Nina is just over 4 months old, and I believe is going through a growth spurt, but a few things have changed with her and seems to be so much harder to settle.
Up until now she's been really easy to settle for bed, normally after a bath, we'd give her a little massage, I'd feed her, put her in bed and she'd go to sleep without a fuss. Lately though she won't go to sleep unless I rock/pat her. It's been taking me about 20 minute to settle her until she's asleep. If I put her down while she's still awake, she gets really unsettled, making groaning/whining noises until finally starts crying, until I pick her up.
Although it doesn't bother me too much to rock/pat/cradle her, I'm wondering if this is all part of the growth spurt, or is it something that once she's started, she'll keep doing?
I think your doing good to only have the 20 minutes then she's asleep!
Charlie went thru this stage - i used to put him down and then i would look and he would be asleep. He was an angel! Then i reckon at about 5 months we went to darwin and i didnt' want him to cry and wake the rest of the house up so i got into the habit of rocking him - i regret that - he is a big boy and weighed 11 kilo's at 5 months - so wasn't good for my back. In the end i would put him in his bed and pat his back for a little while and walk away, if he started crying i would come back in and pick him up, cuddle him and then put him straight back in his bed - I had to do this for about a week straight - in the end he just stopped crying because he knew it wouldn't get him out of going to sleep. Worked for me, I didn't like letting him cry.
Hey Jodi,
Ashleigh went thru a similar thing at 3 months she just started getting better last week. It was hard it would take us ages to settle her, even giving her the breast didn't always help. Day sleeps were even worse would take an hour to settle her for sleep for her then to sleep only 30 mins! To get thru it I just did whatever worked, i let her sleep in her bounder in the day so I could just keep rocking it and at night i just had to give her comfort feeds like every 10 mins til she got really drowsy of fell asleep.
Its a horrible time and so very tiring and I also worried is this how its gonna be from now on but as I said she started to improve last week, so prolly lasted just under 2 weeks.
Jodi, we have gone through this a couple of times. My son is nearly 7 mths old. We stuck to the same routine of wrapping him, settling him for a minute or two in our arms by patting him on the back and then putting him in the cot. We sometimes pat him on his chest and then walk out. When he has been crying we go back in and only settle him in his cot, we try not to pick him up because he got used to that and expected it however, as soon as we put him back down again he screamed. It works great now just patting him on his chest with a dummy in his mouth. I think its important to put them in the cot awake so they learn to put themselves to sleep. Music has also been a great help, we have Mozart for Babies. Good luck, I hope you come out the other side of it soon.
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4 month old harder to settle
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