3 month old wants to sleep at 6/6:30pm

[user666555]

Hello,

Posting here for traffic.

My three month old (CMPA) baby is really struggling with sleep at the moment. She has cat naps all day. She sleeps for around 30 minutes, wakes up, is tired again 30-40 minutes later wants another nap and the whole cycle repeats itself until around 5:30-6pm where she is EXHAUSTED and crying. I'm not sure if I shouldn't be doing this but I try and prolong her bedtime until 7pm as I'm worried that if she goes to bed at 5:30/6 she'll wake up really early. She's been waking up at around 6am and that's when she's sleeping at 7pm.

My question is, if I do start putting her to sleep at 5:30/6pm, won't she just start waking up around 5/5:30? She wakes up 4 times at night for a feed to so if she does wake up at around 5 I'll hardly be getting any sleep myself - obviously I want to take her lead and do what's best for her, but I'd be lying if I said that I would be so sleep deprived waking up at 5am everyday. I don't have much help with her overnight etc so it is mostly all on me, I don't want to be so sleep deprived that it impacts my ability to parent hence why I try and get her to sleep at 7 as I can handle waking up after 6.

Again, willing to follow her lead, if this is what she needs then I guess I'll just have to get used to it

Sending huge sympathy, OP. It’s utterly brutal. DD would only contact nap until about 10 months. DH could sometimes get her to cot nap, but other than that it would be an instant wake up on transfer. So we contact napped. I got nothing done around the house, which in itself wasn’t great for my mental health, and I had other mental health struggles too, so removing the worry about her sleep was the best thing for us. After about 9 months I started trying for cot naps and one day she just stayed down - didn’t do anything differently.

DSis told me to “just push her in the pram until she dozes off”. After 90 minutes doing laps in the park I bailed, put her in the carrier and instant sleep. I found her evening sleep much better if we managed good day naps, so I did absolutely anything possible to get them.

Hello,

Thought I'd give a little update as to how we're getting along.

So the past two days I've been letting her go to sleep (for bedtime) whenever she feels tired. To my surprise, this has actually worked out better. She has been sleeping for longer in the mornings and the quality of her sleep is a lot better. She is in a deeper sleep and had a 2hr+ nap at lunch time yesterday. Although she probably only slept this long because I took her for a walk, however, I listened to what a lot of you have said and ignored the dirty washing/laundry that needs to be put away and focused on baby and myself.

I'm sure the above will probably all go to nothing if and when the sleep regression happens.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for their support and guidance.

My child at that age went to sleep at 16 for 12 or so hours

I think you need to start going to bed with her at 6pm!

That’s great news OP! I’m sure she’s in a much better mood after the 2 hour nap and so it’s all a lot less stressful for you. Good for you getting out the house too and away from all the chores. Mum of x2 here and I have to say it never ends, there is always washing to do, clothes to put away, toys everywhere, washing up etc I think you just get more used to it. Maybe you have a 20 min whizz round in the morning and then leave the rest until later or the longer nap time. Or set aside time at a weekend when you or your partner can do the bathroom etc. Sunday mop the kitchen floor. Dry washing could be put in a pile each and then put away at the weekend or whilst one of you is doing bathtime. Online shops can really save us too as they are so quick. I used to spend a lot of time making the house look great and whilst it’s good to keep it nice I wish I had relaxed and spent more time catching up on sleep or having a break / playing with the baby and getting out too

@NeedtostopusingMNsomuch thank you so much for your tips. You've been really helpful.

We've had a somewhat difficult day today. She's been a bit difficult to put down for naps. I think I'm missing her tired cues. She literally goes from smiling and laughing to crying as she wants to sleep INSTANTLY. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it but I think one thing I've defo realised is that her wake window isn't the typical 1.5 hours that the Huckleberry app suggests for her age. She defo gets tired before that wake window (probably because she still has a lot of shorter naps - maybe one good long nap, but that's if we're lucky!) I'd like to go with her tiredness cues but like I said she goes from 0-100 in minutes/seconds.

I've been too tired to go for a walk today, as walks are when she gets the longer stretch of sleep usually ... I just feel a bit under the weather so had a day at home. Exhausted already haha x