The Sleep Thread

[versed]

Today, his wake times were 45min up to 2hr20min. I think his longest wake time are generally in the 2hr range.

[Taitai]

We're at 3 naps a day too. Typically morning nap from 9:15 - 10:30, then a longer lunchtime nap from 12:15 - 2:00, then a final afternoon nap from 3:00 - 4:00. Bath/bedtime routine starts at 5:50pm and he is asleep by 6:45pm. He is staying up 1-2 hrs between naps.

[August Blooms]

I haven’t been tracking but I need to do this, we have definitely finally transitioned out of newborn sleep. We are at 3 naps a day and she likes to stay awake for up to 2 hours. We need to transition from sleeping on me to into something for naps, that’s next.

[seventythree]

3ish naps here, too. About 2 hours of awake time before she gets cranky, but it can take longer to get her sleeping (currently at 2.5h mark trying to get her down). My DD1 was taking 5-6 crappy naps for the longest time before she settled into 3.

[trinitrotoluene]

I think we do 4 short naps every day

[thechickencoop]

Feb 5, 2018 11:07:36 GMT -6 trinitrotoluene said:

I think we do 4 short naps every day

This is us too most days. He'll be 5 months next week (whaaaa??!) And will be up and happy for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours in between.

Sleep at night is...more of a miss lately. But I think his bottom two incisors are cutting in so....who knows.

[danvers]

A day late to this but naps are kind of all over the place M-F while at daycare. Weekends I think she does 4 but we use the swing and I’m pretty sure her last nap at like 6 is probably her bedtime. I’m pretty sure I’m parebting this kid completely differently than DD1. I was so strict about naps and bedtime routine with her (and still am) and DD2 just has to go with whatever.,.

[cythe]

I have internet for moment!

We are at 4-5 naps a day, she stays awake about 1.5 hours and 2 hours before bed. Maybe she's getting too much day sleep, who knows. We are still in whatever sleep regression we started 3 ish weeks ago. I'm miserable and it's only getting worse.

Sorry to tack on my own whining onto the nap discussion.

[trinitrotoluene]

Feb 6, 2018 19:06:41 GMT -6 danvers said:

A day late to this but naps are kind of all over the place M-F while at daycare. Weekends I think she does 4 but we use the swing and I’m pretty sure her last nap at like 6 is probably her bedtime. I’m pretty sure I’m parebting this kid completely differently than DD1. I was so strict about naps and bedtime routine with her (and still am) and DD2 just has to go with whatever.,.

Yes! sleep time was practically my religion with DS1. Now I'm just putting him down when he's sleepy. Sorry DS2!

[Taitai]

So, 4 month sleep regression question. How long does it typically last, and does it normally start around 16 weeks? DS1 was such a crap sleeper that I honestly didn't notice a 4 month regression with him. Kind of clueless about this. LO's sleep has be horrible the past 3 nights.

[thatgirlrachel]

Feb 7, 2018 2:05:49 GMT -6 Taitai said:

So, 4 month sleep regression question. How long does it typically last, and does it normally start around 16 weeks? DS1 was such a crap sleeper that I honestly didn't notice a 4 month regression with him. Kind of clueless about this. LO's sleep has be horrible the past 3 nights.

DS's lasted right at two weeks. I believe that's on the shorter side and it *can* be up to 4-6 weeks. FX it passes quickly for you!

[cythe]

We transitioned from swaddles to the baby merlin magic sleep suit. It's not been life changing but it has helped eliminate some wake ups. I still mourn the loss of my 8 hour stretches of sleep but I'm pleased that since we made the switch, she only wakes every 3 hours.

Please cross all the things that this continues.

[trinitrotoluene]

Does it count as rolling to his tummy if his arm was stuck under him so he was still kind of propped on his side? Please say no. He only sleeps like 20 minutes tops unswaddled. I was going to try every Monday until naps worked, then expand it.

[cythe]

Ev was up every hour tonight after I put her down for bed.

At the gentle encouragement of my mom, she suggested I let her chill for a minute or two to see what happens. She went back to sleep within 2 minutes each time (minus one time where she immediately woke up screaming so I went up right away).

I know some people aren't okay with letting our littles cry but I'm so happy that she settled herself and seems to be soundly asleep now. I'm hoping this will be the start of us fixing our nighttime sleep.

