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Attachment Parenting
monalua
member
SO CONFUSED on how much sleep baby should get. And bedsharing.
monalua
member
Hi ladies,
I'm a first-time mom and my son is 4.5 months old. For the past month, he has not slept more than 2.5 hours at any given time (naps or at night) and naps are usually only 30-45 minutes. I'm chalking it up to the four month wakeful/normal baby behavior and trying to deal with it gracefully. 
However, as a new mom, sometimes I just get so confused on the sleep stuff. Guess I'm just seeking some "veteran mom" advice.
How do you determine when your LO goes to bed? When they go down for naps? I have the hardest time reading his "tired signals" like they say in the books. Seems like he's normally pretty fussy/cranky by the time I put him down. I've read Dr. Sears sleep book and the NCSS and various things online. Do you go by the "90 minute rule"? Something I was listening to today ("Three Day Sleep Solution" or something like that) said that most young babies should be in bed by 6 PM? I guess I'm just trying to be flexible and go with my instincts and his lead - but I just feel lost and there is so much conflicting advice - and he's not sleeping that well. How do you know if LO is getting enough sleep?
My other problem is bedsharing, which we've done off and on. I'm thinking of convincing my husband to get a king bed (our queen is getting crowded) and doing it full-time as LO does seem to sleep best this way and I hardly notice when he wakes since I can nurse him back to sleep. But if you bedshare, where does your LO nap? Where do they start off the night? DS already has a hard time napping without me holding him (so I've been putting him in the swing - which he's almost too big for). I'm afraid if we go to full-time bedsharing he'll be so used to sleeping with me he won't be able to nap on his own at all!
Anyway, sorry for all the rambling. Just looking for some advice and tips. Love my DS so much, but this mom thing gets pretty confusing at times! I'm normally a go-with-the-flow kinda person, maybe it's reading all these books that's getting me overwhelmed. Thanks for listening.
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Re: SO CONFUSED on how much sleep baby should get. And bedsharing.
Well, according to one source - No Cry Nap Solution by Pantley - babies around 4 months should be napping 3-5 hours and sleeping 10-12 hours (I think, don't have the book in front of me) at night. Obviously, she doesn't mean continuous sleep. I'm dealing with the same thing you are - my guy only takes 2 forty minute naps during the day and is now starting to wake pretty frequently at night. He's definitely not getting the recommended amount and so the poor guy is overtired and cranky during the day. Have you tried the tips for transferring LO to a crib/bed and prolonging your LO's naps suggested in the NCSS? I know I have, but they only work about 50% of the time for me. As far as bedtimes go, we've never had success getting DS to sleep around 6 or 7 so his normal bedtime is between 9 and 10. This could be why his sleep is messed up or it could be unrelated. Who knows, but that is what works for us. I say don't stress too much about the bedtime, unless you think it's contributing to his frequent wakings. You could find out by trying to move his bedtime up gradually.
I bedshare but I start DS out in the crib when he first goes down. He used to sleep for 8 hours before he woke up and I'd move him into bed with me at that first waking. Now he wakes up every 1.5 hours so I keep putting him back in his crib until I go to bed. Once he wakes up after I'm in bed, I'll bring him in with me so he is never in our bed unattended. The crib is in our bedroom so it's pretty convenient. I also let him nap in his crib and sometimes the bouncy seat if he's having a particularly difficult time staying asleep.
As far as getting enough sleep, I know my LO isn't meeting the recommendation. But I keep working at it, trying to find out what will help him sleep and just continue to hope he grows out of it! So just know you're not alone! I hope your LO grows out of it soon as well! And trust me, I completely understand how sometimes too much knowledge is a bad thing and just causes more stress!!
With my DD, by the time she was fussy, it was too late and I'd missed "the window" for good sleep. I really had to figure out "the formua" for naps that led to the best day and night sleep (90 minutes after waking for first nap. . . second nap timing depended on how long first nap was, etc.) She was pretty fussy in general and I had to do the 5 S's/Happiest Baby on the Block stuff to get her to sleep.
My DS is much more mellow about everything and I can wait for a clear (fussy) signal before putting him down for naps.
I figure if the child is eating, pooping, growing, and developing they're getting enough sleep
If they're generally happy that's a good indicator, too (after any colicky, crazy newborn stuff).
Now that he's able to play, I put him in his exersaucer, jumperoo, we practice sitting up and rolling over, tickletime, etc... All to wear his butt out! :-) When he plays hard, he conks out very quickly and deeply.
