What went so horribly wrong with DS routine yesterday - help please 4mo

[Jellybabie3]

So DS has been waking every hour for 9 weeks. Hes 4mo. So I've been gently trying to settle him using the pull off method (he's ebf) and putting him down very nearly almost asleep with some patting (i will work up to him being awake). In the last week hes started sleeping 2.5 hour chunks and weve had one 4 hour chunk. Yay!

Yesterday, disaster. Hes been awake every 45min, in some cases 30min and will only settle with chewing on my boob although he also fed quite abit too. As far as i can tell he was overtired. He usually sleeps til 7.45am and yet weve been awake since 6am today.

So heres what happened.

7 45am wake up. Feed in bed (so i can leave him to get dressed etc) then up

9 15 - 10.15 ish nap usually 1 hour on me

12 30 ish nap usually longer but yesterday only half an hour.... (Usually 1 hour)

2.30 nap for 1.5 hours

7pm being put down to bed. Once asleep in next to me crib we watched tv in bed. He woke every 45mins....

Please tell me what I am doing wrong. Sometimes he has 4 naps if we need to squeeze one in before taking him up to bed (dependant on dinner and his naps etc)

We aim for 7-8pm bedtime each night.

Thanks!!

I know Bertrand and actually I posted a thread not long ago asking if people genuinely never let their babies sleep alone for 6 months as I have two children and am finding this a struggle.

But I alternate with DH for now because the baby is too young to sleep alone and in our case noise disturbs her sleep at night. I won’t do it forever but there’s also nothing I want to watch that isn’t on an app so I don’t compromise that. And weirdly she doesn’t wake if DH and I talk quietly so we chat in the bedroom.

OP is worried about SIDS and her baby wakes every hour. Solution - turn off the telly! If my child was waking that often it would be the first thing I’d try.

In the club with the regression. Feel like we might just be coming to the other side of things but DD will constantly surprise! We have tried a whole bunch of things.. putting her to bed upstairs and staying/not staying with her in the early evening. Staying works better. I watch tv in the room with her asleep. She still has last feed before we go to bed when obviously it's dark and quiet so I'm hoping the tv isn't doing any harm. If go crazy otherwise. Other nights we leave her to sleep in the pram top downstairs. Again there's noise around. This is more likely to be loud and random though which can be more disturbing than Netflix on low. My main thing that PP have also said is trying hard to not leave more than two hours between naps regardless of any other times. I find if I look carefully she shows me when she is tired and then I can get her down without feeding. If I miss the signs or circumstance gets in the way then I often end up having to feed to sleep which like you, I'm trying not to be totally reliant on. I also felt bad, and still do sometimes, that we can't seem to do the 7-7 routine type things but I'm trying not to let that get to me too much! Hoping we might get to that at 6 months which is 6 weeks away for us. Also wondering if solids will help her to sleep through.. ! I can only hope!

Anyway, we are all only doing our best and we aren't alone. Good luck!

Eeanne but that’s your baby. Don’t guilt the op because she’s not doing exactly as you are! Maybe your baby is fussy and needs silence, Dd slept through anything, and I’m sorry, going through the 4 month sleep regression without being to sit down in the evening and watch tv is not fun!

Op, going with your gut is a great idea. Too much advice and you feel a bit mad trying to follow it all!

My DS is 4 months old but formula fed rather than BF. Personally he really lets us know that he’s ready for his bed by 7pm, sometimes I’m struggling to keep him up by 6.30! It really disturbs him if we try and get him to nap downstairs with us so we’ve started putting him up to bed in our room with a monitor and breathing sensor pad. I know this is against guidelines but he gets very grumpy and stroppy if we’re disturbing him downstairs after this time. It also means me and my DH have a couple of hours to have dinner and a couple of hours of baby free time, then I’m normally in bed by 9 anyway! We started this routine in Jan and it’s working for us as baby knows it’s nighttime rather than just another nap (which normally only lasts 30mins max)

I would crack up if I spent all day looking after a baby and then sat in a darkened room at night with no tv - I need evenings to be human again. And to speak to my OH or I wouldnt see him for 5 days a week at all. So baby is upstairs, monitor on, white noise on loudly, regularly checked. Contraversial on mumsnet but I dont know anyone at all in real life who does it any different... not trying to spark a debate on what’s best. Being in the room with them decreases the risk of SIDs as they can hear your breathing and it stops them from going into a deep dangerous sleep. We have white noise on, loudly. Then we come up to bed a few hours later.
Your baby, your routine, your decisions. Our way works well for us and we are comfortable, but doing it otherwise is not wrong.

