This baby is driving me mad!!!!!!

[SleepForTheWeek]

I CANNOT get her to sleep and it's getting worse!!

DD2 is 6mo, she's a delightful baby, always smiling and very chilled out during the day.

Bedtimes are becoming completely catastrophic and not sure which direction to go in!!

She usually has her last nap of the day around 3.30/4 for half an hour. She takes all her naps in her pram, I usually rock her although she does on occasion go to sleep herself. She has a comforter that she likes to suck and put over her face, but won't take a dummy.

Her awake time between naps is 1.5-2 hours. She starts getting tired for bed around 6.30, on an ideal night I would take her upstairs, feed her and she would fall asleep feeding. I would then put her in the sleepyhead beside my bed and she would wake about 3 times overnight for a quick feed (which I don't mind)

On a bad night (like tonight, and increasing!) she won't fall asleep during a feed OR treats it like a nap and wakes full of beans 30 mins later. For some reason in the evening her awake time stretches to 3+ hours sometimes and I just can't seem to get her to sleep! she won't take a feed if she's not hungry, and doesn't like me to rock her (although DH is often successful rocking her to sleep). She's never screaming or distraught, but she is very noisy (mainly squealing) so letting her just lie in the sleepyhead awake is not ideal as it disturbs DD1.

Tonight she slept 5.30-7 (wouldn't nap at 4 when she needed one so we pushed through until bed) then was wide awake at 7. It's now 9.15 and although she's tired she just will not sleep!!

She's currently in the sleepyhead, I'm lying down beside her. She's awake but happy enough, won't be long until she starts squealing though!! This is my 3rd attempt at getting her to sleep.

Bump

Just feeding DD2 right now and looks like she'll be sleeping soon but I think she'll treat it like a nap and be up till goodness knows when again 😩

I'm no sleep expert, my DS is 7 months old and I have found the past few weeks he has been transitioning from 3 naps to 2 naps. During this period I have found I've had to help him transition, and his new routine appears to follow the 2,3,4 routine. His usual bed time is around 7pm, therefore if he wakes from his early afternoon nap before 3pm then I'll put him down for a quick nap late afternoon, however I find if he wakes around 3pm I can assist in keeping him awake and distracted for 4 hours. Just a couple of nights ago, he napped at 5pm as he needed it, but didn't wake until 6:15pm, my fault as I napped with him , which meant he wasn't ready for bed until about 9pm.

Sorry it's a bit long winded but could your DD also be transitioning and the late afternoon nap affecting her bed time? I'd try pushing her a little if you have the patience, maybe start with an awake time of no later than 4pm?

Thanks for replying

She woke from her last nap today at 3.45 and I took her up to bed at 5.45, she slept while I fed her then woke up as soon as she'd finished 🙄.

I've actually put her in the sleepyhead and come downstairs, she's singing away and has been for 30 minutes, I'll go up to her if she gets upset. Really alien to me to leave her (even if she's happy) as my 3yo DD1 still requires us to stay with her until she sleeps!!

It's getting quieter and she's not thrashing around as much. If she falls asleep I'll be gobsmacked.

Maybe she just wants some alone time to wind down??

Do you want to know when she fell asleep?

9.15pm!!!!!

I gave up at 8am and brought her downstairs. I wrapped presents while she rolled around the floor and when she was so tired she started to get upset I rocked her in my arms and she fell asleep.

Her last nap ended at 3.45, she maybe dozed for 15 mins at 5.45 when I fed her. HOW was she still going at 9pm???!!!

My little one is 6 months and sometimes she’ll only nap once a day for an hour or two. All babies are different but could she not be tired enough for bed with so many naps during the day? I know they recommend 5-6 hours of sleep during the day but my little one just doesn’t need that much. Good luck x

At 6 months my DC’s day went like this.....

7am awake
9.30-10.15 nap
1-3 nap
7 bath
7.30 bed

She usually needed about 2.5/3 hours between waking up and sleeping again. And I didn’t feed to sleep. She went down awake.

I don’t have any advice, both my babies were terrible sleepers. Just wanted to say that it’s so bloody hard but it does get easier. One day you’ll realise you’ve been asleep for “a whole” five hours and you’ll be ridiculously grateful. It’s so frustrating when nothing works but you’ll find that thing that works for you or baby will grow out of it.

