4 month sleep advice please

[riddles26]

I posted a few weeks ago for advice for my (then) 3.5 month old baby who refused to nap but slept through the night without any problems. Fate very kindly replied and offered some advice for getting her to nap but I am still struggling and the predictable 4 month regression has now hit with multiple night time wakings.

She previously would self soothe when waking up at night but now wants the breast when she wakes. No problems there as I am happy to feed her until this stage passes. My problem is her getting back to sleep, sometimes she falls asleep, other times (particularly early morning), she will feed, I will put her back in her cot and she will gurgle to herself for a while and then start crying because she wants to get up. We have a co-sleeping cot so I usually lie with her until she falls asleep.

I wouldn't mind starting the day earlier if she would nap but my biggest problem is still getting her to nap. I have tried the bouncy chair and dummy, the pram (successful on some occasions but wakes as soon as we get back home if not earlier), rocking, feeding, car (absolutely hates the carseat). The only way I have managed to get her to nap is putting her in the cot and allowing her to cry until she realises she needs to sleep BUT with me lying next to her and soothing so not the true crying it out if that makes sense. When I first started trying this method, I had tears on day 1 then her falling asleep with no tears for 10 great days. The regression then hit and she now cries every time I put her down for a nap without exceptions. She does eventually go to sleep for anything between 1 and 3 sleep cycles but the tears are really upsetting me. I don't mind if she has to sleep on me for naps or if I had to bounce a chair for 2 full hours but I just want her to sleep without distress, she needs so much more than she is getting for her development.

In terms of her naps, I have tried putting her down at fixed intervals such as max 90mins awake time, following a routine and also tried following her cues but am still getting tears. I'm now starting to question myself - am I missing her tiredness cues or doing something else wrong?

I was just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on the best approach to take. I honestly don't mind how my sleep is affected at this stage as long as she gets what she needs (I'm sure my opinion on this will change after months of sleepless nights (!) but I just want to focus on getting her sorted right now)

[Letrix123]

That sounds completely normal to me. I would suggest trying not to worry too much. They get a lot more predictable when they start eating and moving around. It'l be on you before you realise. I would just do whatever involves the least amount of crying, using the ole awake time guide for the age. As long as they sleep a bit, every couple of hours or what ever it is, it's fine. Once you get on the two nap a day thing you're pretty much home and dry. Til then, there's so many variables, it's almost impossible to get A grip of it, unless you have one of those mythical "easy" babies of course. You just end up stressing yourself into the ground.... that's my option anyway ......

[riddles26]

Thanks Alive, I worry because each good day tends to be followed by 2-3 bad ones. As soon as I get some confidence that I know what she wants in terms of sleep, she changes things

Fate I was trying to keep awake times shorter than yesterday because she was only sleeping for half an hour at a time but she just wouldn't go to sleep. After she woke at 8.45, we shortly played, fed and then I tried to put her down at 10am but she just wasn't having it. She kept crying so I fed again, still no luck then I stopped and thought I would try again later. Thats why it ended up being a long wake time.
Sorry I wasn't clear what I did after she woke at 11.35. After she woke, nappy was changed, we played, fed then I tried to put her down at 12.30 but again no luck. So ended up being a repeat of earlier where I completely stopped and tried again at 1.15, managing to get her down at 1.30.
Feeds are at least 2 hourly (unless she is asleep) but she does get increasingly distracted during feeds and want to look around all the time.

Thanks Letrix. I'm really trying not to stress too much about it but she is awake far too much for her age. I am trying to stop counting how many hours she sleeps in 24 because no matter what I do, its never enough for her age and instead focus on her awake time, signs and cues but I still don't feel like I am getting it right. I'd like to say I will stress much less once I get more good nap days then bad because then I know she isn't chronically overtired and the odd day of whinging/illness/teething is completely normal like Alive said.

[Christmasbaby16]

Fate - babies cry and your comments stating babies crying is unnecessary I'd quite frankly ridiculous as are your contrast replies to posts stating give him/her a dummy. Not all babies will accept a dummy and as OP states, it upsets some babies more.

When you actually parent your children as you spend an awful lot of time dishing out largely unhelpful advice.....or maybe your children are all sat with a dummy glued in their mouths

[FATEdestiny]

riddles26

It might be that the best thing you can do is stop stressing about sleep and go with the flow?

Spending all the early months of your baby's life stressing about it seems a waste. She'll be a toddler in no time.

Christmasbaby16 - you sound like a delight

My 2 year old naps for 3+ hours after lunch. I usually spend some of that time on mumsnet. The others are at school.

Right now - 2 in bed, 1 at youth club, 1 watching football with his dad and about to go to bed. None with a dummy. Dummy use by toddler over 24 hours... approx 20-30 minutes.

Your point? Oh yes, I see... just to be obnoxious. I can cope with that. As you were...

[riddles26]

Amy are you able to give more details or post a link please?

Fate I am stressing because her tears at nap time really upset me and that seems to be the only way to get her to take a nap. You openly admit a baby her age needs very regular naps and shouldn't be crying which is why I've been trying to find a solution to getting her to sleep free of tears.

