16 week old hard to settle to sleep??

[clarechick]

I'm sure this sort of thing has been posted loads on this site but just need a little reassurance / advice!!

My 16 week old DD is getting increasingly hard to settle to sleep at night. Since christmas we take her upstairs about 9am, I feed her in the bedroom in dim light and then my dh walks her until she gets drowsy and is falling asleep and then he pops her into the moses basket and she sleeps through to between 8 and 9am the next morning. However over the last few weeks every time we put her down to sleep, she immediately wakes herself up crying- this happens again and again and over the last few nights we have not been able to get her to sleep until about 1am. She is exhausted at this point with all the usual sleep signs and is over tired too which doesn't help.....

BTW, she naps during the days every 3 hours or so for about 20mins to half an hour.Her last nap is at about 7 or 8pm in the evening.

Why does she wake herself up again so easily? is this this 4 month sleep regression thing or are we doing something wrong? please help..... as its getting soo frustrating!!!!

Those are very short naps.... and if she's had a nap only an hour before you put her down, that might be why she's not so keep on staying asleep? I'd be tempted to bring bedtime forward a little, keep her awake from teatime (5pm-ish) onwards, then start the bedtime routine.... bath, feed, nappy change, soft lights etc.

She really won't sleep for longer during the day at all!!! she is alert and content all day though so don't think she is overtired until the evening.

Then a slightly earlier bed-time and no naps after teatime might work. The worst evenings I remember with my baby DS were ones where we'd been out and he'd fallen asleep in the car on the way home that bit too early! He'd wake up a little later but then couldn't sleep at night... horrible.

Thanks again!! its just so frustrating knowing she is so exhausted but then manages to wake herself up every time we set her down....

When you say that DH walks her until going to sleep, do you mean that she's in the pram? Just wondering whether it could mean that she's starting to need the pram to settle so any wakefulness in the cot/basket is amplified? Realise she obviously naps during the day, but we've always found settling for naps and settling for the night to be very different things. Either way, good luck with it. Sometimes kids just go through little (or big) phases and there isn't much you can do about it. Sorry. Not massively helpful.

deepheat - thanks for your support - when i mean dh walks her, i mean carrying her in his arms pacing the bedroom!!! i know its a road to nowhere but it really settles her usually.... we've tried settling her when in her moses basket but she just gets upset and you need to pick her up again!!! and the cycle continues.... it can take us 3 hours to get her to sleep finally, at which point we are all exhausted!!!

Try winding her down much earlier, at 6pm really. Agree with others she might be overtired already. I understand she is altert but some babies are just very irritable so any sort of stimulatiob will keep them awake.

I had the same problem as you until i started reducing all stimulation by 6pm already (dim lights, switch of music, not let DH dance and whirl around with her when he comes home from work - i told him he can play with her in the mornibg while i get sleep). Try this a few weeks, she will like first start nappin earlier an waking up again, and at some point just not wake up from her naps.

Do also check with the GP though, every time DD suddenly was much harder to settle ad screamed when i put her down in turned out she had one infectiob or the other, so make sure it's niot anything that wakes her up.