16 week old wakes after 35mins all the time, driving us nuts!!

[pevie]

Hi, have been on other topic list complaining about this about 8 weeks ago, so am now here to bother everyone on this list. Since my DD was very small has always woken after about half hour, wether for naps or at night!! Various things have worked on and off, eg.pushing pram (no longer works), rocking back to sleep. Recently we've tried to do minimum possible to see if she will eventually settle herself. This doesnt work very well in day and she now just has shorter naps, but obviously we need to get her back to sleep at night. We have an Ambi Baby Nest so we tend to just shuggle it a bit up and down and this tends to get her back to sleep. We were doing it for a bit at first sign of stirring and this seemed to help, only took about a minute. But recently shes gone back the way, screaming her head off so that we sometimes have to pick up again. She does have bit of reflux but not that uncomfortable during day now, I think lots of her problems are to do with sleep deprivation. Any ideas? Also any good or bad experiences of Ambi Baby Nest. I'm a bit worried shes just reliant on movement of that now so never actually settles herself.

Hello pevie,
I don't have experience of Ambi Baby Nest, so I'm not sure about that bit, but for getting her to sleep longer, I'm afraid I found the only thing that really worked with our three was leaving them to cry. We never did the full-on controlled crying thing, where you leave them for longer and longer, but for 10 minutes first, then checked them for nappy, burp, etc and put them back down, then left them for a good 20-25 minutes. If still crying, we gave them water, and put them back down for another 20 mins. Repeat until the next feeding time ...

Now I know that sounds barbaric, but as long as you're strong and sit it out the first few times it is HORRID, so best to do it with your partner around it very quickly gets better and she'll learn to settle herself. (Also make sure that she's not too hot with all that yelling exercise!) I reckon on 2 weeks to get them sleeping much better in day and at night. Also, once they've learned, if they are really yelling then you know it's something else that's wrong.

I'm now going to duck below the parapet and await brickbats in my general direction

i think 16 weeks is a bit young to leave to cry.

According to GF babies come into a light sleep after about 35-40 mins and if they dont learn to re-settle themselves then they will wake so the trick apparently is to leave them to settle themselves in a very dark room. It worked with my dd2 but i did the gf routine roughly from about 2wks some stuff has worked some stuff hasnt but overall i found the book useful and dd2 is now almost 2 and still has a day time nap that last about 2-3hrs and she still sleeps at night from 7 to about 6.30am hth a bit.

I think, though, that by the sounds of it poor pevie hasn't had any sleep for 16 weeks, which to me is far worse than leaving a healthy baby to cry for 20 mins (and why sleep-deprivation is used by rather nasty dictators so regularly). Of course it's personal, but if I hadn't trained my girls to sleep by 5 months it would have been to the detriment of everyone in this house!

Oh, and as LMG says, the darker the room the better. If you can't sort out black-out blinds easily, just sling a piece of black-out or similar over the top of the cot (works well when travelling too)

My DD was the same and can still be when poorly (now 11m). You may find the sleep is for the weak thread supportive.

The only thing that helped us was time. I did do CC at about 6m which worked quite well. It is not a miracle cure though so do a lot of reading first.

Take it in turns with your DH/DP or maybe a friend to help you out so you get a rest, it can be exhausting and I was on the edge of a breakdown when we did cc.

All I can offer really is sympathy and to reassure you that it will improve!

pevie,

My dd is 5 months and is still far from a great sleeper.
BUT - she always, always used to wake after 30 mins, whether for naps, or nighttime. In our house, this became known as the false start.

I can't handle crying, so I settled her with cuddles, dummy, rocking et. I know this is against what everyone tells you. But 5 months in we now only have false starts about 2 nights each week, and she resettles within moments.

I've not tried cc, or to teach her to resettle herself, so I guess she's just growing out of it. I'm sure your DD will too. I'm not criticizing anyone who has done cc/self-settling, just don't have the will or the energy at the moment

Thanks for sympathy, support!!! Have just finally settled her tonight, so seems to be getting worse again. Used to be that she would go down at 7 and even with resettling it was all over by 8. However, its getting longer and longer and shes screaming more again!! Other complication is that DD1 is having night terrors so we're spending whole evening settling them both. Neither DH or I can go out in evening incase they both kick off at same time, which is a problem when he works away from home!!!!!!!!

Wondered about doing pick up put down method, although we do a form of that, we are still rocking her in ambi baby nest which may be confusing the issue!!!!!

Am demented. Will we ever have our evenings??

Pevie - have been thinking about this and - tell me if I am wrong - are you putting her in the ambi rather than rocking her/cuddling yourself?

Have you tried cuddling her whilst singing quietly? My DD responded to this sometimes. Just thinking she may be getting too stimulated by the ambi or wanting your closeness.

Also do you BF? and if so does she fall asleep on the boob?

sorry not responded for a while. new week, new set of problems. do cuddle her first but squirms so much in our arms, end up putting her down. evening settling has got better if we catch it quick, nights have become bad now, waking up more often and knackered in day cos of short naps.

Swaddle? I'm sure you've already thought of that, but my DD refused swaddling til 12 weeks, then was ok with it. Admittedly she is now addicted to the swaddle at nearly 5 months, but you do what you have to do for both of you to get a couple of hours' kip.

if you want some support for the sleep deprivation, a bunch of us hang out here, on the sleep is for the weak thread. none of our little darlings sleep through the night, so it's a great place to exchange tips, and to moan!

Read The Baby Whisperer...there's a lot about this in her book.

Best tip is: to wait near baby, just before the time they usually wake up, then as soon as they stir settle them back before it gets to full blown grizzling. Baby sleep cycles are about 35 to 45 mins, so she is waking up at end of her sleep cycles