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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
4mo -sleep schedule help!
My DS is 4m2w - he sleeps like sh*t. Before I went back to work he was sleeping in a swing and with the miracle blanket. He would fall asleep around 10 and be out until 4am for a quick feeding and then sleep until 8. Shortly after I went back to work he started waking up all night. I work from home so he is not having to get up and go to daycare. We decided to move him into his crib and at the same time we unswaddled him because he was breaking out of it.
My husband and I put him on a schedule about four weeks ago. He's up between 7:45-8:30, nap time at 11, second nap time at 4, bedtime routine starts at 8 and in bed asleep by 9. He goes down most nights just fine but he'll start waking up about an hour and a half into the night. So from 11-1am he's waking up every 5-15 minutes. He wakes up again around 2am for a feeding, then it's every two hours for the rest of the night. Sometimes he'll have another wakeful period from 5:30-7am. His naps aren't very good either, he wakes up a couple of times. Sometimes he'll only get 45 min, other times could be longer.
We've thought about CIO but we don't feel that it's right for our baby. Anyone have any advise? What else could we try? We have had nights when we put him to bed earlier but that doesn't help with sleeping and he just wants to get up earlier. I know he's tired and he's not getting enough rest.
Oh - one more thing - I finally broke down and went back to wrapping up his arms a couple of days ago. The first night he slept really good, only waking up a couple of times. Since then - back to the same crappy sleep.
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Re: 4mo -sleep schedule help!
That block of time after waking seems like a long time for a 4 month old to be awake. . . and if he's only getting a 45 minute nap at 11 am, then waiting 'til 4 seems like another long period of time.
Many babies fall into a 2-3-4 schedule (first nap 2 hours after waking, second nap 3 hours after waking from first nap, 4 hours awake before bedtime). My DS roughly follows this pattern, but he's not scheduled. If he needs a quick catnap in the evening, he takes a 15-20 minute snooze on my shoulder to hold him over to bedtime.
What are you doing when he wakes at night. Are you picking him up or shushing him in his crib?
Some people are swearing by the Magic Sleepsuit after the baby grows out of the swaddle.
We try to get him to nap for an hour and a half each time. We just sometimes have to go in there every 15 min because he keeps waking up. He usually gets a good 45 min, then the rest is not solid sleep.
He hates being on his stomach but I do let him sleep on his side. It helped a little, but not always. He's waking himself up with his arms.
At night when he wakes up my husband goes in and sushes him back to sleep. Sometimes we give him his paci, other times he just pats him. Usually it takes no more than a couple of minutes to get him back to sleep. I take over around 2am - whenever his night time feeding is. When he's unwrapped I can sush him back to sleep. If he's wrapped he wants to be nursed or rocked back to sleep w/his paci.
I just bought it too, hope it works like a charm!
I agree with PP about the naps... it seems like DS sleeps much better at night when he's had good naps.
We've noticed lately that DS will take about 45 minute naps, and will wake up and start talking/whining (sometimes). I just let him sit in the crib for a couple of minutes when this happens and he seems to get himself back to sleep. Yesterday he did that and ended up taking a 2 hour nap. I think you just have to give them time to get back to sleep.
Our schedule is this:
wake between 7 and 8 (feed immediately)
Nap between 9 and 10 (I try to be 2 hours from when he woke, sometimes it's an hour and a half)
Have a little cereal
Eat around 10 or 11 (I go three hours between feedings)
Nap around 11:30/12ish (this is usually a longer one)
Eat around 1 or 2
Nap again around 3ish
Eat around 4/4:30 (I try to make 4:30 the latest he eats)
And once he's up from his 3pm nap, he's up for the rest of the evening.
Eat at 6/6:30
Bath at 7:15
Reading at 7:35
Feed around 8 (unless he starts falling asleep, then I feed him earlier)
Bed immediately after he's fed.
He doesn't wake up anymore (this is a new trend I'm hoping sticks for a bit). We did Ferber about 3 weeks ago.. and that helped us get to this schedule. But even before that it was pretty much the way it was (I just spend a lot of time rocking him to sleep).
Also, I used babybix.com to track his sleep patterns to get him on that schedule. I pretty much used his sleep cues to figure out the schedule and went from there.
And there's a money back guarentee! Here's hoping it works!
I am going to go with he is overtired. I agree with the PPs who said that the awake time between naps seems too long. Try putting him down sooner for naps or squeeze in a third one.
If my DD gets overtired it not only results in a HUGE effort to get her down, she wakes constantly and sleeps less.
GL, HTH.