Help with 3mo sleep issues

[Sonics]

Need some advice please

Have 3mo ds who is quite demanding and we're struggling with sleep.

It's never been easy for him to sleep but I really feel I need to tackle this now he's getting a bit bigger. I kind of hoped things might have resolved themselves but they haven't.

At night we have been doing a bedtime routine for about 6-8 weeks but it's still taking 1.5-2 hours to settle him (even though he is tired - he falls asleep, but wakes as soon as we put him down). He's generally down now by about 8.30 though and does stay asleep for a few hours. He generally wakes twice in the night (is EBF) but can sometimes be 3 times. The first couple of wakings he goes back in his bed fine but then last few hours starts getting restless and I have to hold one hand down to calm him. Some nights from about 5am he then won't go back in his crib and will only sleep on me (as he is now). He's a big baby and this is starting to get uncomfortable.

Daytime naps are lots worse, totally erratic, sometimes he hardly sleeps at all and gets very overtired and upset. On the days he does sleep he will only sleep on me/DH and not in his crib. The last couple of days we've tried doing a naptime routine similar to bedtime and putting him down but as he's used to being rocked to sleep he wakes even as we start making movements towards crib and we have to start all over again. We've given up after an hour or so as we know he'll end up not having any sleep and just getting overtired and upset. Plus we get frustrated and start to lose patience. Yesterday he slept on me for 3.5 hours in one go which is just not sustainable.

Have bought the baby whisperer book which I started reading last night but it just left me confused as I don't know how to break this. It says to persevere with changing habits but should we just keep on trying to get him into his bed in the day until he finally gets it and has a nap? That could take hours and I feel so mean as he is so sleepy but just cries as soon as we try and put him down and we have to start the rocking to sleep all over again. It's hard in the day as well as I'm on my own and it just gets so frustrating spending ages rocking him for him to just wake up again. He's also pretty heavy so it's not easy - makes my back really ache.

I don't really want to do controlled crying. We have tried dummy / bouncy chair and neither work. He will sleep in his pram if we take him out but that is starting to not work as he quite often wakes up crying. Also usually cries in his car seat.

Please help! Getting really fed up with this.

too young for cc. Go with your instincts. If you need to put him in sling or pram for some naps it will be easier and less frustrating for you both to try some naps in crib when he is not overtired. From getting up in the morning he may only manage 45 mins- 1 hr including feeding time before he needs a nap. This was a revelation to me. Good luck.

Forgot to say he cries in the sling as well, keep trying him in it it with no success. Pram is slowly not becoming an option for naps as he often cries in that too. Hence why we think we need to get the crib cracked in the daytime. Just don't know how to achieve this!

Hiya, I think you have a very overtired baby. We went through exactly this, out dd would scream and scream and scratch me etc. I quite honestly think we were getting on her nerves and making her more tired. Put her in her cot at 7 and she did scream but we figured she was screaming in our arms anyway, but she didn't scream for long and then went to sleep. From then we committed to 7 in bed every night- I was convinced it would make night wakes and settling worse but it didn't, it got better. Each time we fed her we just put her down awake- there was some crying but not much and now there is none. I felt like she was just saying "finally you have left me to just go to sleep". I don't even hold her for naps now, she just nods of in her high hair (we have a bloom- so it titles back). It all sounds very counter intuitive and that your baby will never settle etc but they do. If he isn't sleeping much in the day I would say start bedtime much earlier. Getting an overtired baby to drop off is a nightmare!

How old was your dd when you did this cooper?

I've just successfully got him into his crib for a morning nap! It took 6 attempts and I'm sure he won't stay there for long but it's progress!!

Seriously he is too young, you are at his beck and call until six months - sorry. At three months he can't even really tell the difference between day and night.

I agree with ^^

Mostly what MrsMarigold said.

It won't last forever, it really won't. The fact that he only wakes two or three times in the night is amazing (and tells me that he does have day and night pretty well sorted).

Why is him napping on you not sustainable? I'm guessing you're on maternity leave and don't have to be anywhere? He was in you only a few weeks ago and he's one of those that just isn't a natural textbook sleeper. Let him nap on you to make sure he gets enough day time sleep, get a box set or Netflix on the TV, or MN on your phone, and make sure you have biscuits handy.

I fought lap-naps with DS1 for my entire mat leave and it was infuriating. I just let DS2 nap in my lap (or, better yet, co-slept naps) and it was far lovelier and less stressful. You only get to do it for a very few short months of their lives. Don't waste it, I say.

Also, Baby a Whisperer/Tracey Hogg has never had a baby of her own. Never trust a child-free 'expert'. Stuff will always work for a maternity nurse or nanny that will never work for a mum. Put down the book and pick up your baby.

