow if she needs it. I always hate waking a sleeping baby!

Does anyone get the feeling that our babies are super smart, and read this thread daily just to mess with us?? As soon as something is going well, they change it up! haha

Chloe must have been practicing her army crawling all day yesterday at daycare, because she was a pro by the time she got home! I'm shocked!! Ok, maybe not a pro, but she definitely has no hesitation when she sees something she wants.

Sleep last night was good, she sttn from 7:15pm until 5am, but then we were up for the day. I thought I could try feeding her back to sleep until 6, but she decided to start giggling and playing - and I can't resist a giggling baby!