I wouldn't concern yourself with attempting any sort of 'routine' until 6 months really. 0-6 months we just rolled with it and did what we could to survive it.

Definitely try a dummy again, it can't hurt.

If TV is disturbing him, maybe watch it on an iPad with headphones, or watch with subtitles and the sounds down a bit. It's only a couple of months.

First baby? Try to nap a bit when he does or ask for some help at the weekend so you can nap.

Honestly i do think you're overthinking a bit. 4 months is a shit time for sleep. Our second DC is 6 months and our 4 year old dictates the 'routine'. He hasn't been any worse off than she was at the same age.

Just want to say no I don’t think you must sit in a dark room with your baby.

But my overall point is a routine that includes ensuring baby knows the difference between day and night is a good method to try and doesn’t require much “training” if introduced gradually.

Good luck OP.

Personally my 4 month old DD goes to bed upstairs in the dark at 6.30/7 and then we join her later on. She used to just nap and feed etc in the living room but it was clearly disturbing her.

I know this is contrary to SIDS advice, but actually almost all my friends do something similar as they don’t want to spend their evenings in a dark room with a baby, and the baby won’t sleep in a bright noisy room

My one friend uses her pram and rocks baby to sleep and then pushes it into her dining room (open plan house but it’s quieter and darker over there). How about something like that if you don’t want to be floors away?

Also for us I definitely notice DD being overtired and not settling as well if her naps haven’t been great that day. Not that there’s much I can do about it though

I aim for bed no more than 2 hours after the last nap. Usually 1.5 hours. And she’s normally tired and fussing by then. And bedtime is between 6 and 7 and often closer to 6 nowadays. And yes sometimes she’ll have 4/5 crappy naps a day. Sometimes 3 better ones.

My DS (now 2.5) was an excellent sleeper, had a great nap routine and self settled etc, but probably not until he was 6 months, so I think it just takes time

Sitting in a dark room alone with a baby from 7pm might be fine for some if they are knackered and want the rest themselves, read Kindle/watch iPad on quiet. But for others it could be a very depressing and lonely experience when you spend most of your waking hours attached to a baby anyway. I needed DH company to sit and chat and have a nice meal and watch something on TV (and drink a big glass of wine!) after a day of baby care and sitting still while DS slept on me (until I got the magical sling!) When I took him up to bed with me at 10 then we had the silent dark room. after he was 5 months DS started to show signs of wanting to be alone in the dark to sleep from about 8 so we would put him up there with a monitor for a couple of hours before I went up. Then from 6 months we did proper bath boom bed routine and bed in dark room and all the usual stuff. However DS was always and still is at 3.5 a pretty shit sleeper so all that routine from 6 months made no difference except he’s always been great at GOING to bed and sleep at the right time, so no drawn out bedtimes. But he still likes me to lie with him to go to sleep (10 mins tops but still, he wants it) and he often wakes and wants me to come in so he’s not alone. He woke 2-3 times a night to feed until 18 months. So quite possibly all the routine in the world is bollocks if you have a child who just wakes up a lot! With DC2 I’m not going to put so much effort into night sleeping habits until they are 1. Day naps I was fanatical about though as I had to get it right or DS would be miserable. Well napped baby meant a delightful baby when he was awake!

Self settling and being gentle can't be in the same sentence.. Not developmentally possible at that age.

Sorry, haven't read the full thread as I'm chronically sleep deprived here too lol.

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere. I would try to keep the gap between last nap and bedtime (actually asleep) to 2hrs (2hrs 30 as an absolutely max). Mine went through two days where he skipped his last nap. 3 hr gap one night, 3.5hr gap the next night. OMFG!!!! He was awake for over 2hrs between 1-3am on both nights! The next day I woke him early from his naps to ensure he got the last nap in, and he didn't do the wakes. So overtired at bedtime is really unhelpful.

Mines MEGA hungry at the moment too, which is impacting on his ability to both go to sleep and stay asleep.

Just sharing in case it helps.

@arbrighton huh?

You mention gently trying to encourage your baby to self settle

That is an oxymoron

They will not do it before they are developmentally ready.