Thanks to everyone for posting your solutions and for all the reassuring words, I really appreciate it. I will try them all and am sure I will eventually find some unusual way of getting her to sleep (on a par with dancing to crazy music or leaving her in the pram in the back garden ) and look back on this time fondly in years to come.

[PopsicleToes]

have seen quite a few posts lately suggesting this parental love website that AmyAmanda mentioned... looks a lot like advertising to me.

[FATEdestiny]

I think it is, I have now realised. I reported as spam this morning. Please do the same, because it wasn't immediately obvious at first. But I've read the same post, advertising the same website, several times now.

[mimiholls]

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if you have already tried this. But if your dd is settling well at bedtime but not for naps it might be because you have a nice bedtime routine- bath, story, change of clothes etc- which settles her down into sleep mode. But not for naps? You can do a shorter version of a bedtime routine for naps- say a song, foot massage, into sleeping bag, feed or something like that which might help her recognise nap times if you keep doing this consistently.
Also babies do cry! It is their only way of communicating so it would pretty weird to have a baby that never cried. As a parent you know what sort of cry they are making and whether they are truly distressed. My dd would cry or grizzle for a couple of minutes before she went to sleep every time when she was little. It was because she was tired not because I was doing something hideously wrong. It would happen whether she was in the sling, car, cot, in my arms. I am not suggesting leaving her to scream at all but I'm saying there are different sorts of cries and to say a baby should never cry and you are at fault if they are not content 100% of the time as someone mentioned is just ridiculous.

[riddles26]

I suspected the same thing popsicle and fate.

Amy if you are not trying to promote or advertise, can you please give more information on the sleep method. I am yet to come across a poster who will post a link claiming it has worked wonders and give no further information on the method used.

Mimi we do have a bedtime routine which we have used since she was 2 weeks old so that sounds like a really good idea (and I feel silly for not having considered it earlier). I did baby massage classes when she was smaller and all babies except my one would knock out after the class which stopped me from doing massage during the day to get her to nap. Maybe if I consistently follow a routine at home, I may get some success. Did you use this approach? What was your routine? If I go down this route, I would ideally want to do something that I can easily do if at parents or in laws as we do tend to go to both places frequently.
I agree that all babies will cry to an extent but for the past 10 days, she has full on screamed - not distress or in pain cry - but gets herself super worked up and agitated because she simply doesn't want to go to sleep. I find this really hard to deal with because of how upset she gets even though I know there is nothing else wrong

[mimiholls]

Bless her sounds tough. Yes we started doing a short nap time routine as our bedtime routine worked so well and it did help. May take a short while for her to get the idea. You could take a couple of elements of your bedtime routine and use these. Something fairly easy to do so obviously not a bath. We do a song (same song every time) and a quick foot massage in a darkened room, into sleeping bag and then feed. Something that takes around 10 minutes so that she has long enough to wind down but not too drawn out as you'll be doing it a few times a day! I do think naps improve with age also and she's still quite young.

[LapinR0se]

What's her routine been like so far today?

[riddles26]

Thanks so much mimi, will start a routine from today for each nap. Fingers crossed it will get her used to it and reduce the tears.

Lapin today has been a bit out of sync because we had sensory this morning. She woke just before 8, had feed and change just before 9 then I put her in the carseat with white noise on to get her a chance to nap before the class. She didn't (of course!) and then we were at the class from 10-11. She was understandably exhausted after class so had a feed, nappy change and put her down. It took her a little while to go to sleep but she didn't cry and slept for an hour :)
She is playing right now and I am going to feed and put her down as soon as she shows signs of being grizzly.

Amy that sounds like the PU/PD method for sleep training. I am not sure if it is necessary because she already knows how to self settle and put herself to sleep - she just chooses not to during the day! I feel like my problems are more that I am missing her sleep window for putting her down or need to build some strong associations to get her to go to sleep for a nap.

[Newmother8668]

Btw, had the same problem for five weeks. Baby is now over 5 months old and just clicked on to sleeping better. I have white noise on the entire time he sleeps, even at night. He also has a little vibrating pillow under his legs with his BabyMoov pod under him. I turn it on when I put him back at night and it clicks off after 20min. I taped bin bags to our window to block out the light and he takes all of his naps and night sleep there. I also have a cosleeper cot next to bed with wheels, so if he stirs too much after putting him down, I can pop the dummy back in easily, switch on his pillow and unlock the wheels to wheel him back and forth. All naps are taken in his vibrating, rocking chair. I've got it down to where I have four times throughout the day that I put him down for naps and it's spaced out every two hours. Sometimes he will nap 30 min and sometimes he will nap an hour or up to two hours. If he naps for only 30 min, I put him down for a nap again an hour later after he woke up. (Advice from Fate) When he does stir with his nap or night sleep, I try and pretend I'm sleeping and let him try and get himself back to sleep. If he's wide awake, then I do pillow, dummy and roll him. Also, what helped me so far was a later bedtime at 7.30pm instead of earlier. I also do feed every two hours or if he's going down for a nap and he's supposed to feed in 30min, I feed him again. I'm afraid that the regression is one of those things you just have to stick it out. Babies are just trying to figure it all out. Also, if you can take baby to swimming or baby Sensory class, that helps wear them out a lot. He normally wakes up at 5am, I change him on my bed with a very low light on, feed him and put him in his rocking chair on the bed to relax and then rock him back to sleep for another hour. Another thing helped was cues. Every time I put him down for a nap or bedtime, I sing twinkle twinkle twice. That way he knows he's going down to sleep. Oh and we have a bedtime routine with bath time, massage with lotion and lots of singing, feed and then bedtime. He will wake again in 30 min for a top up feed and then settle. Funny enough yesterday he only had 30min naps all day and then slept through the night for the first time ever. I ended up giving him a dream feed at 2am as it scared me so much! I know this is rambling, but I hope it helps. Exercise the heck out of your baby too, lots of tummy time, sit ups and standing.

