I just cannot figure it out.... (long)

Lilleybug · June 2011

another sleep deprived post. I cannot for the life of me figure put how to get Ty to sleep! We even let him CIO for 10 min. I was in the room the whole time and after 10 min the little stinker stopped screaming and started LAUGHING in his crib! It took us over an hour to get him down for a 30 min nap! Every time it takes us this long, he just fights and fights his sleep. Also, we will wait til he is dead asleep and snoring but the second we put him in his crib he wakes up and cries. At night he does not do this only during day time naps. At night he sleeps 8-12, will wake up take a bottle sleep another 30 min and then we are up 5-6-7-8+ times a night. Sometimes he'll go back down in 30 min sometimes we are up for 3 hours. This is week 3....week 3 of this pattern!

Last week he would wake up at night and scream and refuse a bottle. We switched the formula and he at least is not waking up screaming. However, he is still waking up a gazillion times. A few concerns:

Swaddling: We do not swaddle during naps which could be why he takes such short naps. I read babies this age should sleep 4-6 hours a day and take around 3 naps. Ty sleeps MAYBE 2 hours on a good day and takes five to six 15-30 min naps. At night we swaddle, we have the miracle blanket which is supposed to be escape proof, well our child is Houdini. He gets out and gets all tangled up which is dangerous. We tried to wean, one arm out etc. The kid is not having it.

Sleeping in his crib: He will sleep in his bouncer or swing just fine. The bouncer is too small he is so long his feet hang over like 4 inches! He is also getting a bit big for the swing so we are trying to brake him of those habits. I've tried playing with him in his crib during the day but it is not working. He will mostly only sleep there at night.

I'm at a loss am I missing something? He has a nightly routine. Bath with lavender calming soap and lotion, bedtime story, bottle, bed. When he wakes up we try bouncing, rocking, swinging, in the bouncer on top of the dryer, we've tried not swaddling and introducing a lovie instead. Maybe we are trying too many things? Help! Do we just hope it ends when he turns 5 mo in a week? Should I just keep swaddling and sew on buttons so he cannot wiggle out? I need sleep! He needs sleep! I have seen other posts what is everyone else doing?

TiffanyTheMom · June 2011

I'm so sorry. I've noticed my LO gets like that when I put her down to late. This is her cue she's sleepy: She goes from happy and sweet one second to Linda Blair in the next. It's bizzarre! And I have to hold her and pat her to get her to sleep, but this only works sometimes.

I hope you find something that works, we've only lately been going down for naps well lately. We don't swaddle anymore either, stopped that as soon as she started rolling. She usually only naps for 30-45 min 3x a day, if that.

kimoly · June 2011

That sounds so exhausting! While I'm not an expert, I figure anything might help, right? For one, our LO was also houdini, which is why we stopped swaddling - when that thing was over the lower half of his face when I went in one morning, I was like that's it, we're done. Now we just put him in a sleepsack, and it really hasn't affected his sleeping. Our LO is not a great napper either - he will often take really short (20 min) naps during the day - all I can guess is he takes after his daddy who can take power naps and actually feel refreshed (for me, I'd need at least an hour). Also, we follow the babywise method, which helped a lot. It's from a book, and the idea is you have a "flexible routine" of feeding every three hours. The order of events is feeding/awake time/nap time. Supposedly this order is important to blood sugar regulation/metabolism and contributes to better sleep. Now of course if LO is hungry more often (and he lets us know!) we feed him. I notice when we deviate from this routine, though, there's heck to pay. Of course, he's still been waking up once to eat for the past week, which I attribute to the 4 month wakeful. Anyways, I hope this helps. GL!

H*E*A*Bridges · June 2011

Are you feeding rice cereal yet?

Aviee · June 2011

DD's been doing almost this the past few days. I'm the only one who can get her to sleep because H overstimulates her or tries to get her to sleep in the swing THEN put her to bed. Swing means nap for DD, not bedtime. No wonder it takes him 3 hours...

Personally, I've found that taking DD outside in the fresh air calms her down the most and will get her to sleep in no time. If she's really bad (overtired) I have to use a phone app with a vacuum noise to get her to calm down and just rock her while patting her back while holding her vertically while walking around the room while nursing her... lol

sbuxsweetie · June 2011

We've got a Houdini baby too, and we've started doing the escape proof swaddle (google it for a video) to keep DS's arms down, with a sleep sack on top of that. That way, his legs are loose and his hips aren't restricted, but his hands stay swaddled tight and he doesn't break out and wake himself up. He's been STTN this way for maybe a week now, and he'll nap for about an hour at a time, sometimes more if we're lucky.

GL! I know you're frustrated. Hang in there!

Shanin8 · June 2011

Yeah, don't know if any of this will work for your LO...but here is what we do:

My LO only takes 30-40 min naps about 3x a day too. :P Looks like there is a trend I was trying to put him down after being awake for 1 1/2 hours ish, but then I realized the longer I stretched his awake time, the easier and more natural nap times became. I don't really look at the clock to decide when it is time to nap, I just watch his cues of getting kinda vacant looking lol. It ends up being around 2 1/2-3 hours. He naps in his crib, with white noise. I go into his room, shut all the curtains, turn on the white noise, give him his pacie, and quietly bounce until he is drowsy. Then lay him down in his crib, and he will fall asleep on his own now. If he starts crying, I pick him up for a couple of bounces and then lay him right back down. Never fails to feed him and then run my errands either...the car knocks him right out lol.