@arbrighton thanksfor clarifying

Our LO is 5 months now and we seem to be coming out the other side of the regression (fingers toes and everything crossed!). We started a routine of doing a bath and massage, feed then bed every night when we got the the cranky miserable time of the evening! The time seems to have gradually moved forward and I think the routine of having a bath then feed in a dark room then into bed has definitely helped in differentiating daytime naps from bedtime. We put into bed upstairs in the snuzpod and use a video monitor (although one of us is usually upstairs to as once LO is down we then have our showers etc). I know you’re not keen to leave your son upstairs (I understand your concerns I’m also a first time Mum) so maybe you could put him down in a sleepyhead or similar then carry it up with you?
I do think you need to try not to get too bogged down with what others are doing and trying to stick strictly to all the guidance/advice as it just becomes to stressful!
Anyway best of luck for a restful night tonight x

Well this eve we stayed down stairs for an extra hour (til 7 whoop whoop) as DS needed an extra nap (bedtime routine wouldve ticked him over 2 hours) DS got to bed with 10mins to spare.....NOT fed to sleep, he was rocked and lowered into his bed with some shushing (a first for him) and is currently zonked. So fx it was just the timing was wrong.....

BTW i dont believe sleep training is necessary at his age but gentle encouragement is OK. So far everything I have done with DS to encourage self settling is no tears...and he is getting better. But perhaps he is just growing up

Oh and i fed and got him asleep in pitch dark room. So as far as i know he doesn't know it's lighter in here

Jelly you are really really overthinking everything. Please just try to enjoy your baby. He wants snuggles and he wants his mum, and he wants the boob. Just let him have it, I really don’t know what you’re afraid of or what you think will happen if you just let it all happen organically. There is no rule book, if he falls asleep on the boob now he will NOT be doing so in 5/10/20 years. He is a little baby and you are his world, he is INCAPABLE of self settling at 4 months old. Children learn this well over a year/closer to 2 years.

Genuinely, just enjoy your little man! The time is going to go so quickly, let him cuddle and love up to you. You won’t regret it, there is far more chance you’ll regret sleep training or ‘gently’ encouraging him to self settle x

What @catlady said

I think you're totally making life incredibly hard for yourself. Various sleep regressions are looming, so even if he's rocked to sleep happily now, that won't necessarily stay the case. So personally I wouldn't bother.

But to each their own.

I am enjoying my son, very much so. I adore him. In the day he is wonderful, happy, smiley boy. He is learning new things every day.....this is the trouble with MN sometimes for ftm. I am only asking for advice but sometimes it seems like you get a run down of 'this is how I do it so do that', 'thats wrong'. People fall into two camps - do something now (like those who have their babies in routines, or do nothing (but there are plenty of 'my x year old cant settle' threads too!)

I really only asked for an opinion on the routine and the upstairs downstairs tv situation.

But. As its come up....

• as his mum i am worried about him not sleeping....yes I can carry on not sleeping, he's a baby so what I deal with it but HE is not sleeping. Despite what I do. That in my OPINION is not good. Thats is why I am trying my best to resolve it by doing whatever I can. I KNOW i cannot force hin, but If i can help him i will.

• RE: self settling. i am not trying to sleep train. i dont want to at any point. cio and pu/pd are not for me. i am trying to give DS gentle guidance so we dont get to that. I have read gentle sleep book etc etc and am making minor tweaks. I am not expecting miracles. Again this is one of those 50-50 MN things. This is just what I have chose to do.

• RE: wanting the boob. He is on the boob all day (every 30min if i would let him) and most of the night. He currently wants to sleep in my bed with my nipple in his mouth as a dummy (no i won't give him one). My concept of rocking him is so daddy/someone else can get him down. He doesnt cry, hes not upset and nor has he been. This way I may get a break every once in a while. It also means when he goes into his big cot its feasible!! He wont last in his crib much longer.

That's it. I want the best for my son. Not me. My son.

So apologies if i come across as over thinking, over worried or whatever is just plain annoying you. I'm going to have a lovely cuddle with my son and a break from MN

Thanks all for your advice

And yes before someone says it I am aware its a regression so its normal etc but its been nearly 9 - 10weeks of 45min to 1 hour wake ups.....long time for him to not sleep!!

It’s absolutely not annoying and I totally get where you’re coming from, you just seem very worried about it a lot of the time that’s all. Its not that he is not sleeping, he is sleeping, he’s just needing assistance to get back to sleep every sleep cycle which is common for young babies. I really hope For the best for you x

Just another thought, have you tried feeding him before bed then letting your husband put him down rather than you? He probably smells the milk on you which makes him fussy/continuously want to feed

How about some sort of comforter? A muslin that’s youve had next to your boobs and is a bit milky so it smells like you?

I personally think you’re doing the right thing (except the dummy - for that I think you’re crazy!). I didn’t do any kind of aggressive sleep training on my kids, but I’m all for encouraging self settling and routine. It definitely makes life easier during the day, and I’d go completely mad feeding every hour and getting absolutely no sleep at night.

I found the baby whisperer good. You just pick out the parts that apply to you