Sleep Sense Support Group!

[littledemonme]

Woohoo on sleeping through Polaris!

Ladies, we are on day 3 in the screaming fit household and I need your help. Lyra is going down to sleep ok, cried hysterically for 15 minutes then moans for 5 then goes off (around 7.30pm) wakes up at 11 has another bottle and goes off easily enough but is then awake every hour till 5 or 6am. HELP!!!! I have stripped through the book and doesn't say what to do - she is 11 weeks now so I know she doesn't need to feed, sometimes she's woken up because she's pooped so I change her but often she hasn't and doesn't seem that interested in food. When she wakes up after a 30 minute nap I stay with her until she's back down again - I suppose I should be doing this in the night should I? Any ideas on not checking nappy and/or how many times to night feed - she's clearly not hungry as will start to nod off after 5 mins feeding in her early hours waking.
Naps are getting better, takes 20-40 mins of screaming, wakes up after 30 mins but has started to go back down (today!!!) and will have 2 whole 30 min naps a day - major improvement!!!!
But I'm getting less sleep than I was as still waking hourly but taking all that time to get her down and having to deal with nighttime screaming on top of increased sleep deprivation - help!
Thank you ladies - hope you're all enjoying a dip in temperature...or it could just be it's a bit overcast here at the moment.

 

[polaris]

Woohoo on sleeping through Polaris!

Ladies, we are on day 3 in the screaming fit household and I need your help. Lyra is going down to sleep ok, cried hysterically for 15 minutes then moans for 5 then goes off (around 7.30pm) wakes up at 11 has another bottle and goes off easily enough but is then awake every hour till 5 or 6am. HELP!!!! I have stripped through the book and doesn't say what to do - she is 11 weeks now so I know she doesn't need to feed, sometimes she's woken up because she's pooped so I change her but often she hasn't and doesn't seem that interested in food. When she wakes up after a 30 minute nap I stay with her until she's back down again - I suppose I should be doing this in the night should I? Any ideas on not checking nappy and/or how many times to night feed - she's clearly not hungry as will start to nod off after 5 mins feeding in her early hours waking.
Naps are getting better, takes 20-40 mins of screaming, wakes up after 30 mins but has started to go back down (today!!!) and will have 2 whole 30 min naps a day - major improvement!!!!
But I'm getting less sleep than I was as still waking hourly but taking all that time to get her down and having to deal with nighttime screaming on top of increased sleep deprivation - help!
Thank you ladies - hope you're all enjoying a dip in temperature...or it could just be it's a bit overcast here at the moment.

I was wondering how you were getting on. It sounds so tiring and stressful but it will be worth it when she is sleeping better.

I think you are right, you should take the same approach with night wakings as you do for getting her to sleep when she wakes early from a nap. If she has a feed at 11 but then wakes after an hour then she definitely doesn't need another feed at that time so you should just do whatever you normally do to encourage her to go back to sleep. I would also leave her for a few minutes after she wakes before going into her at all, just to give her the chance to go back to sleep by herself, she might surprise you.

You need to decide how often it is acceptable to feed her at night, for example if you know that she can go three hours between feeds then you could make a decision that if she wakes less than three hours after her last feed you will try to resettle her to sleep without feeding. But if it gets to three hours and she still hasn't gone back to sleep then I would just go ahead and feed her at that stage. Often once babies start to figure out that they don't need to feed every time they wake in the night, they will start waking a lot less often and if they do wake they will be able to put themselves back to sleep - this is what happened with Thomas anyway. Once she is sleeping for longer stretches you can lengthen the time limit for resettling without feeding.

When I did this with Thomas I was dreading it as I thought I would have to spend ages resettling him every time he woke up through the night, but actually after I resettled him the first time, he didn't wake up again for hours instead of waking up every two hours like he always did up till then.

