Sleep Help

hsbbride

We are struggling with DD and her sleep. It's not that she doesn't sleep for long stretches, we have that. It is actually getting her down to sleep for the night. It has become a 2 plus hour project. We start our routine at 6:45pm - Bath, Book, Nurse (she nurses to sleep and then I put her in her crib no later than 7:30)  She is clealy tired at this time and easily goes to sleep.  BUT, she then proceeds to wake up at 10, 15, 20 or 30 minute intervals for the next few hours. As of now we have been going in, giving her the pacifer, putting our hands on her chest and shushing her back to sleep if at all possible (usually dad does this) If the screaming escalates we will pick her up, but only as a last resort. I've tried white noise and that doesn't seem to make a difference.

I think the problem is that because I nurse/rock her to sleep, when she wakes up, she can't get herself back to sleep.  She is only 3.5 months old, so still too young for any formal sleep training (I think?).  That said, she clearly isn't getting a good nights sleep so I need to do something different to help her.

I've done a bit of online research and was considering trying to put her in her crib sleepy but awake and just keeping my hand on her chest until she falls asleep. I think this is loosely based on Dr. Sear's method.

I've read healthly sleep habits, happy baby, but did not find it helpful.

Any other suggestions?

 

RomeRomance06

Yes, putting her to sleep drowsy but awake worked for us from almost the very beginning. DD is in daycare now and her DCP says she's the only baby who will fall asleep on her own when they put her down in the crib at nap time. However, when she was about 2-3 months old she would wake up a couple of times after she fell asleep and we would do the pacifier/shushing thing but she would only do that a couple times before falling asleep for the night. Now, most nights, she wakes up just once or not at all. It sounds like you're on the right track - but definitely try putting her down awake. It might take some getting used to for her, but she should get the hang of soothing herself to sleep eventually. Good luck!

kafunder

So sorry to hear you're having trouble. If I were you, I would do two things:

1. Move her bedtime up a bit, so she's in bed by 7:15pm. If she's waking up so soon after going down, she's probably overtired and starting to get wired.

2. I'd also change her bedtime routine so you nurse and then read her a book and then put her down in her crib drowsy but awake. We always kept the feeding at bedtime second to last so the babies wouldn't fall asleep while eating or need to be rocked to sleep and we could put them down drowsy. Since 6w, we've done PJs, swaddle/sleep sack, bottle, book (we do a few regular books and 1 book about bedtime, that last book is the cue that they are being put in their crib next) and then put them to sleep.

Using this method, I can only think of a handful of nights where either have had any trouble going to sleep and staying asleep for a few hours (our bigger problems were with wake-ups at 2am). 

Good luck! 

QueSrah

It took us a long, long time to learn that when DD takes a long time to get down to sleep we need to start putting her to bed earlier.  Sometimes even 15 minutes makes all the difference for her.  If your LO is clearly tired by the time she gets into bed, it might be too late for her.

umdbride

We had that very same issue for a couple of weeks when DS was almost exactly that age.  He used to be great about falling asleep himself and staying asleep after being put down drowsy but awake and then all of a sudden he started those 10 minute wake-ups, only at night time. No matter what time we put him to bed, some nights it would take us 2+ hours until he finally stayed asleep. I think honestly he eventually just got out of it, but it was an awful, exhausting phase. 

It might have helped that we started to getting more structured naps to his day and  letting him take that late afternoon/early evening cat nap (for about 30 minutes) around 5:30 and then moved his bedtime a little later, to 8 or 8:30pm. It worked really well for several weeks and is now just starting to maybe not be as effective so now we're starting to try and drop the cat nap and move bedtime earlier.