Startles awake even with swaddle?

[psychochick]

My 3 month old and I cosleep for naps occasionally. Last couple of days I noticed he startled awake despite being fully swaddled. He'd just suddenly open his eyes and look kind of scared. After I pat him he'd fall back asleep. But he'd do it again minutes later. Sometimes after he's had like 5 of these he just wakes from his nap. His night sleep has been horrible this week too. What is happening? Anyone else had similar experience? I listened to his breathing and it's totally normal he doesn't stop breathing or anything.

 

[marmoset]

Could he be overtired before he goes down? The hormones that are released to fight fatigue can keep coming after baby goes to sleep, like a rush of adrenaline every few minutes kind of thing. If it's that, maybe try shorter awake periods if you can and see if that helps?

 

[KatO79]

I agree with marmoset, could be he's overtired. I've recently discovered DH and I have been putting our almost 3 month old son to bed/nap too late and have been overlooking the early tired signs because we weren't aware.

 

[psychochick]

Could be. I do 1.5 hr between awake and next nap for 3 month old. Is that too long? He's also stopped doing it after that week so maybe it was somewhat temporary or his awake time works better now.

 

[KatO79]

I think 1½ hours should be fine for that age, I'm trying to keep Alexander's awake time down there myself. Maybe it was temporary, a growth spurt or something? Anyway good he stopped

 

[Kiwiberry]

A baby's sleep cycle is much shorter than in adults. By that I mean the actual cycle when sleeping. Some babies do really well with it and fall right back to sleep while others have the potential to wake up every hour and a half to two hours. It's during the shift in their sleep cycle that some babies can get startled when they wake up instead of falling right back to sleep. My toddler had that problem until she was around two years old. She is just now starting to sleep through the night. My infant however has a much better time handling her sleep cycle then my first baby.

What I would do with my toddler is whenever she would wake up I would comfort her and sleep with her for a little bit until she fell back to sleep. Then I would put her in her crib. She found comfort in nursing until about a year old then she wanted a bottle to help soothe her while she slept in her crib. I would also co sleep a lot when I could. When she would sleep with me it would make it much easier for her to fall back to sleep when she would wake up. She found comfort knowing that Mommy was right next to her so she wasn't as scared.

I would say that if it's a drastic change in his sleep cycle then I would talk to his pediatrician about it. Other than that I would say it's pretty normal. I'm no expert though.

 

[psychochick]

Kiwi: yes that's true. I'm used my LO waking up 30 minutes after going down for a nap. That seems normal for a 3 month old. He does occasionally take 1.5-2hrs if I help him bridge it. The startling I described here happens at odd times though and was not the norm for him. But he's also back to normal now so I'm thinking it was a phase of some sort, his night sleep also sucked for a few weeks, may be related.

 

[Vedika]

Even I had the same problem until I got to know about Zen Sack. I was just googling one fine day for the best swaddle to calm a fussy baby & that's how I landed on their website. They have a pretty good product with some sort of weight on the top which they claim to mimic the touch of a mother. So far, I am very happy with this Swaddle & would recommend to all mommies with easy to calm babies.

 

[Vedika]

I mean *difficult to calm babies.