*Idk why I feel like I need to justify myself but oh well. I want to add that I have no intention of total CIO right now. A few minutes though did a world of good for my sanity this evening.

[trinitrotoluene]

Feb 9, 2018 21:44:31 GMT -6 cythe said:

Ev was up every hour tonight after I put her down for bed.

At the gentle encouragement of my mom, she suggested I let her chill for a minute or two to see what happens. She went back to sleep within 2 minutes each time (minus one time where she immediately woke up screaming so I went up right away).

I know some people aren't okay with letting our littles cry but I'm so happy that she settled herself and seems to be soundly asleep now. I'm hoping this will be the start of us fixing our nighttime sleep.

*Idk why I feel like I need to justify myself but oh well. I want to add that I have no intention of total CIO right now. A few minutes though did a world of good for my sanity this evening.

I am strongly anti crying it out this young, but if it is less than 5 minutes, i think it's fussing, not crying. Pausing before responding has been part of my sleep care for this kid the whole time, because he talks and calls out in his sleep all the time.

[Taitai]

Feb 8, 2018 16:25:35 GMT -6 trinitrotoluene said:

Does it count as rolling to his tummy if his arm was stuck under him so he was still kind of propped on his side? Please say no. He only sleeps like 20 minutes tops unswaddled. I was going to try every Monday until naps worked, then expand it.

I don't have an answer for you, but I'm in this boat too. LO does not stay asleep if I unswaddle him, and he has been rolling on to his side during floor time (but he doesn't roll while in the crib or dockatot). He did manage to roll back to tummy one this week - all on his own. I feel like that means I need to stop swaddling...but he isn't even 4 months yet! 😭😭😭 Hold me.

[danvers]

I attempted to not swaddle DD2 last night. She needs to move to her crib and I don’t feel comfortable swaddling her in there because she has rolled during floor time. We had a zipidee zip from DD1 and I tried that. She was up every 3 hours. I feel like I can’t go back can I? It would just be easier to keep pressing forward in the long run wouldn’t it? DD1 was a shit sleeper so I never noticed sleep regressions or transitions. DD2 has been a unicorn sleeper and I’m terrified of losing a good thing.

[cythe]

Feb 10, 2018 9:10:57 GMT -6 danvers said:

DD2 has been a unicorn sleeper and I’m terrified of losing a good thing.

I think this is why I've been so dialed up about our sleep. E was an amazing sleeper and now it's just gone. Just gone

To answer your question though - no, I think it's best to press on now. Hang in there!

[danvers]

cythe LO will be fine. The crying will not hurt her or rewire her brain or whatever else the internet might tell you. You attend to her every needs 99.9% of the day. She’s fine. When I use to worry about letting DD1 cry or fuss because I was so anti-cry for everything my pedi told me the very little amount of crying DD1 did (whether it was 2 minutes to sleep or 15 minutes while I showered) was nothing compared to her patients with colic who cried for hours all day and that those babies eventually grew out of it into happy, healthy toddlers no more damaged then anyone else’s babies.

All this to say, don’t feel the need to justify it to anyone. You need sleep too - especially when you have to solo parent sometimes. Youre doing a great job! (the tagline of my favorite podcast “One Bad Mother”)

[trinitrotoluene]

Feb 10, 2018 7:44:01 GMT -6 Taitai said:

Feb 8, 2018 16:25:35 GMT -6 trinitrotoluene said:

Does it count as rolling to his tummy if his arm was stuck under him so he was still kind of propped on his side? Please say no. He only sleeps like 20 minutes tops unswaddled. I was going to try every Monday until naps worked, then expand it.

I don't have an answer for you, but I'm in this boat too. LO does not stay asleep if I unswaddle him, and he has been rolling on to his side during floor time (but he doesn't roll while in the crib or dockatot). He did manage to roll back to tummy one this week - all on his own. I feel like that means I need to stop swaddling...but he isn't even 4 months yet! 😭😭😭 Hold me.

If it helps, last night was his second night without the swaddle, and he slept 3 hours, 3.5 hours, then 4 hours. His naps are still not great without it but they've never been great. I'm glad i decided to just pull the trigger.

[cythe]

When do naps start getting longer? We are 4 months on Sunday and still only taking 45-60 min naps. She's never had one over an hour.

