September 2015 Moms

Sleep

CEW225CEW225 member
edited January 2016 in September 2015 Moms
LO is almost 4 months old and isn't sleeping through the night yet. I know every baby is different and it will eventually happen for us one day. She only wakes up once (usually) at about 2 or so to eat. We get up for the day at 530, which is usually when she is ready to eat again. Recently, her waking times have been off and sometimes more frequent. Last night, she woke up about 130, ate, and wouldn't go back to sleep, which has never been a problem. I'm thinking possibly part of the regression?

As I'm reading about the regression amd looking at different sample schedules, a lot of them have bedtime around 7pm or 8pm and wake up times at 7am. We usually do bath between 7 and 730 and bed by 8. By those schedules, that seems too late for a wake up time of 530. Is that correct? Should we try putting her to bed by 6? I kno every baby is different and the schedules dont work for some, but I didn't know if it was worth a shot. If so, that means we will literally get to see our child for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, once we get home and I'm not a fan of that part.

What are your bed times and wake up times?

Re: Sleep

  • DS2 goes to bed at 7 or 8 and lately has been waking around 5am.  I think that its probably okay as long as LO is getting enough day sleep to make up for it.  At four months sleep should be between 12-14 hours per day. 
    When DS2 wakes early he does tend to take a longer morning nap, today he woke at 5am and then slept from 6:30-9. 
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  • I wake her around 6:45/7 everyday if she isn't already awake so her feeds are at roughly the same time. I like this part of our routine because it makes our days more predictable.

    "Bedtime" is anywhere from 8-9, but she usually doesn't sleep longer than a sleep cycle until I put her back down at 11ish. This part sucks.
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  • My doula just put me in touch with a baby sleep specialist - she said the FIRST thing I need to change is that LO's sleep time should be between 5pm-6pm and that adults need to get over how "early" that sounds - baby will sleep longer and better if you consistently put them down that early. The downside is I don't get done with work till 6pm. But... If it means helping my LO establish good restorative sleeping habits then I suppose I'll do it. Just seems so early! But this woman is supposed to be top notch and solves all sleeping issues with babies and says it's the FIRST thing she tells people to change.
  • My LO pretty much goes to sleep on my chest in the evenings around 8pm. I'll give him a last bottle and swaddling when I go to bed around 11pm-12am but then he'll sleep until 9-10am. My DH stays home with him so they get to sleep in together. I go to work from 7-4 and I cherish the evening hours I get with him so I don't think I want to be putting him to bed that early. I do remember when my daughter used to go to sleep by 6:30 or so. I'd say she was a little older though and not napping as much during the day. My son is still taking 3-4 naps.
  • From my very limited experience, I can tell you this. I was trying a 7-7 routine for my 17 week old. She's a chronic 45 minute napper so on average she gets about 3 hours of day time sleep only. With the 7-7 she often was falling asleep later than 7, Sometines closer to 8. She was waking more frequently at night and rarely getting any stretch of night sleep that was longer than the other stretches. It was all about 3-3.5 hour stretches and then needing to be fed and/or settled.

    Since I moved her bedtime to 6 four nights ago (and strictly honoring a 2 hour final wake time...meaning she's asleep within 2 hours of when she last woke) she's been a DREAM sleeper. Well, relative to her crappy sleeps as of late. She now is back to sleeping a solid 5 hour stretch (technically referred to as STTN) followed by a 4 hour and then maybe another 1-1.5 hours.

    And interestingly, my in laws were over last night. And MIL insisted she "wasn't tired" and was really pushy to keep her awake past her 2 hours and past that 6 PM time. (I've already talked to my husband about assertiveness next time!) and what do you know it...she woke after 1 hour, then 3 hours later, then another 3 and now I'm up and ticked off! ;)

    Put your baby to bed by 6 and see what happens! The worst you'll have to do is try a different time. It's worked wonders for us.
  • Could this change be part of the 4 month regression? It was a struggle to get her down last night. Took me almost 2 hours because DH let her take a 25 min nap at about 530 when I was at the grocery store. I was so mad!!

    @kmcshane0211 She was STTN before this craziness started. She would fall asleep by about 8 or so and sleep until 2 or 230, so about 6 hours, then a 3 hr stretch until we had to get up at 530. We didn't change anything in our routine except for the fact that we were at my in laws when it started. She's only had abut one or two "normal" nights since then, which was the day after Christmas.

    Maybe I'll try backing it up again just to see what happens. Last time I did, she really didn't sleep any longer, just changed the times, but it's worth a shot. I just hate we will have zero time to spend with her.
  • @kmcshane0211 so 5 hours is consider STTN?!! I thought that was like 7p to 7a or something crazy. Every time I see people saying their LO slept thru the night I assumed they had a miracle child sleeping 12 hours and stuff. Mine sleeps 5-6 hour stretches usually with some random 2-3 hours before or after so I always thought he was just a terrible sleeper compared to everyone else on here.
  • Everything I've read online indicates 5 is STTN at this stage! know! What a sham! That's all I get?! ;)

    @CEW225 I'm certainly no expert. Just drawing from my own experience and success with some things. Here's what I've read and believe. All these changes we're all seeing are most likely due to that leap in development. And it definitely impacts our/baby's sleep...and sanity! I think underlying all of our questioning "what is this?! Is this a regression?!" is us fearing that it won't return to "how it was". That's possible! If that's the case, we'll all be teaching our babies new ways of sleeping and working to get them "back to where they were!". We'd probably be doing that anyhow!

    Regardless, your baby needs to sleep! And sleep leads to better sleep. So, Insay try the earlier bedtime and see if it gets you better sleep. You won't have to lee the schedule that way permanently. Or maybe you will. Just give it a shot!
  • @kmcshane0211
    So, I re-read my response to you little bit ago and I realized I sounded a little snarky and I really didn't mean to!  I guess that's what I get for being on The Bump at 3:30am!  I apologize if it came off that way.  I plan on trying to back bath time up to about 6:30 this evening, which means bed time will probably be around 7:00 or 7:15 instead of 8:00.  Hopefully that will help some and, like you said, hopefully this won't be a permanent change and things will go back to normal and we can put it back to 7:00 or so.  I feel completely clueless (FTM) and feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I still wonder if the hospital is hoarding some manual somewhere...lol!  

    Oh, and I've also been told the definition of STTN was 5 hours.  What a rip off!
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