Help with 17 week old sleep!

[TequilaMockingbird87]

Hi MNers,

I could really use some help and advice before I crack up completely!
DD is nearly 17 weeks and an awful sleeper. She will fight daytime naps as much as she can, and will sleep for a maximum of 40 minutes at a time.
However it's at night that the problems really start. She's usually ready for bed at around 7.30pm. She will sleep until 12 (if I'm very lucky) and wake up for a small feed- I'm talking no more than 60mls. After that on a good night she's up every two hours, on a bad night it's every 45 minutes!
When she wakes, I don't really communicate with her, and offer her milk. As I say, she will usually take it but I think it's more of a comfort thing as she never wants a lot. She's not starving when she wakes in the morning either.
I am really at the end of my tether with this, I had a horrendous pregnancy with her, and have subsequently been diagnosed with PND. I could really use some advice about how to tackle her sleeping.
Thanks

I think 17 weeks is an especially crap time with sleep. They go through a massive growth spurt/developmental leap around now. Do you have the wonder weeks app? Saved my sanity.

I think a 40 min nap is good going at this age. DS only started sleeping longer for naps around 8 months.

Do you have a routine?

Does she settle herself to sleep or do you feed/rock her? At 17 weeks, it could be a good time to start trying to encourage self-settling if you don't already do this. It could be that she stirs or wakes a little and doesn't know how to get back to sleep without feeding, as this is what she associates with sleep.
the 7.30-12 stretch is probably the best one, as before midnight is usually the deepest and most solid sleep that young babies have.

The nap length is normal, they naturally extend these between 6-9 months.

Thanks, we have a routine of bath, bottle and bed with a story. You are totally right about the self settling, I struggle to get her back to sleep without feeding her a bit. Do you have any tips on helping her to self settle? I'm just worried if I don't feed she'll just continue to cry. Fortunately she doesn't need me holding her/rocking to sleep.

I just bit the bullet on self-settling and started putting 4.5 mo DD down awake. I started by not putting her in sleeping bag until after the bedtime feed was finished. But over last few days I've tried even harder to divorce feeding from sleeping by doing feed-bath-story-into sleeping bag-little cuddle-bed.

It's actually been much easier to settle her than I expected. If she's doing a genuinely upset cry then usually a hand on her chest and some soothing words work. Sometimes I pick her up and hold her briefly. (I guess a combo of ssh-pat and pick-up-put-down). Over past few nights it's taken 20 mins from putting her in crib to her falling asleep. Alas, we're yet to see much of an improvement in night wakings, but hopefully we're teaching her better sleep habits. It's also dramatically shortened the bedtime process from when I was feeding to sleep, which means I get more of an evening.

I should add - when she wakes up after that I try to re-settle the same way but after a certain point in the night I feed her. I'm probably giving her all sorts of mixed message and quite frankly am making this up as I go along sort of cobbled together from Baby Whisperer and No Cry Sleep Solution

I can only help from my own experience - we had dd1 who was exactly like this, no more than 40 min naps which is soil destroying and doesn't give you a chance to get anything done never mind regain your mental health. It also then was the case that she needed fed at night too. She was 3 feeds a night til 9 months and no sleeping through til 15 months. We were losing our minds.

With the other dcs we learned that the more they sleep the more they sleep. So try putting her to bed earlier, even if you think that's crazy. It has worked every time for ours. I'd they go early at night the nap times increase during the day too.

Also I really now believe I had pnd after dd1 but it was undiagnosed. I convinced myself I was a shit mother since dd didn't sleep and that she could see through my pretence that I knew what I was doing. I think I must have been seeping stress at every level and I think she must have picked up on it. I also think I wasn't as good at routine and getting her in her cot (or a cot rather than buggy) for sleeps. I was better at this with second two and it definitely paid off.

My best tips/suggestions are to try 630 instead of 730 and see if that kickstand things. Also to try to have a daytime nap routine. My d's knows it's nap time when he hears the music on his monitor, I give him the same teddy and we say let's go sleepy time now with lots of kisses. He has even my best sleeper by a country mile and I think it's in part me recognising the tired signals and going for the extra sleep and in part me being more relaxed about it all.

When it's your pfb it's very hard to relax but if you can I think that will help.

Also I totally agree with the others who say 17weeks is a growth spurt. There's a good few weeks of hell around this age. Totally normal and will pass!!

Good luck x

my tips are early bed (6.30) so not too overtired and look up ssh pat which is a good technique to start encouraging. it is hard, but will be worth it

Thank you all so much, I will let you know how I get on.