Don't know if it was the 4 mo wakeful, but a couple of weeks ago, he started the same pattern you are saying. Sleeping a pretty good stretch and then up every hour to hour and half. I decided since he wouldn't be sleeping well due to the 4 mo wakeful, that it was a great time to break him of the swaddle. 2 birds with one stone! Our bedtime routine kinda varies on what time we start it. If he has napped recently, we'll wait, if not, we start earlier. I usually feed him, bathe him(which is me getting in the tub with him...washing and playing with lots of toys...usually takes about 30 mins). I have our lights dimmed and the white noise going so that when we get out, it is relax mode. Diaper, lotion massage, quiet book if he isn't tired(but he is usually struggling at this point). I feed him and then put him to bed drowsy. He is falling asleep on his own now.

He does wake up once during the night to eat. But I keep all the lights off, feed him sitting indian style on my bed, don't talk to him, and do not change his diaper (he doesn't poo at night now). The dark and not changing him has been a huge thing since he was a tiny guy, to make sure he goes right back to sleep after eating. Once we did that, he is passed out before he is done eating.

Oh yeah, sorry this is so long, but I realized he was getting too hot, I think. Once I started dressing him in light cotton pjs, he has slept better. ?

HTH!! I'm soo sorry momma that you are dealing with this for so long. Ours lasted about 2 weeks!!

Lucky_Dragonfly · June 2011

DD get put down drowsy. Right when she has settled and just closed her eyes.

needanustart · June 2011

I'm so sorry! Graham had a similar problem a few weeks ago when we stopped swaddling. He started to roll to his tummy in the swaddle so we decided it was time to stop. For the first few days it was awful and he woke up after just about every sleep cycle (about 45 minutes) and couldn't get back to sleep. I know you're not supposed to, but we started putting him down on his tummy and we've had instant sleep success since then. He can roll to his back if he isn't tired and he lifts his head and chest way up when he is crying so we decided if he liked his tummy and it was the only way we could all get sleep we would go with it.

Also, G has really obvious eat/play/sleep cycles and before we figured it out we mistakenly thought it would be eat then sleep right after eating. Maybe the bottle right before bed isn't what he wants or needs and his natural cycle may be to have active time after eating (if he is anything like our LO!)

We also use the sleep sheep and fan for naps too so he associates the white noise starting with falling asleep and he gets drowsy in our arms before we lie him down for both naps and bed. Oh and we always pop the paci in before sleep but take it out once he's totaly out so when he turns his head he doesn't get woken up by it falling out (it took two very educated parents way too many nights to figure out that was what was happening!)

Good luck!

Jennabug25 · June 2011

Logan was doing this for a few weeks. I was going INSANE! I had no sleep since DH starts his new job he gets up super early so it's just me doing all the work at night. At his 4 month appt I mentioned this to his ped and said I'm going crazy! She asked about his eating habits. I told her what we give him and how often. She said maybe it's time to start a few solids. I gave him squash and he only woke up once at 4:30am, but was still sleepy, so I gave him a bottle and he slept until 830-9. He has been on this trend since I started giving him a veggie once a day(it's only been a week of veggies). I know they say solids won't help your LO sleep better, but it sure did for mine! Maybe it was a fluke, maybe not...I guess we will see. HTH!

RumbleLina · June 2011

Your LO snores?

Is it possible he has sleep apnea which is affecting his sleeping at night? A snoring baby doesn't sounds right. DS snored for a little bit but that was due to a sinus infection clogging him up.

Sorry you are having such a rough time. For our DS we haven't been taking naps in his crib because he doesn't nap well it in but he is fine at night. It is a horrible habit of ours we need to get out of. We also have to make sure that DS gets a nap every 2 hours otherwise he naps like crap and is a complete bear to put down.

daniellepanda · June 2011

Our LO snores sometimes too its funny (more of a snort but still).

I am really sorry your having to go through this it sounds like my worst nightmare. We are still swaddling and lo is approaching 5 months and rolls both ways, but honestly he doesn't try to roll in his sleep when swaddled but he does if we dont swaddle. Can he get out of the swaddle me's by summer infant? I would suggest one of those, or the escape proof swaddle. Our LO usually naps about 3ish times a day, a couple of the only 20-30 mins but usually one longer one around 2 hours in the early afternoon. I have noticed however the days he doesn't nap enough he is definitely harder to get to sleep at night now as he has started fighting his sleep more. We dont have a routine but he usually falls asleep between 730-830pm after he gets in his pjs and has a bottle around 730. He usually fusses for about 15 mins as he fights his sleep and then goes down in his swing or us walking around with him.

The key is to get him down before he is over tired or then he cries for much longer, so when he is rubbing his eyes or starts to get crabby playing with his toys and I know he isnt hungry yet then I know he needs to be put down.

Do you have a crib incline on his mattress? Our LO hates to sleep flat on his back in the crib. He would STTN in his rock n play and then when we tried to transition him thats when he started to wake up at 4am. So I got one of those mattress wedges that go under the mattress and now he is back to sleeping 8pm-6am. It was only $18 so it may be worth it? Also we build a "nest' around him just by rolling a towel and that keeps him from waking himself up by rolling/or moving too much. It makes him feel more snuggled in like the rock n play did but he is able to sleep in the pack n play or crib.

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I just cannot figure it out.... (long)

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