Sorry if this is the wrong area I couldn't seem to find one on sleep!
Just wanted to post to get some help/ideas/sanity on what to do about my little girl
I'll give you the history first
Sleeping was going really well but we had a hanging bassinet and had to rock her to sleep each time, except in the mornings as she would usually just play and fall asleep on her own. We were also wrapping, which she would fight like crazy but then it seemed to work by lately she had been out of the wrap by morning.
When she got to 16 weeks all of a sudden over one night everything stopped working. She got hysterical, would punch her way out of the wrap and as soon as we would start rocking she would start screaming more. In the end we put her into a sleeping bag which she hadn't used before as we were just unable to wrap and finally after 3 hours she went to sleep exhausted. This has now been going on for over a week. We do have a rough evening routine involving a shower with dad and quiet time. She used to go to sleep for the night any time between about 8:30 and 10:30 and would sleep usually til 5-7am which was great. We also would use shhhhing as well.
Anyway over this week we have been trying everything. We have now moved put her in the cot instead as it seemed every time her head hit the bassinet she would know we wanted her to sleep so would go nuts (she is in our room).
Now I have discovered that she does tend to have a cry before she goes to sleep as she started doing it in the pram so during the day sleeps I have found I can leave her to have a cry and usually she falls asleep on her own, this doesn't appear to work at night as she gets hysterical and we aren't comfortable with leaving her for long as this stage.
The other thing is I have started doing a basic Tizzie Hall routine as DD was following this roughly anyway during the day. Discovered that she does need a pram nap at the 4:30 mark whereas before we would try and keep her up so we could do all her night time routines like shower etc. So yesterday we took her out, she had a good 30 min sleep in the pram and then we got her down (with some struggles) by 7pm. But she is awake again within the hour and then we had to bring her to the lounge to calm down (she wouldn't calm in the bedroom) have a feed and then take her back to bed when she was tired. Then I shhhh'd and patted (which didn't used to work) and she calmed but stayed awake - I ended up doing this for an hour and a half and then she started crying again and it was time for another feed.
So you know her naps are usually good, she wakes a 7am then goes back to sleep an hour later (we have been trying to extend this to 9am and are just about there) then up for two hours and back down for about an hour and a half and now we do the walk at 4:30. Sorry this is so long, I am just completely lost as to what is going on and how to deal with this. thanks for your time
sorry forgot to mention, I am breast feeding at this stage still. I have had so many problems with thrush, mastitis and vasospasm and was aiming to make it to four months which I have done and was going to try for another few weeks but I'm really struggling.
btw, happy to hear if anyone has similar issues and no solution! always helps to know you aren't in it on your own
if you had a similar issue and it went away thats the best news I could hear!!
this has been happening now for one and a half weeks
You might not get a lot of positivity by using the TH routine, but, if that is what you want to do, then go for it.
I just wanted to ask, how are you feeding her? My DD is about the same age as yours and is breastfed, whenever she is unsettled I just latch her on to comfort her. I don't really follow a routine, I am just going with the flow. I feed my DD to sleep on the spare bed, and when she is asleep, I go into my own bed. I have not yet had to deal with prolonged crying during the night since she was a newborn, but I wouldn't let her cry anyway....just feed.
Is this your first baby? As time goes on you may realise that nothing is really 'routine' (by the book anyway) so perhaps having a bit more of an open mind and just dealing with things as they change might work better for you. There are always going to be good times and bad ones with littlies.
So really, what I am saying is, what do you want to happen with her? Do you want her to sleep through the night and stay there? If that is the case, it just may or may not happen, you just have to try everything you can you think is right for you and your DD. They are all different. Everyone will be going through it at different stages....Trust me!
Thanks for your reply
I may not have come across correctly sorry! My main concern is my DDs wellbeing, and having her so upset about going to sleep is really hard on us. Especially when she was getting so hysterical for so long and taking ages to calm down. I feed her all the time she gets upset but sometimes she won't latch on because she's too upset. So we have made a bit of progress in that I now have been able to calm her, firstly I was using my finger to suck on as she doesn't like dummies (this is after I have literally just fed her til full and put her in bed). But as soon as I take the finger out she starts balling again. Last night patting and shhhhing seemed to finally work but she didn't go to sleep at the end of it. When I say we leave her to cry its for no longer than 2-3 mins as we just stand outside the door and if she starts to get more upset rather than calm down we go straight in. I also think the TH routine is not good but as I had the routine and realised that DD was actually only wanting to eat every four hours at the start of the day and her sleeping was quite similar to the routine I thought it was worth a try (as of yesterday only!) but only lightly ie; she usually wakes around 7ish so I just go with her there - the only thing I am enforcing is a slightly longer wake time after that first feed as i'm worried that thats why she can't get to sleep until really late. Please don't think that I am wanting this to suit my lifestyle, if she was happy to go to bed late that would be fine but she is so over tired by the time it gets later and really grizzly and upset so she definitely seems to need to go to sleep earlier. In the end I think she only falls asleep from shear exhaustion.
she is only still so young...the "recomend" control cryiong for babies over 6 months...can I suggest you maybe take a look at Pinky Mckays sleeping like a baby it ha some wonderful tips.
Just try to follow your inxtincts and keep her close. Good luck hun it gets better xxxx
We haven't intentionally tried controlled crying, I don't even know the process as I'm not interested in doing that especially not at her age. We have only walked out of our room at the start of a sleep and don't continue, I guess the only reason we have done it is that it seems that I might be a distraction to her with patting and shhhing and if I leave for a short time she calms and falls asleep. Mind you this is only day time. I have Pinkys book, in fact I have been so close to calling her many times but can't afford to do it! unfortunately dd doesn't like wrapping anymore and doesn't like been in a sling either but we keep trying! I do end up feeding her quite regularly at night and it ends up being every hour sometimes - if she falls asleep we stay there for awhile and then try and put her in bed, sometimes she wakes and cries but if its really late she will occasionally stay asleep but often wakes shortly after. btw we are still really lucky as she sleeps for a long time when she goes down but its just breaking my heart trying to figure out why she is so tired but not wanting to sleep
btw thanks for all the best wishes
we are really finding it hard and my hubby doesn't handle it well so having a crying baby and a crying hubby feeling like he is a failure is pretty hard to handle
she is a fantastic little girl and happy during the day
There's already been great advice given, and I wish I had a magic answer, but I don't. The 4 - 6 month mark for us was really hard, and apparently around 4 months it's very common for bubs to go through sleep regression. It does pass though, maybe not straight away, but it will all calm down again. We let our DD completely lead the way, have never had a set routine, and it just fell into place a few weeks ago. It takes alot of patience and lack of sleep in some cases though, I struggled too. I found The No Cry Sleep Solution a great book for some tips and pointers, but alot of the time it was simply cuddles and BF that worked, and I love the way that book says that's okay too.
Congrats on keeping up the breastfeeding - it sounds like you've gone through alot so you've done really well there. With your bub unsettled at the moment her main point of comfort and security will be at your breast, so if you feel you can keep going through the rough patch it really could be the best move you could make. Your milk is the one comforting constant at the moment for her, when this wide new world is spinning her out a bit.
It does get easier, it's just sometimes hard to see that when the here and now can be so tough
sleep 4mth old
Reply With Quote
she is only still so young...the "recomend" control cryiong for babies over 6 months...can I suggest you maybe take a look at Pinky Mckays sleeping like a baby it ha some wonderful tips. 
Bookmarks