 

[megewansmum]

Hi Littledemonme

I have just joined this site after reading about your situation. It sounds very similar to some of the difficulties I had with my daughter. When she was born the cord was round her neck and her heartbeat kept dropping. In the end she was delivered by emergency vacuum extraction. Her head was very bruised and from the time we first held her she cried constantly. She wouldn't sleep day or night and only after nursing. She was diagnosed with reflux and colic but had a severe allergic reaction to the prescribed Zantac and Omeprazole. This caused her skin to blister, burn and peel and she stopped eating. She refused bottles and in the end I had to syringe feed her with supplemental formula to try to build her up a bit. This also caused problems as she was also diagnosed with cow's milk protein allergy. She would eat little and often and at 5 months would still eat every couple of hours 24 hours a day. We were constantly at the hospital and at her young age she had seen a family doctor, pediatrician, dermatologist, allergist and cranial sacral therapist.

Exhausted and desparate I was given details of the Sleepsense program through a friend. I had so many questions though as my daughter had so many issues I felt I needed some personal assistance. Anyway an e-mail to Pam Nease a Sleepsense Sleep Consultant changed our lives forever. She personalised the program to suit our needs and my daughters and within a couple of days we noticed a huge difference. She was there constantly via e-mail and Skype. Less than a week later my daughter, then 5.5 months old, started sleeping through the night from 7pm til 6.15ish, had 2 long naps a day and even started eating more. She is now 8 months old and apart from a recent upset with teething that made her fussy during the day she is doing great. She never woke crying in the night though and I put that down to the sleepsense program too. We put her down awake in her crib for naps and at night with her bedtime routine and blankie and she just drifts off to sleep on her own. Don't get me wrong it wasn't easy. I had tried since 3 months various other methods to get her sleeping better and can't recommend the sleepsense program and Pam enough. I can't post her e-mail address as this is only my first post and I need to post 10 apparently first but if you Google her name you will find her website.

We also had an amby baby hammock as we had heard it would help with the reflux but about 3 weeks after we bought it they were recalled in Canada so we didn't use it for long. It took a week or so but she did get used to being in the crib without swaddling and with a Grobag.

I hope this helps.

 

[megewansmum]

Hi again

I agree with Polaris that you must decide how often to go between feeds in the night. What we found that really helped was enlisting hubby to do the nightwakings that weren't for feeds. As I was exclusively breastfeeding at night then my little one would know that this wasn't an option with daddy and would settle quicker than if I tried without feeding her. We originally decided to feed her every 4 hours and this went well, then we reduced to feeding her once between the hours of 12 and 3 and it was my daughter herself who finally decided that she would sooner sleep than eat during the night.

My heart really goes out to you as I know this was the most challenging, tiring and frustrating thing I have ever done. Please don't lose hope though it will definitely get better although it may not seem like it at the moment. We found the naps much more challenging than the night sleep but once she got the hang of settling herself I think she realised that sleep isn't so bad afterall.

 

[littledemonme]

Hi again

I agree with Polaris that you must decide how often to go between feeds in the night. What we found that really helped was enlisting hubby to do the nightwakings that weren't for feeds. As I was exclusively breastfeeding at night then my little one would know that this wasn't an option with daddy and would settle quicker than if I tried without feeding her. We originally decided to feed her every 4 hours and this went well, then we reduced to feeding her once between the hours of 12 and 3 and it was my daughter herself who finally decided that she would sooner sleep than eat during the night.

My heart really goes out to you as I know this was the most challenging, tiring and frustrating thing I have ever done. Please don't lose hope though it will definitely get better although it may not seem like it at the moment. We found the naps much more challenging than the night sleep but once she got the hang of settling herself I think she realised that sleep isn't so bad afterall.

Can I ask how old your littlie was when you decided to go every four hours? The reason I ask is because I'm confident Lyra can go for 4 hours as she does between 7 and 11 but I think if she wakes every hour I'm going to worry about waiting that long.

Also - how do you get the tailored support - I figured the phone support was for US/Canada and I'm UK so just got basic $47 thing but am off to have a look now...
Thank you all so much !!!

 

[polaris]

I think the most important thing is that you feel comfortable with whatever time interval you choose for night feeds. If you feel doubtful about whether she can go that long, then in the middle of the night in my experience it will be nearly impossible not to give in and feed her. So my advice would be to start with a length of time that you feel totally comfortable with and work your way up. You will probably find that she starts to go longer naturally anyway. It's pretty common for baby to wake after an hour or two but then to sleep for another three or four hours after finally resettling, before waking for a feed. That doesn't always happen straight away but within a week you should definitely see big improvements and some people do get immediate improvements.

