We've been really struggling with sleep lately. Sigh.... My good little sleeper at 3 months has been taken over by a sleep demon at 4 months. We had a pattern of 12 hour nights with 5-6 hours between wakings for feedings, and 3-4 naps during the day of varying length - after being awake for about 1.5-2 hours she would just fall asleep anywhere.
Now, she's fighting naps during the day, and up frequently during the night every 1.5-2 hours. The bad sleep patterns started while we were on our trip. I chalked it up to jet lag but they haven't really improved dramatically since we've gotten home 2 weeks ago. Mommy is not functioning well on 8 one hour segments of sleep at night to say the least.
I've been doing some reading up on the topic and have implemented some strategies. First, I'm making habit to put her down in her crib for every nap just before she gets tired. She was crying herself into hysterics (to the point of vomiting) if left to cry it out. Hmmm... so I introduced a taggie blanket and a soother last week. She is now able to calmly get herself to sleep for a nap without fighting. Progress! The only dilemma is that I feel very tied down to the house with all this crib napping. We tried an outing the other day and she refused to sleep at all while we were out for 6 hours. The world is just far too interesting!
So what to do at night? I usually wait a few minutes to see if she'll resettle, but 99% of the time she won't. If it's been 4 hours or more since a feeding I'll feed her and she'll nurse and go back to sleep after 10-15 min. If its only been an hour or two I try offering the soother. She hasn't mastered the art of keeping it in all the time, or getting it back to her mouth, so sometimes this means I'm up again in 10 minutes retrieving the soother. Occasionally nothing I do works so my DH gets up and rocks her back down.
So I obviously need some help in this department. How do I get the 5-6 hour night time stretches back again? What worked for you? Am I doomed to staying home all day and getting up several times a night for the next several months? Years? Ughh...
I recommend the book bed timing, it explains what is going on developmentally for the first few years, I can't remmeber what it is but t 4 months there is some sorta huge developmental change, and they need you more during the night(it's also the worst time to implement sleep strategies), if you can make it to 5.5 months that's a great time to sleep train, we ferberized at 5.5 and they slept goodish until 18 months, it went to hell from 18-24 months, now they sleep amazingly. Hope that helps
ReplyDeleteThanks Nadine. I agree that it is caused by a developmental change in her level of awareness coupled with being dragged all over the European continent and getting used to high levels of stimulation. That book sounds similar to "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". I agree she is a bit on the young side for sleep training, especially Ferber.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the 4 month sleep regression. My guy went from sleeping through the night to getting up every 3 hours (worse than when he was a newborn!) and stopped napping well for a month or so. We're now finishing up the 8 month sleep regression, which has not been much fun either - my puts-himself-to-sleep-easily little guy seems to have completely forgotten how to do that at night. I don't know what to do other than wait it out and know that it will end eventually. It shouldn't be several months, the developmental change only lasts for a few weeks (which feel like forever at the time) and often you can see them working towards something and then when they achieve it, all of a sudden everything's fine again.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, you could look at whatever sleep training methods you want (I read The Baby Whisperer and Ferber and then made my own using bits of each according to what works for him) and decide how you're going to go from there. Whatever you do, it doesn't really matter, just choose something that feels right to you and the key is being consistent. It's hard at first, especially if you have to teach them the skills of self-soothing, but it pays off in the end. Sleeping well for naps means sleeping well at night, and means both of you are way happier. It's definitely the best thing I did for my sanity. My guy's naps do put a damper on going out and doing things, but we are much happier and I just need to pick and choose what we're going to do and make sure he doesn't miss naps too often and he's okay.
Good luck, trying to find a balance between sleep and fun and sanity can be difficult.
LN10 hit a sleep regression at 4 months too. It lasted until 6 months old until we implemented the Ferber sleep training method. I also borrowed the sleep schedule from Weissbluth. She may not be a 100% ready for sleep training at 4 months but try again the next week if she's crying herself into hysterics for no more than an hour each day. And yes, the less nap sleep they get the worse the night sleeps are. Its a vicious cycle. I literally stayed in my house for weeks on end watching for sleep cues to get LN10 down for a nap. Once he settled into a nap cycle that I could identify, then he took to the training like a champ. I tried all the methods but found he responded the best to Ferber's method (a Cry It Out type training - less harsh than Weissbluth's method). Took 2 days. LN10 was 6 months old. Since then...life's been sooooo much better. Promise...it gets better. Until then...sleep when baby sleeps! Ya right...but try!!
ReplyDeleteYup. We all go through it at one point or another. Elly slept like an angel till 8 months, then it went to crap for 10 months. And yes... somewhere between 4-6 months we too become tied to our crib. A bit of a transition, but not the end of the world.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck. I hope you find a solution that suits you guys
Thank you for all of your responses. We are hard at work with the naps, and she's getting much more successful with those. The nights are still variable, but hopefully in time they will improve too.
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