Talk to me like I’m an idiot

[Goostacean]

Right, I’m fed up. 4.5 months old, naps all over the place. At my wit’s end after last night- the first and only night DH has done since baby was born and I got even less sleep than if I’d done it myself, partly thanks to an uncharacteristic waking by our toddler. Please help.

Baby wakes around 7.30 for the day, and i put him down every 90mins-2hs til midday or so when he’ll often sleep through til 4-5pm but waking every 45mins or even more often for a snack (he’s EBF). He clearly isn’t ready to get up between the sleep cycles but needs help to get back to sleep. Getting him to sleep for a nap, including blackout blinds, swaddling, white noise, nursing and then bouncing/cuddling can take 10-30mins. He’ll usually got down for the night between 7.30-8pm after a bath and feed. Wakes in the night... well these days it’s about 90mins after going to sleep, then maybe midnight or 1am, 4am, and then 7-7.30.

Considering sleep training because the 10min naps in particular are killing me. There’s no clear pattern, no respite, it’s a pain in the arse when trying to juggle the toddler and keep both quiet when DH is wfh. Please advise, I’m in such a grump.

Normal for his age? Don’t want to hear it, sorry. There must be something I can to help us all.

I don't recall my dcs sleeping all afternoon at that age. I also didn't put them down for naps during the day, they just fell asleep wherever if they were tired.

Try making a big distinction between day and night. No light on or talking at night, lots of light, noise and activity in the day. Put up with a bit of grizzling and distract as much as you can to keep him awake for longer in the daytime. And let him graze all day if he wants as that will help to see him through the nights.

Thank you very much for your reply- feeling very alone and frustrated. Maybe you’re right and he’s sleeping too much in the afternoons?

We have loud and bright day times and I’m silent at night with him, no talking, no lights on except a low red light that shouldn’t interfere with circadian rhythm. The naps are in the dark etc usually, although right now he’s fallen asleep in his swing- because he’s exhausted after a ten min nap!

I know you don't want to hear it, but give it 4-6 weeks and things will honestly get better. Naps are so hard. I was in exactly the same position as you a few weeks ago, but when my DS hit 5.5 months things dramatically improved.
I also think sleeping through the afternoon isn't a good idea, I know it's hard to wake a sleeping baby but it sounds like his rhythm is a bit off so he might need a nudge in the right direction!
This sleep consultant lady has loads of blogs about everything and I've found her so useful:
takingcarababies.com/10-questions-to-ask-if-your-little-one-is-struggling-with-short-naps/

Fyi this is what my 6mo schedule looks like:
7am wake, feed
9am-10 nap (often have to wake him up from this one)
10.15 feed + another if he seems hungry (he's breast fed)
12-2ish nap
2.15 feed
4-4.30 nap
4.30 feed
6.30 feed
7pm bedtime

Yours is a little younger so you're probably looking at 90 mins awake time instead, and maybe 4 naps in the day as he'll probably struggle to sleep for a full 2 hours at lunch.

Hope this helps, sorry if I've waffled on a bit!! I remember the pain, that's why!

Complete sympathy, lack of sleep is a killer.

My youngest is the same age and I also have a toddler but hes the one that’s the rubbish sleeper! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Try switching the longer nap to the mornings and having shorter naps in the afternoons? My little one does this and she usually only wakes up once for a feed at night. (Although last night was worse but I found she had her bottom teeth cut through when I looked this morning!)

Thanks @Gabbbbbbby it’s okay, I know IABU to expect 12hs straight from such a little one... I just get frustrated with the “what do you expect when you have a child??” type comments you see on some threads like this. Yes, I’ve heard of the lady you recommend; my SIL sleep trained her little girl very successfully with her methods at 5mo. Seems young to me, but it clearly worked...? I’ll read the link you shared now.

@Caz1412 Ah I recognise your username! We’re in the potty training thread together. Baby wakes up completely after his morning nap though, but is clearly only half awake in the afternoons though...

