3 month old awful sleeper!

[NHM1997]

NHM1997

Help!!!

My little girl is 11 weeks and is an awful sleeper over night. Most nights she won’t go down for the night until 2/3, and that’s not too bad, sometimes it’s 5. No matter what we do she will not settle at a normal time. She can go 12+ hours being awake at night, for example she can wake up from her last nap at 4pm and then not go to sleep again until 4am. I try and watch her awake windows and after a 1-2 hours try to put her down but she won’t have any of it. Sometimes she falls asleep whilst I’m holding her but the second I put her down she wakes up and looks as if she wasn’t tired at all. I’ve tried putting her down drowsy and she just cries. I’ve picked her up and settled her and tried again and nothing seems to work. When she does eventually sleep she will usually have a 4 hour sleep and then wake up for a feed and go back to bed for a bit. I’ve tried not letting her have really long naps, I’ve tried letting her nap as long as she wants and I really don’t know what else to do as nothing seems to make a difference. Please help me!

DS has always had a 5-10 minute grizzle before falling to sleep, especially if he’s over tired. Are you letting her cry for a bit at all (I’m not suggesting full blown cry is out if that’s not what you want to do by the way). My other thought would be cosleeping, just so she gets to know “it’s nighttime now” then when she’s got the hang of it try her in her cot again (I did this for DS naps). It’s still early days (I know that’s unhelpful when you’re sleep deprived) so I’d still consider “sleep when baby sleeps” as a good mantra.

Sounds really hard, I feel your pain. My baby is just over 12 weeks so similar age.
At this stage they should be getting approx 3.5 to 4 hours sleep during the day.

I do: baby wakes up between 7 and 8am.
Up for 1.30 hour to 2 hours. Then down for a 45mins nap approx around 9 or 9.30am. Awake until 11.30 then she's down until 2pm getting he big nap over lunch.

Then she'll nap again around 3.30 or 4pm. Awake until 6pm when she goes to bed.

At this age they have awake periods of about 2 hours at a time. With a 30 to 45 minutes nap in the morning and afternoon and a long 2 hour nap over lunch. Down between 6 and 7pm depending how tired they seem.

It's really not easy but if you try to stick to this, over a few weeks you will see improvements. I do feed to sleep which isn't recommended but I don't care, it works for me now.

Put baby down in dark room with loud white noise. Since doing this, I've seen massive improvements. Letting her sleep in daylight will lead to lots of catnapping because after her first sleep cycle of 45mins approx she is woken up by the day light. Hence she seems over tired and this may be why she isn't sleeping at night.

I've been following 'baby sleep program' by Little ones. Two of my other mum friends have used it and also have good sleepers now. I used it on first born too and she sleeps well since. I can email it to you if you want to have a look. They passed it on to me. So I can pass onto someone else

By the way, I've only just started doing this more 'scheduled' routine for the last two weeks. And I have to resettle at least twice over most naps and when she goes down around 6/7pm. Took me two hours to settle in the evening the other night but worth sticking to it if you can. I also feed her back to sleep when she wakes in the night for milk. She sleeps in dark room in cot, sometimes in the single bed when too unsettled to move into cot after feeding. And at night I get her out of cot (if in cot) and feed her in the bed laying down. Put back in cot if I can or leave her there if unsettled. Some days are ok. Some are bad. Little steps and trial and error. Learning what works best but keep trying. I would recommend taking her into dark room with white noise first and take it from there.

I had this with both of mine. Quick recharge babies, that's what DH and I would say. Almost lost my head.
White noise helped.
Cosleeping helped more.

You baby is still quite young and is quite likely, overtired. It's very normal for her to not want to be put down, mine would fight against this with every fibre of their little being. Mine are better sleepers now (they sleep 10+hours), so whatever you choose to do, hopefully there are better days ahead.

Yes could you email it to me please it’s [email protected]
I’ve tried to follow the hukkleberry sleep schedule for 2/3 month olds which sounds similar to your routine. She was quite good at following it in the day but then nighttime came and it all went out the window, and the problem is when she doesn’t go down to sleep until 5 in the morning I can’t get her up at 8 and make her stay awake when she’s only had 3 hours sleep over night but I guess I need to keep trying! I stopped using white noise as it didn’t seem to make a difference but will introduce it again. Does your baby nap in the same room you are in in the daytime?

@Refrosty

I had this with both of mine. Quick recharge babies, that's what DH and I would say. Almost lost my head. White noise helped. Cosleeping helped more.

You baby is still quite young and is quite likely, overtired. It's very normal for her to not want to be put down, mine would fight against this with every fibre of their little being. Mine are better sleepers now (they sleep 10+hours), so whatever you choose to do, hopefully there are better days ahead.

Same. My first born would fight me and husband for hours. We tried rocking. Feeding. Everything. She just wouldn't give up. Second born is not so bad. We still have to feed or rock but she does go down after 5 - 10mins

I was so tired once I let her cry for 30 mins and there was no sign of it stopping. When I put her down I let her cry for a few minutes before going to comfort her but usually I can’t get her back to sleep unless I just hold her which I try not to do all the time

@NHM1997

Yes could you email it to me please it’s [email protected] I’ve tried to follow the hukkleberry sleep schedule for 2/3 month olds which sounds similar to your routine. She was quite good at following it in the day but then nighttime came and it all went out the window, and the problem is when she doesn’t go down to sleep until 5 in the morning I can’t get her up at 8 and make her stay awake when she’s only had 3 hours sleep over night but I guess I need to keep trying! I stopped using white noise as it didn’t seem to make a difference but will introduce it again. Does your baby nap in the same room you are in in the daytime?

Will email over. Yes I agree if she is awake until the early hours then you can't expect to wake her at 8 so it's very much 'building up towards' more logical sleep windows. It won't be easy but sounds like she's very overtired and it will take a little while for her to adjust but it can be done with consistency, which will be key here. My daughter can't manage to go the full awake time recommended in the program and I've learnt this the hard way. Now I know to put her down at least 30mins before recommended. If I try to push until the max awake time, she's overtired and takes longer to settle. There's a sweet spot between the two. And I agree with pp saying sometimes when they are a little grizzly it helps. I moved her into her own room on Wednesday and her day sleeps have been good. She does sometimes wake up after 10mins so I go in and resettled. If your baby is fighting this a lot, it will be hard but if you can keep trying to resettle for the day naps and bedtime, over time it should work. Didn't move first born into own room until 9 months old and I wish I had done it sooner. Just be prepared to spend the entire nap times resettling her at the beginning. And be prepared that putting to bed might take two hours, having to return to feed, rock etc until she's finally out. For info, this baby has generally been sleeping well over night but like you I couldn't put her down during the day. Only wanted to sleep on me which led to catnapping and over tiredness hence why I've restarted the program again

@NHM1997

I was so tired once I let her cry for 30 mins and there was no sign of it stopping. When I put her down I let her cry for a few minutes before going to comfort her but usually I can’t get her back to sleep unless I just hold her which I try not to do all the time

11 weeks is still young. It's ok to hold then to sleep 🙂 but it's fine to not want them awake until 5am too!