She starts rubbing her eyes and getting frustrated 90 mins after waking, she has three naps during the day and I don't feed to sleep during the day. A typical day works be

Awake 7.30
Nap 9-10.30
Nap 12-1
Nap 3-3.30

I try then push through until 6 for bed, but as I say she'll usually fall asleep while feeding then wake up and that will be her for hours (although tired the whole time)

She's not a crier, so luckily they whole time isn't trying to soothe an upset baby.

DD1 is 3 and still doesn't sleep through the night so my expectations are fairly low. DD2 will still wake 2-4 times during the night for a feed which at the moment I'm ok with - I just need to figure out how to get her to sleep in the evening!!

She's on her second wake up since 9am and is now wide awake at 5.30. That's surely not enough night time sleep??

I think your last afternoon nap is too late. With our DS we quickly learned no napping after 3pm, otherwise he wouldn’t sleep later. And then bed not until 6.30pm. She might get a bit grizzly, but I’d block the time out in chunks, so she has food/activities to keep her engaged and awake (even if the last half hour is a bit of CBeebies while you have a cuppa). That should start getting her into a better sleep routine.

Do you think so @JontyDoggle37 ? I remember having a similar rule for DD2 but when she was much older. She's only 6 months old and I can stretch her up to 3 hours between last nap and bed which I already think is quite a long time? It would mean her last nap would end at 1pm (ish), don't think it would be fair to try keep her up until bed after that.

In fact, I wonder if she's TOO tired at bedtime as it is and that's why she falls asleep during her last feed?

Who knows. She's now napping, she'll probably wake up around 8.30/9 which means she's likely to have a nap before lunch and then again around 2. So today she'll probably wake from her last nap at 3 and then I'll push through.

My 6 month old only naps a couple of times for 30 - 60 mins and doesn't go to sleep in the evening til 7.30ish. He's up for way more than 3 hours between naps now.

She sounds like she's not tired. 6pm seems very early to me. I know she is rubbing her eyes etc but she also isn't going to sleep suggesting she isn't tired.

I'm way out of this stage (it gets better I promise!!!). But just a quick question, how's her weaning going? Is she eating solids yet? I used a sleep trainer with DS (second child, nightmare!!!) and it was very much down to appetite/food.
I really feel for you but I promise it gets better (although he still spends most nights in my bed!). He's still sleeping now...

She's definitely tired at bedtime as it's around 3 hours she's been awake. That's also why she falls asleep when I feed her I think (she doesn't do this during the day)

But yes maybe I need to look at her daytime naps and stretch her out more between them?

It's like she just can't switch off, very happy but very tired!

Weaning seems to be going fine, we are doing mainly BLW so it's hard to tell how much she's actually eating but she's enthusiastic about everything and her nappies have certainly changed colour and consistency!!

Go to 2 naps. hugepeppapigfan routine looks perfect to me

I'd start by pushing back the morning nap gradually, then extending the gap between that and the second nap. That way you should be able to phase out the late PM nap and hopefully sort out the problem.

Don't be tempted to put her to bed too early to compensate though, or you'll possibly have an early waker to deal with instead.

Thanks for all the advice - we'll start working on timing of naps after the chaos of the holidays!

Good luck.

I should have said that my child didn’t have a routine until 5-6 months but then had what I posted before and had been an excellent sleeper since. The daytime routine worked wonders and meant (almost) perfect nighttime sleep (mostly).

Well her last nap ended at 3, I've decided to do bath then bed straight after tonight. Normally she's only bathed EON and it's before dinner as that's what works best for DD1. We can be more flexible in the holidays.

I managed to push her to 6 before I bathed her, she was doing well but then started screaming her wee head down of while I was changing her (which never normally happens). I'm feeding her now and she's drifting off.

This could go one of three ways :

1. She falls asleep while feeding but wakes straight after and is full of beans

1. She falls asleep but wakes up 30-60 mins later all references from her power nap

1. She sleeps well

My guess is option 2.

Wake her after the feed and put her down awake. This advice transformed things for us!

Ah too late! She was absolutely zonked, she did stir when I put her in but went back to sleep.

Might try this tomorrow though x

That's her bloody awake!!!

Did she sleep for 5 minutes? I have similar issues with my 8 month old - but he is an early riser too.

Mine woke at 3 but is not tired yet to go to bed - I have just tried but it was an instant 'no' lol!

She slept for about 30 mins. She's still upstairs as although she's awake she's not upset so I'm ever hopeful she'll get herself back to sleep although she's getting s bit grizzly now

Yes - bedtime order should be pjs, milk, brush any teeth, then into room, grobag, book and bed. This differentiates from nap times and hopefully marks nighttime sleep