And YY to Mama - awake time should be one hour max at this age before you start pulling out all stops to get him back to sleep.

What kind of sling? Make sure he isn't too hot - he doesn't need a coat as he will have the heat from you, for example. Also if you leave it too late then he will get upset.

I found having a rough eye on timings helped - so down for a nap about 60-90 mins after the morning wake (make sure you start settling before this - for me it was the perfect time to go out for a walk with baby in sling after a feed). Next one about 90 mins after and a final one about two hours after waking.

Make sure he's properly winded after going in the sling especially after a feed, and that he isn't slumped or tummy is squished.

Sonics

Try a swaddle.

• Use a flat full sized cot sheet
• Fold it in half along the short edge to make a long, thin rectangle (not a short fat rectangle, that's folding the wrong edge).
• Lie baby in the centre.
• Hold one arm down the body, hand towards the belly button. Pull one side of the sheet over the shoulder, high around the body, lift baby's bottom half and continue to wrap all the way under the baby.
• Hold down the other arm and do the same with the other side of the sheet across and around the baby.
• With practice, keep this quite tight.

This allows for moving the baby when asleep with them less likely to notice. It also calms and soothes and over-tired baby. It may well frustrate the baby initially, but should calm in time.

If this was my child I would swaddle, dummy in and cradle hold, gently rick to sooth and calm. Then into cot when asleep (with dummy in). But that's just me.

I agree with the posters above that (a) your baby sounds over tired, should be getting baby to sleep after 60 minutes awake, and (b) Your baby has needs which you need to meet and so controlled crying would be wrong because crying is your babys only way to communicate a need to you.

She is 18 weeks now, we did this about two or three weeks ago but I think she had been begging us to do it'd of weeks before and was so so tired!!!

Also, I think people should hold back on the "it will pass", "enjoy it". Obviously you aren't enjoying it hence your post. Encouraging your baby to sleep well isn't avoiding meeting your baby's needs- If any thing it is meeting his key need. Try where possible to encourage him to sleep independently and if it doesn't work that time then leave it and get him to sleep any way you can and then try again later. Also, if you take comfort from books and like such advice then you do that. Not many heart surgeons have had heart surgery but that doesn't mean you shouldn't trust them. Sometimes objectivity can be the answer to a lot of problems. X

She's not enjoying it because she's trying to put her baby in his cot which is not getting him sleep and is taking up even more of her time just in attempting to do it - I know it well. I've been there with two babies. What I said was she might enjoy it and have an easier life if she just lets him sleep on her/DH.

And it will pass. It felt like fifty years when I was stuck under a sleeping DS1. Suddenly he's three next month and I have to tackle him for a cuddle (and guess what? He doesn't sleep on me anymore). So I make the most of every second of DS2 sleeping on me because it goes in the blink of an eye, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.

But sorry for giving an opinion based upon a great deal of experience of poor nappers. All babies, especially tiny ones, should just be 'fixed' to sleep in cots because they must sleep better there than on their parents

No, I know this poster and the reason she isn't enjoying is because she doesn't want to spend time confined to the sofa while her son sleeps on her.It's your preference but not hers which is why she is looking for a route out of it- rather than people telling her to live with it. Horses for courses, but she wouldn't have posted if she didn't want to change her situation.

I didn't enjoy being parked under my first either. I thought it was unsustainable, I thought I was going to go mad, I tried everything short of leaving him screaming in a sound-proof room for months and months and months.

Then I changed my perspective and life got a lot pleasanter. I didn't need to 'fix' my baby to do something that he wasn't intrinsically set up for (especially not at three months!).

Lower your expectations about infant sleep considerably, especially when the baby is under six months, and life is much more bearable. That is my best advice on the situation. A list of tricks to get a baby to sleep in a cot is fine, but they may not work. Changing your perspective pretty much always does.

Writing this while stuck under a sleeping baby, BTW. Having an excuse to sit down in a quiet room, have a cuddle and MN is bloody lovely!

Also, I think people should hold back on the "it will pass", "enjoy it". Obviously you aren't enjoying it hence your post.

This is not a debate that is helpful to the OP, but since it is being bought up.

I agree with your sentiment Cooper. I also do not sit in the camp that says enjoy it, or tells an OP that what I would consider to be dreadful sleep is perfectly normal. I don't find these helpful to an OP seeking help. But that is because I have more of a solution-based approach, rather than an empathy-based approach. Both are equally as needed and valid on this board.

I wouldn't do is berate those that come onto a thread and say these kinds of things. I have come to learn from the many sleep threads I've read that some OPs come here just to rant and have their complaint heard and validated. Some just want agreement and encouragement to know they are not alone.