With regards to where he sleeps, that one is tough. I love having him in bed, but I do need time for myself and DH. I want to just hold him all day and sleep next to him all night (and sometimes I do!! Lol But then I miss cuddling with DH and the housework piles up. So here's what I've done lately. I try to put him down for the first nap. I hold him for his shorter one. In the afternoon, if he falls asleep while nursing I lay him down in his crib (in my room). If not, I nurse him in our bed and try to sneak away (or fall asleep with him!) At night, if I can get him to sleep in his crib for some of the night, great. If not, I don't fight it.
As you can see, nothing is predictable for us :-) I don't have definite ways of doing things and every over week seems to bring a growth spurt, teething moment, whatever. They change so much as this age that it's hard to be predictable. I try to balance keeping everyone happy and not getting burned out. I love DS a ton, but right when I REALLY need a break, he will give me one by playing with Daddy all evening.
DD didn't start taking good, reliable naps until close to 6 months. Before then, as soon as I saw an eye-rub or she started slowing down in her activity level (ie, laying her head down on the floor instead of trying to look around or roll over), I'd take her in for a nap. Somedays she'd take 2-3 naps and be fine, other days would be 4 short naps. I didn't worry about a routine or a schedule with her until she started sleeping longer stretches (like I said, 6ish months). For the first several months, we just took sleep when we could get it.
At 4-5 months, we were full time bedsharing, so I'd lay down with her until she fell asleep, then sneak out of the room if I had things I needed to do. We barricaded the sides of the bed with pillows, but if you aren't comfortable with that you could invest in bed rails or you could try to set your crib up as a side car. We did the side car trick from 8 months to a year, and I wish we would have done it sooner!
I know a lot of the concern over bedsharing is creating bad habits, but DD naps totally on her own in a floor bed now, and sleeps through the night in her room 99% of the time.
I always gauged her amount of sleep by her mood - if she was waking up happy and playing well during awake times, I figured she was getting enough sleep. If she was cranky or not eating well, not interested in play, then I'd try to sneak in an extra nap even if it meant wearing/holding her for one.
Good luck! Figuring out all the sleep stuff is hard! But it will get better.
The O'Baby Blog
We figured out her bedtime pretty much on accident. One night we did a bath much earlier than we had been, DH changed and read to her, I nursed her and she was out. No fussing at all. Unsure if it was a fluke or not we tried it again with the same success. Prior to that someone was bouncing her around the house for a good hour before she'd go to sleep. So I guess my suggestion is to play with an earlier time and see how it goes.
Naps are another thing. It's really been in the past month or so that I've been able to pick up on her tired cues before it's too late. I really had to make a point to sit and watch her play (instead of trying to get something done). She gets this quiet content dazed out look, that's my cue to change her diaper and get ready to nurse her. Sometimes I have to put her in the Moby and bounce her to sleep.
I either hold her while she naps or put her in her swing. She used to sleep for hours in her swing, but now I'm lucky if she goes 45 minutes. She sleeps much better if I hold her. It's kind of frustrating, but I take the time to read and figure it's a phase that will pass that I'll eventually miss.
We bed share for the same reasons and I believe that's why she naps so much better in my arms. She starts the night off snuggling with DH. He likes to have that time with her and it gives me some me time. On the nights that we want us time we put her in her swing. We're pretty much screwed when she outgrows that!
The way I look at it is that she's only a baby for so long and some day we're really going to miss the snuggle times. We don't want to look back and regret getting her used to snuggling a stuffed animal instead of us. When our current arrangement gets to be too much we'll look at ways to change, but right now we enjoy it.
DD2 8.22.13
MMC 1.4.17 at 16w
Expecting #3, EDD 1.29.18
We have bedshared from the start and My son had most of his naps on me when he was a wee one so I understand where you are coming from.
He takes his naps alone in our bed and started doing so around four months when I stopped taking his morning nap with him. He took to it very well and I noticed that he would often sleep longer alone (I think he would smell me and milk and think he needed to eat) At that time I would put him in the middle of our king and put pillows on either side. Once he got more mobile we got bed rails. Then, once he started crawling/standing I taught him how to get off the bed himself so he wouldn't fall and hurt himself.
I didn't read pp, so sorry if this was said. Others here have much more sleep experience, but something that has stuck with me that I read was that there are 2 kinds of babies. The first kind is best on a specific schedule, like naps at 10am, 2pm, etc. each day. The other kind does best when they go back to sleep within X amount of time after they last woke up. My DS is in the second category. I know that naptime is going to go the smoothest when he gets put down for a nap between 2 and 2.5 hours since he last woke up. Before that and it's too early so he's not tired, and much past that, he is overtired which makes things worse.
I think it was about the same when he was your LO's age, but just with less spacing between naps. I don't SAH though, so I don't have to deal with the daytime naps as often.