Sorry for long post, but need some advice on sleeping...we're exhausted...so I've included as much detail as poss!!!
DD is nearly 4 months. She used to have one feed in the night and sleep for good long chunks before it and after it. Then she dropped the night feed herself and for 2 weeks she slept from the dream feed at 11pm right through to 6.30am, when she'd awake gurgling and happy, coo to herself til 7am when I'd go through, get her up and feed her.
Bliss - we thought we'd cracked it. Then for no particular reason, or none we can fathom, she's started waking up. It's always between 3am and 6am, but not at any regular time. She'll burble to herself but not fully awake, and eventually cry. (She'll occasionally wake up after being put down at 7/7.30pm, or between dream feed and 3am, but only briefly for her dummy and goes straight back to sleep).
When she wakes up between 3 and 6am, it's a different kind of waking up. She's not completely awake and ready to chat/play, but she's also more awake than just wanting her dummy.
We can settle her back down but it only lasts 10 mins to half an hour at best, before she's awake again. I don't think it's hunger, as she still only takes her first feed of the day around 7am.
The only other thing that's changed at the same time is that she's developed a funny thing with her arms. Before we would just put her down to sleep and she'd go off on her own, with the occasional need to put her dummy back in (but she'd go straight off again once you had). But now her arms appear to be on springs. She's obviously tired and ready to sleep but her arms flail around in front of her face and she prises her dummy out (sometimes managing to get it back in to suck on it noisily, sometimes just dropping it and crying).
This goes on for a while (while we wait to see if she'll settle herself or just drop off). She never does - she just gets more and more active and frustrated, whimpering and obviously getting really fed up that she's not asleep. When that happens, if we firmly hold her arms still against the mattress she immediately relaxes, her head goes from side to side a couple of times and then stays still, her eyes roll and close, breathing gets deeper and she's off. If you release her arms immediately, they'll spring up and she's awake again. If you wait a few minutes and take them off gently she usually stays asleep.
This isn't too much bother at 7pm, but is a bit much at 3am and also doesn't seem to work the same way. She'll go off again but will be awak within a short while.
The only solution (wrong, I know!) is we get her into our bed and hold her hands firmly and off she goes to sleep, sometimes sleeping then til 7.30am, when she wakes up happy and cooing.
So....what's going on!!!??!!
Can we swaddle her to help with the springing arms or is she too old for swaddling?
If we swaddled, presumably she couldn't go into her sleeping bag?
Should we feed her more during the day to tank her up? She's a big baby (over 15lbs) and has 5 x 200ml a day already.
How can I teach her to settle herself without needing to hold her arms still, which clearly isn't sustainable?
Do we need to wean her off the dummy?
Oh, in the same time period her daytime napping has gone a bit random as well. She's no longer reliably having one long nap a day. She wakes up after 30 mins either happy to be awake or clearly awake too early and whimpering to go back to sleep. If the latter, she isn't able to get herself back to sleep and gets more and more upset. If I intervene too much (i.e. get her up to rock her etc) she gets even more irate. The only solution again seems to be to hold her hand or hands firmly, not make eye contact and eventually she does a kind of sighing whimper and gives in and goes to sleep. Sometimes a few minutes later she'll awake crying in a kind of "oh no, I'm awake again" way.
Any advice??????
Sorry for long long post!