@Goostacean I know the people you mean. I put a post up asking for help with sleep when DS was 10 weeks and had various people saying 'what did you expect when you had a child?' so annoying and unhelpful, especially as I've found if you put a few things in place it can really make a huge difference. I'm not sure about the ockwell-smith school of 'they shouldn't be sleeping through until they're 2'!? There are definitely things you can do to help. My baby started sleeping 7-7 with no feeds when he was 5 months and we moved him into his own room, I didn't do any sleep training but put a routine in place in the day and followed all of taking Cara babies tips. I'm aware he'll have lots of lapses though - that's another thing Mumsnet users love to do: point out that your good situation won't last forever!
Anyway good luck - didn't realise when I first replied that you had a toddler too, must be so exhausting.

Goostacean Yes it’s me here struggling with sleep and potty training with my 23 month old 😆

Maybe try not to swap the naps round completely but try to slowly shorten the afternoon naps? It’s trial and error, I don’t have the answer as my two are so different! my almost 5 month old has already slept through a few times and my toddler didn’t sleep through for a single night till he was 18 months and still has weeks where he barely sleeps despite a good routine always in place. 😔

Good luck, I hope you get some sleep soon!
I found last week extra hard handling lockdown when my toddler wasn’t sleeping!

@Gabbbbbbby, thanks! It’s not too bad but sometimes I just get fed up. 7-7 is amazing at 5 months, what was your DC doing before that? I wonder whether moving out of his room will help; we moved DC1 out at 3.5 months for various reasons and it certainly improved matters, but I’d prefer to stick (closer) to the guidelines this time.

@Caz1412 I feel your pain! At least your little one is doing a bit “better” (read: easier for you!) on the sleep front. My toddler slept through 7-7 at 15 months reliably, when he started nursery. Think they tired him out more than I did 😂

So today he woke at 7.15, slept for 10 mins at 9.30, then dropped off in the rocker at 11 for 45 mins. At 1345 (so 2hs of awake time) he slept for 45 mins then another 10 after a feed. Normally I would try to resettle again but I got him up and playing, then he napped briefly to and from the park... nap times were therefore about:
0715 - awake
9.30-9.40
11.00-11.45
13.45-1500
1615-1645
1745-1815
2015 - bedtime

5 naps?? Too many naps?!

@Goostacean he wasn't a great sleeper for the first 12 weeks, waking every 2 hours, but just to feed and then straight back to sleep, so good in that sense. He then started stretching his first sleep until we realised we were waking him up coming to bed and assuming he would want a feed. Once we stopped waking him to feed at 11ish he started sleeping till 5ish, which then stretched till 7. And as I said we moved him early to his own room at 5 months and he's slept through since then. I hear him wake and chat to himself at around 1/2am but he never cries and just goes back to sleep. If he cried at any point I would definitely go in and just feed him back to sleep... And I'm also very aware his good sleeping is probably temporary, separation anxiety will kick in soon I'm told.
At 4.5 months he was having 4 naps and going to bed for the night at 8 or 9 I think. His naps ranged from 40 mins to 1.5 hours.
This isn't very fashionable, but things got drastically better once I started keeping an eye on his feed times and trying to keep them to at least 2.5 hours apart, so that he definitely fills up and has a proper feed rather than snacking all day and being hungry still at night. Obviously would never recommend for a baby under 12 weeks, but maybe something to think about?
Good luck for tonight!! Fingers crossed for you that he sleeps for some nice long stretches...

Hey, I have a four month old, don't know if it will be helpful but our routine is:

7:30am wake up and bottle
9am - 9:45 nap
10:30 bottle
11:30 - 12:30 nap
1:30pm bottle
2:00pm - 3:00pm nap
4:30pm bottle
5:00pm - 6:00pm nap
7:30 final bottle then sleep (this is a big bottle, we play white noise and do it in total darkness).

1 night feed, normally at half three.

He fell into this routine the last three weeks, he was only having three naps a day (with the middle one being two hours, sometimes three) but then it would be a long stretch from his final nap until bedtime and he would be a right dick. So we have been gently waking him after an hour instead and rocking him in his bouncer to encourage the last extra nap and now it has sort of become routine.

I honestly don't think routine helps babies all that much as they do what they like. My son doesn't nap in the day unless being rocked with his comforter (I'm sure that this will bite me in the ass at some point) and sometimes it takes a good ten minutes of rocking.