This isn't a huge deal (annoying but whatever) except that she occasionally wakes tired. Yawning, crabby, eye rubs after 20 mins, ect. Do I need to be encouraging her to take longer naps? Or is it something that happens on its own?

[versed]

Feb 10, 2018 15:38:08 GMT -6 cythe said:

When do naps start getting longer? We are 4 months on Sunday and still only taking 45-60 min naps. She's never had one over an hour.

This isn't a huge deal (annoying but whatever) except that she occasionally wakes tired. Yawning, crabby, eye rubs after 20 mins, ect. Do I need to be encouraging her to take longer naps? Or is it something that happens on its own?

It’ll start happening on its own as LO’s wake times get longer. If you want to try to keep LO awake a little longer, that might make naps a little longer.

[mkrupar]

A couple minutes of fussing is not CIO. DD often makes little cries or noises during the night. Unless he's screaming and or crying with eyes wide open, we let him fuss it out and it never last more than a minute. No need to justify cythe.

Remember everything is a phase. Her sleep may be wonky now, but if she was sleeping fine prior to now, she should go back to that. It could by any number of things affecting her sleep right now. Regression, growth spurt, leap, teething, etc.

[cythe]

Since I have started letting her work things out, our nights have gotten so much better. She still wakes at some of the same times, but I've realized I don't need to go get her or put her back to sleep.

We now feed once at night (around 1-2) and again at 6, much to my dismay haha. She still wakes every hour after bedtime, until about 11 when she decides to just sleep through. However, her fussy time is less. At first it was a few minutes, now it's about 30 seconds before she just gives it up and falls back asleep.

[mkrupar]

I would like to report I removed the arms from the Loves to Dream swaddle last night, and DS still STTN like he has been. I was worried with his arms free he wouldn't, but he passed out and woke at 6am per usual.

The challenge now is his hands were like icicles when I got him up. I told H we need to either make our room warmer, or mive him to the crib in his (much smaller) room, which is warmer than ours. Other suggestions?

[danvers]

mkrupar no advice about the hands. I feel like I remember this from DD1 and the pedi said it takes months for them to regulate temps of hands and feet. Obviously we don’t want our babies uncomfortable though. Yay on the unswafdling success!!

For me, LO wakes 12 and 4 to eat. The 4am one is killing me because I get up for work at 5. Any suggestions? I don’t think she’s ready to drop the feed at 4 mo old but mornings are so early right now...

[cythe]

mkrupar I had a very similar question the other day, as we are going through something very similar!! If you find any great solutions let me know. E doesn't seem terribly bothered by it (she wakes at 1/2 and 5 but I'm 99% sure it's habit or legit hunger) but they are damn cold hands when I nurse her at those times.

[doodlemommy]

DS has cold hands and feet always, not just at night and pedi said it’s normal at this age still! DS currently goes to bed at 7:30/8, does a dream feed at 10:30/11 about 50% of the time, then wakes to eat at 1:30/2 and 5ish and then up for the day between 7:30 and 8. He is little (25th percentile) still so maybe that is part of it? I remember with DD the pedi saying the bigger they are the longer they are usually capable of sleeping, but the lactation consultant said too that sttn can’t be physiologically expected until 9 months. We cosleep so honestly the wake ups aren’t s huge deal right now

[mkrupar]

Feb 20, 2018 4:38:53 GMT -6 danvers said:

mkrupar no advice about the hands. I feel like I remember this from DD1 and the pedi said it takes months for them to regulate temps of hands and feet. Obviously we don’t want our babies uncomfortable though. Yay on the unswafdling success!!

For me, LO wakes 12 and 4 to eat. The 4am one is killing me because I get up for work at 5. Any suggestions? I don’t think she’s ready to drop the feed at 4 mo old but mornings are so early right now...

What time does LO go down for the night? Can you push bedtime back an hour and see if she wakes later?

Are you ok with her waking when you do? How would that affect your morning routine?

[mkrupar]

Feb 20, 2018 7:47:55 GMT -6 cythe said:

mkrupar I had a very similar question the other day, as we are going through something very similar!! If you find any great solutions let me know. E doesn't seem terribly bothered by it (she wakes at 1/2 and 5 but I'm 99% sure it's habit or legit hunger) but they are damn cold hands when I nurse her at those times.

No solution yet, but he doesn't seem bothered by it.