My 6 month old daughter has always been fed/rocked to sleep. She slept ok at night till three months and in the last couple of weeks things have got even worse. She also sleeps in sling, buggy and car. However even in buggy and car rarely get more than one sleep cycle (c 45mins). If buggy or car stops moving then she normally wakes up. Have tried, at various ages, putting her down to sleep. If she is already tired she screams. If not she is quite happy playing with her hands etc. then once bored/tired screams. Ocasionally if very tired she will fall asleep on me and very ocasionally if screaming and I put her down she falls asleep straight away.
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I don't mind feeding/rocking her to sleep but....
- It can be difficult to get her to sleep. Sometimes she refuses boob or plays (poking me in face, trying to catch my eye to smile). You have to put her in cot until she is grumpy then feed again. Feeding her can take almost an hour because she feeds slowly (still swallowing) after first five mins but if you take her off she screams. When you put her down she often screams straight away and if manage to shhh her back to sleep she often only lasts 10mins. In the evening, it can take can often take *4hours of this before she goes down properly (a 2hr sleep).She also loves to play when I feed her (poking at my face/trying to catch my eye then smiling), but if I put her in her cot she screams :(
2.she wakes a few times in the night which is fine. I think she is hungry (she struggles to feed much in day because too interested in what is going on around her) but i can take up to 2 hours to get her back to sleep in the cot.
3.I don't think she is getting enough sleep. She sleeps between 10 and 12 hours in 24 hours which I know is way below the reported range. However, she is generally very happy especially if you take a break trying to get her to sleep at night! I have tried PUPD and she found it fun and played in her cot.
4.She is going to nursery soon.
5.I am struggling with 1 to 3! I sometimes spend most of my day and most of the night just trying to get her to sleep :(
Any advice appreciated. I am confused as to whether to make sure her awake time is max 2hrs vs a set bedtime.Atleast for now I don't want to try CIO.
Thanks