False starts to bedtime, help!

[Jerykk]

My 2.5 month old has started doing this thing over the last few weeks where he will wake up very quickly after we get him to sleep after his bedtime routine.

We start his routine (bath, lotion/pyjamas, white noise, sleeping bag, bottle) and it finishes with rocking while feeding to sleep. He used to go down a dream and we’d all be in bed by 9. Now we get him upstairs by 8 and he’ll fall asleep for 20-45 minutes but then wake up and won’t want to go back to sleep for hours.

So we’ll be upstairs by 8, but he won’t be asleep until 11 and I won’t be until 12. It also means that I’m stuck rocking and trying to get baby to sleep in a dark room for my entire evening.

I really can’t figure out how naps, which might not help. He doesn’t have a schedule for them, I just follow his sleepy cues. But I don’t know how long to keep him awake for after his last nap. This one always seems to be short and not the best quality.

Does anyone have any experience with this and can help a very tired mama out? TIA 🤍🤞🏻

Nail the naps and you'll nail night sleep. Do a little research on the web but baby sleep site is good. I also recommend using the Huckleberry app, it's free for the first month and is AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME.

Baby should be in the same room as you 24/7 for the first 6 months. So it goes agsinst Safe Sleep Guidelines (and is also hard work) to establish an upstairs bedtime at this age.

So if you're downstairs from, say, 7am-11pm, then so is baby.

It follows therefore that evening sleep is a continuation of daytime napping, exactly as upuce found.

In terms of daytime sleep - following a cycle is the usual way to do it at this age. You start yo learn babys wake windows (How long awake between naps) but expect it to be around 45-60 mins at this age.

Your day then becomes a repeating cycle of predictable actions:

• Wake
• Feed
• Floor time
• First cry - pick up and check for cause. Might be wind or nappy. Put back down
• Second cry = nap time
• Top-up feed
• Put into something that moves (bouncer, pram).
• Dummy in and rhythmic movement until asleep

Wake.... and repeat. Repeat over and over again from first waking until you go to bed.

I'd say that bed time was too late. 7pm at the latest to be down in the cot. Also, by this age I would say don't feed to sleep. They need to learn to settle so put the baby down awake and allow them to fall asleep on their own. Then they will learn to resettle themselves throughout the night. That's the theory! But it's worked for both mine.

God OP don't leave baby on its own!!! can't believe I have missed that!!!!

For naps etc.... I followed the Gina Ford routine although they all seem to be very similar. Lots available on the Web. We do 7am up (although I never wake them!!!!). 9am short nap, midday long nap, 4pm short nap and 7pm bed. My youngest has dropped her 4pm nap. My toddler just does the midday nap. It's nice as they nap at the same time so I have two hours free time in the middle of the day. But there's more than one way to skin a cat as they say.

Hi! So I was experiencing this with my 4.5 month old…false start EVERY night bang on 45 mins. Assumed it was a 4 month sleep regression and probably was in part.

It took alot of experimenting but I think ultimately it was down to his daytime sleep and wake windows.

So instead of 4 short naps (he’s a cat napper) I started resettling him after 45 mins on his first nap so he’d do another sleep cycle so 1:30 total. He’d have just two more naps of 45 mins so 3 hrs daytime sleep total. 4th nap dropped… Bearing in mind that by the time I cracked this he was almost six months old. I also experimented with wake windows. I was popping him down for a nap at 2hrs and he was fighting it, but because he was eye rubbing and yawning I would persist. Seems the sweet spot was actually 2:15-2:45.
I was previously stretching the final wake window to build sleep pressure as advised, however, this didn’t suit him. He goes down much better with a similar wake window at night, in fact a smaller one!

I have FINALLY got my evenings back. Hallelujah! He is also much less restless in the crib now and wakes once a night for a feed (he’s bf).

Worth mentioning that he’s currently weaning onto solids too…but honestly, I think this made no difference and it is deffo down to his sleep patterns.

OH also worth mentioning…it took a few days for this new pattern to stick. It started with no nap fights and then the false starts stopped. So go with your gut and stick with it for a few days before you try something new.

I have been practicing a nighttime routine from 12 weeks and I pop him in a ‘next to me’ crib by my bedside. I use a baby monitor and leave the screen on so I can see him at all times. It’s a good one so I can see him breathing. I don’t think you HAVE to be in the same room but that’s personal choice and what you’re comfortable with
Xxx

My son has only self settled once and he’s 4 months old, I have to bounce and shush him to sleep, any advice please, honestly exhausted from bouncing and shushing him

My son has only just started settling at nearly 6 months…I heard it’s best to start with nighttime sleep and go onto naps later. it took some work but I started by placing him in the crib (generally on days he was in a better mood and not overtired) I’d be leaning over the crib and sushing, patting etc. He would cry a little and I’d replace his dummy etc, stroke his face and tell him he’s ok. If he got too upset I’d pick him up, rock him until he was content/ tired again and place him back in whilst still drowsy but not quite asleep. It was hit and miss and sometimes I’d end up popping him down already asleep but hey.

Now after his bath, pjs, feed, song, cuddle I pop him in his crib and say good night then hide outside the room and watch the monitor. Sometimes I have to go back in and replace his dummy and give him a pat and a shush but he goes to sleep most nights now with very minimal fuss if any. Another thing I found with my little one (thought appreciate all babies are different)… work out the ideal wake window for your baby, timing makes a massive difference as to how my baby responds. The sweet spot is 2:10-2:30 for self settling. Anything over, I find he requires a lot more comfort before falling asleep.

I only discovered all of this because I was desperately trying to solve his ‘false starts’ and thought it was down to self soothing. Perhaps it was! But I think it was more related to the amount of daytime sleep he was getting and wake windows :) xxx