 

[history_girls]

Evening all - been enjoying a row of sleeping through this week and even putting herself to sleep when really really awake!!!

But i've had a migraine and been sick everywhere. So can't do much laptop - but just popping in to say hi! Hopefully tomorrow i will be able to see more!

 

[hivechild]

Just a quickie since I've had a super busy weekend (4th of July) and I'm exhausted.

Polaris, fingers crossed Thomas keeps up with missing that night feed!

HG, sorry to hear about the migraine. I hope that you wake up feeling much better in the morning.

littledemonme, I'm not sure what could be waking her. Maybe she has trapped wind/gas and is feeling uncomfortable if she's pooped?

PM, thanks for asking re: naps. They've been going ok. A bit up and down really. He's doing quite well with settling most of the time, but most of his naps are now short 30-40 minutes so he gets progressively rattier as the day goes on and I'm having to really work at catching his tired signals because he'll wake up cranky but still not want to go back to sleep for at least an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, sometimes 2! It's pretty tiring (for both of us, I'm sure), but I've been really fighting the temptation to snuggle up with him on the couch for a nice long nap at least once a day.

The last 2 days we've been out and about a lot with gatherings and bbqs and what not so his napping (and sleep) has been all over the place. Yesterday, he had a hysterical screaming meltdown for the entire hour of our drive home, until we turned down our street and then he stopped. My husband was sitting in the back with him and nothing he did could calm him and because we were on the highway I didn't want to stop with all of the holiday traffic on the road.

Last night kind of sucked too. He went to bed a bit late then woke up around 2:30 for a good solid feed, and then again at 5:30, taking a monster feed then as well. He slept until around 8:30 after that luckily because I had been awake from 2:30 until about 6:30.

We got to bed late again tonight so we will see how we go.

Oh, and Ronan had his first swim today! The water was a bit cold so he didn't quite know what to make of it. Next time we'll go earlier in the day. Here's a couple pics:
https://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs093.snc4/35992_405601674212_536234212_4536187_850572_n.jpg

https://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs093.snc4/35992_405601684212_536234212_4536189_237729_n.jpg

 

[polaris]

Good morning everyone.

Historygirls - I really hope you are feeling better this morning. I've never had a migraine but it just sounds like my worst nightmare.

Hivechild - Happy belated 4th of July and yay for swimming! Lovely photos! The first few times I took Thomas he hadn't a clue what to make of it and just stared at everything with that wide-eyed unblinking stare they do! Not upset but definitely no smiles! He loves it now though.

I do feel your pain with the too short naps, Thomas was like that until six months when he magically started having longer naps. I found that it was impossible to have any sort of consistent routine during the day until naps got longer because as you say he would just keep getting more and more tired as the day progressed so then he wasn't able to stay awake for long.

Thomas woke up at about 11.30 last night crying, when I went in he was up on his hands and knees and was wedged sideways up the very top end of the cot. He went back to sleep quickly though when I turned him back over. Then awake at 5.30 to start the day, I had to change him because he had a poo and then he screamed when I tried to put him back in the cot. I was trying not to get him up until 6 but I gave in at about five to six and got him up and he was absolutely fine as soon as I got him up. I wish he'd sleep even an extra half an hour until 6 but I guess I shouldn't complain!

 

[abigail_71]

Hello ladies, I used to follow the thread to see how Thomas was getting on but haven't popped in for a long time but been thinking about it again recently.

Evan is great, generally sleeps through the night, naps 2-3 times a day for between 40 mins and 2 hours. He has no fixed bedtime and only goes to sleep on my or OH's shoulder in the evening (in the day he sleeps in his swing) Well its OK but the sleeping on me until we go to bed has got me down a bit recently. We co-sleep and he has a cosleeping cot attached to bed, but generally he seems to want to be touching me so he is in bed with me.

I tried to put him down this morning in his cot and was suprised but he did go off to sleep after a bit of complaining (although it took an hour and a half of fidgeting, babbling and exploring the cot). However he woke up after 30 mins and although I got him back off he woke again after 10 mins really upset so we got up. Should I just perservere? Will he sleep longer if we just keep going?