A large proportion of posters are at their wits end with sleep but several posts later it is clear that actually they like what they do (co-sleeping, holding whilst sleeping, breastfeeding to sleep - whatever it is) and don't want to change anything. Many firmly believe in their own parenting ethos and will not change. That doesn't make their complaint/upset/rant any less valid just because they don't want the solution I might offer. They just want to be understood and maybe for people to go "that's crap, but you are doing all you can within your own parenting ethos".

Often you can't know from an OP if the OP wants empathetic support or practical solutions. You might offer solutions, someone else might offer support and empathy that they are not alone, others may offer different solutions. None of these approaches are "wrong".

If we ("we" as in anyone who posts on the sleep board often) all work on the basis that we want to help the OP with sleep problems - then we do not need to fight over who has the right answer and who has the wrong answer.

Any help is good help. Of course people will have different approaches, they are all valid and can be said. Just as they can be disagreed with. But to be disagreed with does not mean that an opinion should be "held back" on and not said.

The "misery loves company" thread is fantastic support. I often read it but never post. It would not be right for me to post on that thread because my solution based advise isn't right for that thread. But the supportive "we'll get through this and it will pass" approach definitely has it's place on this board.

I think anyway.

Well said, FATE.

I would also add that it's impossible to know from an OP whether someone is operating under a MIL/best friend/sleep guru-driven delusion that babies should only ever, world without end, sleep in a cot. Many, many times I've been on a thread where I, or another person, has said, 'well if letting them sleep on you just works, then stick with it'. OP's next post has often been, 'Oh really? My MIL said they'd still be wanting this in university if I let them do it now. Well, I'll just stick with it then! That's easy!' By the same token, I didn't want to hear from the 'learn to enjoy it' crowd when DS1 was awake every forty minutes of the night and only sleeping on me during the day. I wanted FIXES. It's only now with the benefit of hindsight that I've realised it was actually the best coping strategy in such dire circumstances, and hope that someone might benefit from my experience.

As a founding member of Misery Loves Company (over two years of moaning about no sleep...God, I'm dull ) I would say that if you wanted practical 'sleep-training'-type tips, any one of us could give you chapter and verse, with the caveat on every single one, 'but it didn't work for me' or 'it worked for a bit, then all went to shit, never to improve again after [insert teething/illness/regression/change of wind direction here]' or 'it sort of worked, but this was where it backfired' (swaddling plus dummy was complete short-term fix/long-term mess for me, as an example of this).

I guess, after almost three years of severely broken sleep and having tried everything to sort it (yes, even cry it out and I do mean I walked away and left DS1 to scream, I was so desperate) I just don't want anyone to fall into that cyclical hell I was in during DS1's first 21 months where I was sure that something was going to work. Sometimes nothing does and accepting that really can make for an easier life. I've coped with DS2's terrible, terrible sleep far better than I did DS1's because I took that approach. Don't get me wrong - I'm still shattered and I'd dearly love for him to have two two-hour naps a day in his cot and 12 unbroken hours every night. I would literally be a very different person with a life if I could have that. But I've accepted that my kids are not natural sleepers, and anything on top of that is a bonus.

Hence, 'lower your expectations' is by far and away the best solution I can give.

My only point is that you should consider/remember how it feels to hear those kind of statements.OP has PMd me to say it will be first and last post on MN as she was made to feel so upset at the suggestion that not wanting to be static under her baby for chunks of time meant she was a bad mother. I sometimes don't think you realise how your posts sound especially to a sleep deprived first time mum.

To be honest, it's rather infuriating to see this whole forum flooded with repetitive, copy and pasted "advice". If you have it nailed now or at peace with it how come you are still on the forum?

Unfortunately the time has come for me to leave this forum, for all those posters that have private messaged me to do with your posts- I'm sorry! Just can't stick it out!

FATE I hope the commission you are on for bouncy chairs and dummies is good money.

Over and Out!

Jesus, Cooper. I didn't know we were supposed to run all advice past you before posting.

Since we're being honest, the only advice I've ever seen from you involves leaving a baby to cry at some level so it's probably best you're off the sleep forums.

In my case - I avoid the sleep threads usually. This one came up on active conversations and when I see someone talking about a 3mo having 'sleep issues' I can't help but look in as the 'issues' are frequently due to unrealistic expectations from a first time mum.

OP - if you're still reading, I did not and would never suggest someone is a bad mother, especially when it comes to sleep problems. I've been blamed, completely unfairly, for my own DCs' poor sleep to ever do that. As gently as possible, you've interpreted my post to read that way, which is understandable in the exhausted, newborn haze, especially first time around.

MN is a brilliant place, both for advice and....interesting...debate!

Cooper11111 - You cannot have discussion without different views. If you can't handle the fact that people will have different views to you then I would suggest a discussion board is not the place for you.

Good luck with your daughter and your son!