DESPERATE FOR HELP: 4mo always tired & grumpy. My patience is going.

[jenny260906]

Please help, i'm really struggling with my 4 month old. Here's his routine:

• 8am wakes up - comes into bed with me and falls back to sleep til approx 9am
• Get up and first feed at 9am
• Nap at 10:30 (only for 30mins)
• Feed at 1pm
• Nap at 2pm (anything from 30mins to 90mins)
• Feed at 5pm
• Nap at 6pm (for about 30mins)
• Feed and bedtime routine starts at 8pm.
• Sleep by 9pm.
• Wakes at 11pm for feed, then 2am for feed, then 5am for feed then 6:30am (NOT fed, try to get him back to sleep without feeding) then 8am (fed and into my bed). (SO he has a maximum of 3 short naps a day and wakes atleast 4 times during the night)

Basically after his first nap at 10:30am he is grumpy and tired for the rest of the day. I can't get him to nap for longer periods of time. He whines, winges, cries, cries, cries etc etc all day and it's seriously getting me down now.

the only way i can get him to nap in the day is to take him out in the car or in the pram which is so impractical i can't do this every day, i get nothing done and feel absolutely exhausted. I'm beginning to resent him.

Please help. Does he need more naps? how do i get him to nap? how do i make him nap for longer so that he enters the deeper sleep? is his routine wrong?

PLEASE PLEASE HELP US BOTH!

from a very desperate mum of a 4 month old!
x

my ds falls asleep sometimes while bf and if i think he's really tired i put him in his cot. then he either sleeps for a bit, or his little eyes pop open and i turn on the moblile/ leave a toy for him to play with attached to side of cot and go and do something that needs doing. when i come back he's either asleep or crying, in which case i pick him up. i don't try hard to get him to sleep in the day because i prefer him to sleep more at night. sometimes i just put him in his cot without bf if i'm busy and go and do something and he falls asleep anyway.
i have to say that my other dcs were harder work in that they wanted to be entertained all day but got much easier at about 7 months.

as for routine, he just has to fit in with my (big) family and my work so apart from what i've already described he does not have a routine as such.

today he has bf almost all day but that's because he has a cold and bad cough and bf calms him

Thankyou everyone!

To Saffymum: He used to have formula on the odd occasion but one day he flatly refussed the bottle and since then has not taken it at all. So bottles are out of the question now really.

I actually got 4hrs of uninterrupted sleep last night (may not sound like long to some people but it was heaven to me!). I fed him at 8:15, put him to bed. He then woke at 10:15 and again at 11:15 but i didn't feed him, I simply stroked his head and rested a hand on his tummy so he knew i was there. Then he went back to sleep after a bit of wimpering and 'tired crying'. He then didn't wake til 2am (to be fed). Then again at just after 6am (a whole 4 hrs!).

I put him in his cot bed for the first time last night (and I slept on a matress on the floor next to him) instead of in his moses basket next to my bed. So he may have slept better as he didn't feel quite as closed in and could see around him more?? Or it may just have been a fluke and we will be back to square one tonight?!

Will soon see though, hopefully i will only have to feed him twice again tonight and he will sleep lots (well i can dream can't I??!!)

Thanks again eveyone!

sounds like he needs longer naps. how does he get to sleep? perhaps he is dependent on you to bfeed him to sleep?