As for trying this in the evening someone else told me to forget about trying to change his habits now as he is used to sleeping on me and at the height of seperation anxiety! Arrrrghhhh! Please advise if you can - Would sleepsense help or not? We can continue as we are but I'd quite like a couple of hours to myself of an evening xx

 

[history_girls]

Another night of sleeping through and she did put herself to sleep last night when really awake. We did have screaming at one point as she had got caught in a corner and needed rescuing but straight back when straightend out so I count that as sleeping through.

Migraine has gone - only my second ever and to be honest I could do without them.

Hive - what gorgeous piccies of you and your babies! Both look gorgeous and loving the water. Happy 4th July! Phoebe had a melt down one weekend we were really busy I guess they just get soooo tired that they are starving and don't know what to do. Hope he settles better tonight.

Polaris - We have the early morning wake ups again at the moment. Can't explain them as by 7am she wants a nap so clearly getting up too early. We have the room well blacked out so guessing not too much to do with light. Her windows are open and I think the sea gulls wake up at around that time so i'll blame them.

Abigail - Hi! Not sure about sleepsense and co-sleeping not sure if anyone has done it on here. I wouldn't say it is impossible to change his sleeping pattern. It will be a bit tougher as he wants to be with you but they learn quick that this is how bedtime goes now and he has to go to sleep. Naps are harder than night time so I would go with night time first.

 

[hivechild]

Polaris - We're definitely going to keep up with the swimming, and hopefully next time when the water is warmer. It was a bit of a shock to him I think, and already late in the day so he was getting crabby!

I'm really hoping that he lengthens even his catnaps as he gets closer to 6 months, although he had a nice long 1 hr 45 min nap in the middle of the day today. I should count my blessings that he doesn't want to get up and start his day at 5:30am (or at least not yet)! Has Thomas always been like that?

HG - Glad that your migraine has gone. Luckily they don't seem to be a frequent thing, but I imagine even once is one time too many to suffer with one.

Abigail - Hi and welcome! I'm not sure either on how you would manage with using sleepsense and still co-sleeping. I think it definitely requires an all or nothing approach in the beginning and then selectively deciding what compromises you're willing to make after the fact. I also agree that sorting out settling for sleep at night is far easier and a better place to start than with naps.

I got Ronan settling on his own at night relatively quickly, and these days when he's having a rough time of things I don't hesitate to cuddle and snuggle with him until he has settled because it doesn't happen frequently enough to become habit, and it's not something he needs any and every time.

How much longer do you intend to co-sleep with Evan? If you're ready for him to transition to his cot on his own then I think sleepsense is definitely worth a shot at this point as it will be quite a change for him. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you luck and keep us updated. Hopefully we can at least provide moral support if not actual help!

--------------

Anyway, I got Ronan to bed last night by 9 and he slept through until about 5:40am, so yay! He had a feed and then went straight back to sleep and didn't stir until around 9:30 so mummy got a fantastic lie in this morning.

We're keeping at the napping bootcamp and except when we're out, most of his naps have been in his cot upstairs and he's settling quite well although I am still getting some whinging and crying from time to time. The very last nap of the day I have been doing downstairs in his porta-cot thing since it's usually quite late in the day and I don't want him to decide it's bedtime at 5-6pm and then wake up in the middle of the night for a feed!

 

[polaris]

Good morning everyone.

We had a lie in until 6.30 this morning!! Yay! But we also had a night feed at about 4.30. But I actually think I would prefer to feed him at night and get a longer stretch in the morning rather than being up for the day at 5.30. The problem is that he normally doesn't wake until after 5 now and anytime recently that I've tried feeding him after 5 he hasn't gone back to sleep. But maybe he might go back to sleep easier now that the room is a lot darker?

Abigail!
Good to see you popping in. I agree with the others that sleepsense would probably work well if you are ready to move Evan to a cot. I don't think it's too late to change his sleeping habits but I expect you would get quite a bit of protest from him so it depends ho you feel about that really.

Hivechild - what a fantastic night's sleep for Ronan!! And for you! No harm keeping his last nap of the day downstairs as long as it's working for you. I do think it's good for them to be able to sleep outside of their cots too so that you have a bit more flexibility.

