In the Seattle area, there is this organization called PEPS or Program for Early Parent Support. When your baby is about 4 months old, if you sign up for a PEPS group, you get to meet with about 8-10 mothers in your area with babies the same age as yours. You meet weekly with this group and because everybody is going through pretty much the same thing at the same time, you get tons of "this is working for me" or "this is what this means" kind of stuff. And while we all know that you can go to the doctor or nurse for advice, the best kind of advice comes from your girlfriends and other baby mamas. I was in a PEPS group with Jackson and was a group leader for a few years after that. To me, it was an invaluable tool for new parents.
Well, now I'm in need of a PEPS group. So I'm calling out to you if you are able to give me any sort of advice. Specifically about sleep.
Here are the brief details. Chase is now 5 weeks. I am "scheduling" him, which basically means that I feed him every 2 1/2 to 3 hours. At the beginning of each cycle, he eats, then I try to keep him up for some waketime, then down for a nap the last 1.5 to 2 hours of each cycle. This has worked beautifully until about 4 days ago. He wakes up about 30 minutes into each nap! It is mostly due to gas, but none the less, he wakes and won't go back down. He isn't hungy, he isn't wet or dirty - it is mostly gas. I try to head it off by using gas drops, but they usually don't work. I thought it was acid reflux after talking to one of my girlfriends, so we started to prop him up and let him sleep in his carseat and boppy, but he still wakes.
He will stop crying if we pick him up, but frankly, I can't hold a baby for his naptimes. 5 weeks is too early to cry it out, right? I forget these things.
Sometimes he will make it through the whole nap, but like I said, he mostly is waking and we still have another hour until he is due to eat again. When do babies fall into the morning nap, afternoon nap, and late afternoon nap schedule instead of 6 naps a day?
So there you have it. Please tell me what you did - I will really appreciate it!
9 comments:
Seeing as our story was a little different from oh, most every person I've ever met, I'll let you know what worked for us. Hazen wasn't sleeping AT ALL....until, we started napping him on his tummy. I felt comfortable doing this, because I was checking on him so frequently, but didn't start sleeping him on his tummy until the Dr gave us the go-ahead. Some babies JUST DON'T LIKE to sleep on their backs. Case in point- HAL is learning how to roll from his tummy to his back (already has the other way mastered), and so he woke us up twice last night (very rare) because he was pissed he was on his back. We did a little fliparoo, and he was good to go.
I'll second the sleeping on the tummy thing. If it makes you really nervous, you can always get a motion monitor like AngelCare.
Besides that, I did hold my baby during her naps - just in a sling. She was a terrible sleeper and so the sling made naptime productive again. However, not all babies like slings, some only like some slings, not all moms like slings, etc. You get the picture. But it might be worth a try if you're desperate!
I'll take a stab at it since I also did Baby Wise with my babies too. When this happened with my boys it turned out to be a combo of things.
First, as you know, a sleep cycle is 30 to 45 minutes long. Sounds like he's waking at the portion where he's ended the first cycle and should be going into his next cycle. Babies sometimes need to learn how to do this since it's not always a natural thing at first.
My advice (much easier said than done) is to let him cry for a set amount of time before you go and get him. BUT YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT! :)
If you pick 15 minutes, set the timer and stick to it. After several tries he may learn on his own how to move into the next sleep cycle. If he's still crying after the time alloted you can try to help him go back into the next cycle.
Another thing...ironically, he may be overtired! Sounds funny but my boys always slept LESS when they were overtired! To this day I have to put Preston down within 2 hours of when he wakes up for his 2 naps otherwise he has trouble sleeping (at 10 months old!)!
Try cutting the awake time back and seeing if he sleeps more. At that age with both my boys they could only handle an hour awake (feeding time included).
Hope that helps! :)
How loud does your ipod go?
If you can still hear him, you better go check on him.
Says mother of the year.
I hate it when Brad logs on to my computer.
Computer hog.
The last comment was from me.
I agree with Madisonfamily 100% (, too, used Babywise). That's exactlywhat happened with both of my boys and after a day or two of letting them cry it out (usually lasted 10-15 minutes), they figured it out on their own. I could hear them moving around at about the 30-45 minute mark, but they didn't cry and after a few minutes, the rustling stopped and they were fast asleep again.
I also second the overtired part. As counter-intuitive as it seems, it is so true. My kids (still) sleep more soundly and deeply when they are well-rested. When Caden gets overtired, he starts waking up in the morning at 6:30am, and I know he needs a little catch-up nap--then we're good to go.
Hang in there and call me anytime to vent--that will help with the baby blues, too.
I'm a Babywise mom, too, and agree with Alison and madsonfamily. But it's totally hard and reading this makes me so not look forward to doing the newborn sleeping/crying thing.
Good luck. You are doing a great job!
I'm ALL for scheduling my babies. I did it with my twins when they were tiny & I got a little bit of ugly commentary for it, but I stand by it today...10 years & a couple more kids later. The best part was once they got the schedule down you knew when they woke up at odd times during the night that it was something other than hungry...does that make any sense? Anyways...good luck...you can do it!!!
Hi,
Tanyetta asked me to check this out for you because my first son was super napper once we got on a schedule. Right now, I am trying to get my 11 week old on a schedule and it's going slowly. He is really young (you're baby is 5 weeks?) to expect much. I wouldn't put him on his tummy yet... I wouldn't risk SIDS to get more sleep, but that's just my opinion. He's also way too young to let him cry it out. Babies at that age are just trying to have their needs met and be comforted. There's time for making them independent self soothers later. Do you have a papysan swing? That's my savior right now. My son actually took his first real nap in his crib today (I've been trying for weeks). The schedule my pediatrician gave me for my first son (to start at 4 months) is to get them up between 6-7 (if they're not waking up on their own, get them up by 7). 3 hours after being away, they should for a nap. For my first son, this eventually easily translated into up at 6:30, down 9-11, and back down from 2-4. Sometimes he napped for about 45 minutes at 7:ish and then down for good by 8. Good luck mama and as much as you NEED him to take a nap (I'm desperate too), he's still pretty young and you should give yourself and him a break. You guys will get into a groove eventually. Like I said, the nap schedule recommended by my pediatrician for my first son was suggested that I start at 4 months. We mastered it at 6 months. Good luck!
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