BUT, a routine helps me feel much less stressed and more relaxed, which I'm sure positively impacts baby.

Good luck!

It would be a long stretch from his final nap until bedtime and he would be a right dick

This made me laugh I’ll report back in the morning...

A better night, I think. He slept 8pm-2.20am, took a while to resettle, slept 3.30am-5.30am and then came into the bed with me and we dozed on and off til 8.30am. He was feeding a lot on and off in those last few hours. He CAN do the 6h stretch though! That’s why I get so frustrated when he doesn’t...

That sounds like progress! Hopefully with him being more awake in the afternoons he'll keep getting sleepier at night. My DS woke up at 3 last night and played in his cot for 45 mins, chatting away to himself and giggling it's quite cute and obviously good that he then gets himself back to sleep without me needing to help, but I'm awake that whole time anyway, listening! Might start turning the monitor off, his room is next door to ours so I'm pretty sure I'd hear if he started to cry...
Hope things continue to improve (they will!)

Okay so today has been a bit better, so far.

He woke at 8.30, slept at 10.15 for 45mins. Then 2hs slept for 2 x 45mins (so napped 1.15-2.45pm), and then instead of resettling as usual I’ve got him up and we’ve done some tummy time etc. He’s in great spirits although was very sleepy when I went to him, which was why I used to resettle yet again.

So, we’ll aim for a nap just before 5pm and then 7.30 bedtime?

Another possibly unpopular opinion but have you considered a dummy? My LO sometimes just needs the comfort suck and rather than have him snacking on the nipple too much, I give him a dummy. Like a PP said, I try and make sure he has big feeds every 2-3hrs during the day rather than getting into the habit of snacking. But just make sure he is going to bed with a full stomach.
Good luck!

Yeah I reckon nap at 16.45 and I would wake him by 17.30 if he's not already up. Then you can do 19.30 bedtime. I'd feed at 17.30 and then at 19.00 before bed to make sure he's full too.
Hopefully tonight will be better too!

He slept about 10mins...! Classic short nap 🙄 Might have been better but toddler was all over me and DH was on a call, so not the most restful settling. Toddler knows to be quiet, but still.

Aiming for a 7pm bedtime as a result!

Sorry, I have no tips, my DS was the most awful cat napper for several months, and on top of that, if you put him down he would instantly wake up, and be wide awake and raring to go, even if he'd only napped for 3 minutes. So some days he would have about 10 naps!

I tried so many things! The only thing that reliably kept him asleep was putting him in the sling. Eventually he grew out of it, which I know you don't want to hear, but that is what happened in the end! Nothing worked and he just grew out of it!

Ahh that’s okay; I know he’ll get there eventually. I just don’t like the “YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY TO NEVER SLEEP AGAIN YOU IDIOT” comments

It was so, so infuriating. It felt like there were babies everywhere peacefully napping in prams, and mums everywhere eating lunch and washing the pots while their babies napped. And mine just wouldn't! And I wouldn't necessarily have minded having him in the sling all the time, but he was 99th centile and weighed a fucking tonne! My back was killing me!

He's nearly 2 and he's still a bit shit to be honest, but nowhere near as shit as he was when he was tiny.

Oh my gosh, mine is huge too! I don’t know what he is now (thanks Covid) but he was 4.85kgs at birth! I hope he will mellow with age... He did have 3 nice 45 min naps today, so I should complain...

*shouldn’t

Also one with a huge bebe, 4 months and 12kg 😮 thank god I no longer breastfeed, he would have sucked the life out of me by now

I was hoping to be super skinny by the time he weans but my lockdown chocolate habit isn’t helping that dream...!

I also HATE all the ‘what do you expect’ posts and the ‘it’s normal’ posts. Nothing about raising a child in the 21st century is normal, we have to have our babies on their backs in cold rooms, we don’t have a village to help us so we can nap, etc. You do what you have to do to not get depressed. I really don’t like sleep training but am adamant you are a better parent not depressed and sleep training, than depressed and cosleeping. I know that won’t be a popular opinion on MN but mums matter too.

Having said that, 12h straight is quite a big ask. Mine have both been great sleepers but still on one feed a night. I think that’s the best most can hope for.