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4 mo old wakes up at end of every sleep cycle and poor sleeper
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Anonymous
| DS just turned 4 months old and has been sleeping poorly. At night he wakes up twice to nurse and 4 or more times in which we have to rock/soothe him back to sleep. He will wake up at the end of sleep cycles, either after 1.5h or 3 hours max. Same thing with naps: he will wake up at the 45 min mark and then I'm always confused if I should rock him to sleep again or just consider his nap as finished. He's clearly overtired and so I am. The only way he sleeps is on the arms, being rocked, held, etc. and once asleep we put him on the crib. I guess there are many interrelated issues: his inability to self-soothe, overtired state, short naps, difficulty falling asleep, fragmented sleep, etc. that I'm completely lost and don't know what to tackle first. ANy good tips (apart from CIO), others in the same situation, HELP? |
Anonymous
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Do you go in at the first peep of him being awake? Is he screaming or just fussing a bit?
I found, with my DD (eventually, not at 4 mos., closer to 5-6 mos.) that if we let her be and would usually just fuss a bit and go back to sleep. |
Anonymous
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Agree with PP. One day I was so exhausted that I just didn't move at that 45-minute mark into her nap, and w/in 5-10 minutes, she and I were both back asleep in our respective beds. Have you read Ferber for some good suggestions on this front?
For the naps, if I'm home (I work PT), I will sometimes just pick up DC at that 45-min. mark and hold her to finish her nap. Most of the time, she'll go back to sleep with a paci and a nice pat and shush, but I figure the nap's the thing, so if I have to hold her a bit, it's worth it. At night, we do everything we can NOT to get her out of her crib, since that seems to disrupt the sleep even further. The worst nights are those where we've gotten her out and it's really hard to get her calmed down again b/c she desperately wants to be sleeping, but isn't. It's far better soothing her in place in her crib, even if it means repeated trips back and forth for a night or two. |
Anonymous
| OP, I could have written this myself except DC is now 5mo and continues to do the same thing. If you figure out what to do - outside of CIO and especially for night sleeping - I'd love to hear it! |
novabrooke
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| This sounds similar to my daughter, although she's only 2 mo old. Elizabeth Pantley's "no-cry" nap and sleep books were recommended to me. I've just started reading them, so can't speak of any success yet. The layout of the books seems to be (1) helping you understand infant sleep, (2) giving various ideas of ways to improve napping and nighttime sleep, and (3) create your own daily plan based on whichever of the ideas from the book you like best. The books get lots of great reviews on Amazon. I like its create your own personalized plan approach. We've been winging it, trying different things each day, i.e., mall walk in stroller on day, bounce baby on exercise ball the next, then an outdoor walk in the moby wrap, etc. It feels like the whole day revolves around napping, and it's emotionally exhausting. So, I think it will be nice to have a routine plan to follow each day until her sleep gradually improves. Good luck! |