HG - so glad the migraine has gone. And yay for sleeping through again!

 

[PieMistress]

Hi Peeps,

Help!!!!



I am really really struggling now with it all

I just don't know if what i'm doing is right or for the best. It would probably be easier going cold turkey on all night feeds rather than just the one as I'm so sure now that poor Kyle is getting mixed messages and confused about what is expected of him. We have had 4 nights now of not feeding him if he wakens before 2am. The first 2 nights he cried on/off for the best part of an hour then back to sleep until about 5am when I fed him (went in quickly as soon as I heard him - although this wouldn't have given him a chance to self settle I knew he would be hungry), the 3rd night he didn't waken until 4am (fed him) then last night he woke up at 1am and cried on/off until 2am then slept until 4am or so (fed him).

I emailed Dana and she said if you are feeding him to go in asap so that he doesn't get confused about what is expected of him but I don't think this is right. If I do feed him at night then he self settles himself within about 10 minutes afterwards (and I try and make the feed only last 5 minutes).

I'm now questioning what i'm doing which isn't good as I know I need to make a decision and stick to it - for Kyle's sake. Listening to him cry like that is tearing me up and I really don't know if I can do it. Is feeding him twice at night so bad ?? I just want what is best for him and for him to be able to get himself back to sleep in the night (he can if he stirs during a nap and after a feed as I always make sure I put him down awake). We are now in new territory as well because he now cries when I put him down for bed which he never used to do and I'm wondering if this is because he knows he won't be fed when he first wakes up??

Sorry for the ramble!!! I don't want him to have cried for these 3 nights for nothing (and i've read it can take up to 2 WEEKS for something like this to work) but now i'm wondering if just I should feed him twice again but reduce the length of the feed time rather than just cut him off? I doubt he is hungry when he wakens at first (different cry) but it's just so hard to hear.

Any suggestions??? Part of me is thinking he will give the night feeds up when he is good and ready but on the other hand I'm sure part of it is also habit. OH wants to go cold turkey on both night feeds as that way there will be no confusion to Kyle? However, when he wakens about 4/4.30am for his 2nd feed I know he would cry for up to an hour and then it would be nearly time to get up for the day.

I'm just so confused about what direction to take, OH says to go with my instinct but I don't even know what it's telling me I also now worry that all this crying is going to affect him as he is such a happy baby during the day - always smiling and laughing.

Am so pleased to hear you are having good night sleep Polaris, Hive Child, History. It does give me hope!! I really need to keep some of this in mind in the dark depths of the night as I just get so upset. Maybe I should just go back to feeding him twice at night for the next couple of weeks and start again or would that undo the last 4 nights of crying and drag it out even longer!

Have rambled on so much, sorry!! I have to go into work now for a meeting - mwahhhhhhhhh. We also had a very rare 40 minute only nap this morning. I can't remember the last time he woke that early from a nap (and cried too) which makes me wonder if this night time weaning is affecting his sleep in other ways.

xxx

 

[hivechild]

Polaris, great news on the sleep in! Hopefully the blackout blinds help him sleep that little bit longer.

We had another good night with Ronan sleeping through until 5: 30 and then going back down until after 9. He's just stirring now! I could get used to this but I don't think I'll get a chance to.

PM, that's a tough one. How long will he feed for if you let him just have his fill? I've always just let Ronan feeds until he was done. If it was continuously just very short then I'd try and drop it but he takes good solid feeds most of the time so seems to need it.

Alrighty, time to go tend to the monkey's demands!

 

[polaris]

PieMistress -
I know that feeling so well of just not knowing what is for the best. I think if it was me then I would probably just go with the two night feeds for the moment - but you know Kyle the best so you have to decide what is right for him. I have Dr. Weissbluth's book 'Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child' which is backed up by a lot of research data, and he says that up to two night wakings for feeding are normal for babies under nine months of age and therefore not changeworthy, as long as the baby is just feeding and going straight back to sleep. I think it would be different if he wouldn't settle back to sleep so easily after a feed. That was the main motivation for me for trying to give up the night feeds with Thomas because I was feeding him and he still wasn't going back to sleep half the time.