[riddles26]

Thanks newmother. So in terms of exercise, swimming and classes, we do it all regularly with her. She absolutely loves them all but they don't seem to make her tired enough to want to sleep. She spends a good 20 mins on her tummy, rolls on both directions and we do yoga together as well (both in class and at home everyday).

Whilst the regression is fully responsible for the night waking (she used to sleep through), I honestly cannot recall any point in her life where I have been able to get her to sleep during the day (first 2 weeks aside). In the earlier days she used to feed for 1-1.5hours at a time (and frequently) and doze while she fed so I put the lack of napping down to her getting her rest during feeds and refused to let myself stress about it. When she was a little older, I used the pram for a bit but as I mentioned earlier, walking for 2 hours would get a 30 minute nap from her. If I go for another walk an hour after she wakes up, she would lie there awake.

I have followed Fate's advice to the letter both a month ago and now and had no success in getting her to go to sleep. Getting her to stay asleep isn't usually an issue - it is a bit more difficult at the moment due to regression but as Fate says, this is resolved by shortening her awake times between naps. My problem is she just won't go to sleep! She lies awake and plays (whether in her bouncy chair, cot, sling, pram) and then cries when she is bored. If she is in sling or pram, she is happy to look around for a full hour or 2 (even though I lie her flat in the pram with hood up and she can see nothing but the sky). I'm guessing even Fate has nothing more to suggest as her last post advised me to stop stressing and enjoy her - I enjoy her lots for the first 3 hours of each day, then I have a grumpy and clingy baby who won't sleep for the rest of the day and its truly exhausting and such a difficult day for me

I have started a nap time routine as suggested by mimi but I have just had screaming from her while I lie next to her in her cot. For the last couple of days it has got to the point where I am in tears too because she is so worked up and I have just given up.

I am at the point now where I just don't know where to turn, I want to enjoy my beautiful, happy, amazing baby but she gets so irritable due to lack of sleep but just won't go to sleep no matter what I do

[Neverknowing]

I'm going to admit I haven't read all of this thread because it's really long so sorry if I give some of the same advice as PPs.
If your DC doesn't like a dummy have you tried a clean finger at all? My DD won't take a dummy but if I put my little finger in her mouth with the nail pointing down (towards her tongue) she'll happily suckle on it to sleep?
Also are you breast feeding in a dark room with no distractions? My DD gets distracted easily and won't eat if there are any distractions.
I'm sorry you're going through a hard time and hope it gets much better for you

[Neverknowing]

Also, I recently read that babies don't like sleeping when it's light so maybe getting some black out curtains in the room you put her down to sleep in may help?

[riddles26]

Thanks never, unfortunately she won't suck to sleep during the day whether breast or anything else. She will happily suck it for a while and relax then be up and wanting to play.
I have been doing the dark room (with black out curtains) for feed then sleep for the past 4 weeks because otherwise she just wants to look at everything just like your little one! Problem I am now starting to have is that she knows when we enter the room that I am likely to put her to sleep and starts crying pretty much straight away.

Thanks so much for all suggestions, I really appreciate everyone taking the time to reply. I know I keep knocking a lot of them and saying I've tried it already, but I am hoping as they keep coming, something will come up that I haven't tried and may just work for us

[FATEdestiny]

I'm guessing even Fate has nothing more to suggest...

Aww I didn't mean to abandon you riddles. I had started attracting some
unpleasant rudeness on the thread, so I am much less inclinded to post on it.

[Newmother8668]

I'm sorry Fate. That's lame.

Another thing, how about an hour long baby Sensory class and an 8 ounce bottle of warm formula? If that wouldn't knock her out, I'm going to say that she's probably a superhero.

[riddles26]

Although I agreed with pps that your first response about her crying was overly harsh, I also agreed with you that she should not be crying as much as she is for naps and more so, I genuinely appreciated your input on her tired signs and establishing a way to get her to sleep frequently.

I assumed from your response to enjoy her that you didn't have anymore suggestions (which left me more deflated as you have a lot of knowledge in the area - much more than me)