Also, Kyle is definitely well able to self-settle and get himself to sleep so I think you would have had less protest if he was really ready to drop the early night feed. I have given these issues a huge amount of thought for my own situation and I think that in order to be able to bear the crying you have to be really certain that it is for the best (e.g. if your baby cannot self-settle at all then you will be able to tolerate crying in order that he learns this skill as you KNOW that it will definitely be so much better for him in the longer term). But dropping night feeds is a greyer area in my opinion. I think that some degree of protest crying would be acceptable to me but once it went past a certain point I think I would backtrack a bit and assume that he maybe is not quite ready yet. I think if you get the timing right with these things then you can hopefully keep crying to a minimum, i.e. not too early that baby genuinely isn't ready but not leaving it too late either so they are really set in their ways and won't give it up without a battle. You say that you don't know what your instincts are telling you but I think that if it is really killing you to hear him cry and you are not 100% sure if it is the right thing to do, then personally I think that is your answer. I think that hearing our babies crying does go against our natural instincts but it is something that sometimes has to be done for the long-term good - but I think we can only really do that if we believe 100% that it is the right thing to do.

Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with changing your plan or postponing what you are trying to do, we have to test the waters all the time to see what our LOs are ready for and then alter our plans accordingly. Another example from my experience was dropping the third nap, I initially tried to drop it about a month ago because I thought Thomas was ready but after a few days it became clear that he wasn't, so I backtracked and reinstated the nap. This time he has dropped the nap with very little difficulty so I think the timing was right for him. We had a lot of crying when I was trying to drop the nap the first time so you could say that he cried for nothing because I backtracked on the plan but it doesn't mean that it wasn't the right thing to do.

I am sure that if you persist then Kyle will eventually stop waking for the early feed - most baby experts seem to agree that healthy six month old babies can easily physically go through the night without a feed - but maybe if you just wait a couple of weeks you might meet with much less resistance?

After all my deliberations and my attempts to stop feeding Thomas at night, I have actually decided to go back to feeding him straight away when he wakes at 5.30 in the hopes that he might then go back to sleep. However if I find that he doesn't go back to sleep then I will go back to delaying feeding until 6.30 so that he is not getting a reinforcement for early waking. Talk about mixed messages for the poor child! But I do think that we have to be flexible to find out what works for our baby at this current point in time. And then just when we have it worked out their needs change!

Sorry for the very long waffle - I have really been giving this a huge amount of thought recently as it is just so hard to know what to do for the best. Good luck in making your decision - I think you are right about deciding on a course of action that you feel happy with and sticking to it.

 

[littledemonme]

PieMistress -

This is what I've got to start too - hold on in there lovely.

 

[PieMistress]

Thanks for the hugs everyone and the kind words xxxxx

I do feel so much better after posting on here. It's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

ittledemonme - How old is your LO? Being a mum is the hardest job in the world isn't it (but the most rewarding!) xx

Hive - He would probably feed for a good 20 minutes I think (perhaps part of that is snuggle time too although he stays awake)

Polaris - Your message really helped me think a bit more rationally about things. Thanks ever so much!! For some reason I'd been thinking how important it was to stop Kyle from feeding during the night but realised at this stage (just over 6 months) it's not that important if he night nurses for a few more weeks. OH and I had a good chat about it and we are going to just go with Kyle for the next few weeks and see how things go.

Having Kyle cry the way he has been was making us argue in the small hours (every night - not good!) and affecting our day to day lives so we both needed to totally reasses the situation and take a good look at things. I think I will give Kyle as good a feed as he needs the first time he wakens and then try to keep it short the second time (as I know he still needs one night feed, two is debatable!). Sometimes keeping the feed short makes them realise it's not worth waking up for (mmmmmm, another theory anyway).

I'm also semi toying with trying to introduce a dream feed. We did try to do this in the early days but it didn't work. However part of me thinks it might be too late plus, it's just another feed to try and get rid of later.

I know at 6 months they SHOULD be able to go through the night without a feed but I don't think Kyle is one of those babies. However, as he goets old ie/ at 8 or 9 months then he should definitely be more able and I will feel less bad about going cold turkey.

We are also going to adjust his bedtime routine so that his feed isn't the last thing that happens before bed, but want to keep it different to his nap routine (which is story and lullabies).

Time for venison burger and home-made potato wedges! I'll keep some for Kyle to try tomorrow Sorry again for hap hazard reply.... am feeling somewhat jaded at the moment - I sat at a green light for ages today before realising!

 

[cutie4evr01]

Hi everyone! We have been having some decent days and nights of late. We decided about a week ago to try to get Christina on a nap schedule (roughly) rather than napping on demand to see if we could have a little less protesting once she knew what to expect. We aimed for the 9, 1, and possibly late afternoon nap schedule laid out in "Healthy sleep habits, happy child", and planned to be flexible 30 minutes on either side of those times. It went pretty well the first couple of days, because she was waking up at around 6:30-7 to start the day, but then the next few days she was waking up more like 5:15-5:30 and not going back to sleep, so it was a real stretch to try to get her to last until 9. So today we decided to go back to napping on demand and she napped at 7:45, 11:45, and 3:45. The good news is that while we have been doing this, she has started taking longer naps! She's been having at least one nap over 1hr and 15 minutes every day. Today she took one 1.5 hr nap AND one 2-hr nap, as well as a late afternoon 40-minute catnap! I never thought she could take 4 hours of naps in one day! I'm thinking we have finally reached that magical 6-month point where she is learning to consolidate her day sleep. I hope she keeps it up! She has still been waking for 1-2 night feeds, and the downside to all this wonderful day sleep has been early mornings the past few days (like 5:30 or earlier). But since she's taking a late afternoon nap, we have been pushing bedtime back by a few minutes each night, so now we're having bedtime around 6:35 instead of 6:15. I'm hoping we can keep pushing it back little by little until around 7, and then she may sleep a little longer in the morning. Who knows, this sleep is so unpredictable for her!

PM, the night feeding issue really is such a tough one! We have decided rather than putting a clock time limit on her, we go by how many hours since the last feed. If she wakes less than 4 hours since the last feed, we try to settle without feeding, but over 4 hours, we feed. So on a worst-case night, I could be feeding her at 10, 2, and 6! But generally she either wakes around 2 for a feed and back down until morning (which for her is between 5:30-6), or she wakes at midnight and again at 4. I am ok with feeding her twice in the night for now, especially because she's not eating hardly any solids yet, so I know her need for milk must be increasing. I think your plan about giving a good feed the first time he wakes sounds like a good one. I'm semi-dreading Christina's 6-month checkup on Thursday morning because I know the pediatrician is going to tell us to go cold turkey on night feeds (she told me at 4 months that she wants us to be rid of night feeds by 6 months), but I think I'll just smile and nod and continue with feeding until I feel she's ready to stop. She knows how to self-settle, and I hear her wake in the night other times and put herself back to sleep, so I feel like when she calls out, she really does need feeding (or else is stuck somewhere in her crib and needs our help). Enjoy your dinner - it sounds lovely!

HC and Polaris, so glad you have been having good sleep lately! And HC, I love the swimming pics - he is such a cutie!

 

[hivechild]

Well tonight has been a great big ball of suckitude and we were going so well with the day before that. He'd even woken from a nap after 45 minutes, whinged for 5 and then went back to sleep for another hour earlier!

Anyway, we got through our bedtime routine just fine, he was all good, smiley when we gave him goodnight kisses and put him down and then within a few minutes he started whinging which escalated into shouting and then into screaming. Hubby tried calming him down to no avail. I tried to no avail. He wouldn't even take the boob when I offered it early on. It took over half an hour of rocking and cuddling and patting and shushing for him to calm down enough to nurse which finally settled him enough to get off to sleep.

I still have no idea what was wrong and I feel like I've been put through the wringer. We haven't had a night like this in what feels like forever. I'm actually worried that he's getting sick as my BIL & his fiancee were over yesterday to see us as they're leaving to move to the other side of the country and it was only after she'd been loving on Ronan that she mentioned she had a sore throat and all day today I've been feeling a bit off with a bit of a sore throat too. I really, really hope that isn't what was upsetting him earlier because all of that screaming can't have made it feel any better.