I thought I would document how things progress as we try and get Jack back to his old sleep schedule. I wanted to write this out so we would have a place to go back to to see what we've done and also to open things up for any advice you might have.
As a back story, Jack's bedtime routine consists of a bath, feeding, rock in the glider as we read a book then to bed in his crib between 7-8. I would then dream feed him around 11 and he would wake up around 3am for a feeding, go back to sleep immediately and he'd wake again around 6:30 for us to start our day. Well this awesome routine started going down the crapper almost 3 weeks ago. He has reverted back to being a newborn and is up all night long. Amy and I are barely functioning and are at our wits end. I have had multiple breakdowns and we are to the point where we dread when the sun goes down.
At first we thought it was a growth spurt so I would feed him each time he woke up but a week in we realized he was just comfort eating so now we try and soothe him to back to sleep rather than feed him every time he wakes up. It isn't helping that his naps have become affected as well. What used to be 2 hour naps are now down to 30min. So we have decided that we were going to make it our mission to take back control of the night hoping that things might balance out with his sleep all around.
NIGHT 1:
After much reading and discussion we figure that Jack is overtired so we decided to put him to bed earlier than normal. After his regular bedtime routine I put a drowsy Jack in his crib a little after 6:00. The moment I put him down the drowsiness went away and he was wide awake. Since he wasn't upset I left him in their and sat beside his crib as he babbled away. After 10min he started to get upset. I would soothe him in his crib, unless he got hysterical at which point I would pick him up and soothe him before putting him back down again. This went on for 2 hours, until he finally went to sleep at 8.
I dream fed him around 10:00 and put him back down. He then woke up at 10:30ish screaming. He then proceeded to wake up every 40 min to 1.5 hours ALL NIGHT LONG. When he cried out when he first woke up we waited to go into his room to see if he could put himself to sleep, but every time he got really wound up we had to go in to intervene. Sometimes we could soothe him back to sleep relatively quickly other times it took longer to settle down and go to sleep. Each time he was asleep when we put him down but soon as we put him in his crib he went ballistic. I think the worst was around 3:30 when we were up for an hour trying to get him to go back down, I finally gave in and fed him even though he had eaten 60min prior. After eating and some rocking we got him back down around 4:30 only to have him wake up again at 5:00.
Guess we'll try again tonight and see how it goes.
If we were giving grades for effort we totally deserve an A but I'd have to give last night's attempt a solid F.
8 years ago
7 comments:
I'm so sorry. It must be hard for you guys to function.
Is he napping?
Not much advice. I read a chapter on sleep by Dr. Sears in the Baby Book but not sure it would help. I don't know, maybe you can check the book out at the library.
We have the same baby. Just wrote you a LONG email and lost it. Do you want to talk? Let me know and we can exchange numbers.
From the blogs I've read most ppl are not dealing with this and don't know what we are going through. But I do.
Oh my god that sounds painful. So, so sorry. I hope you are able to figure something out soon before you lose your sanity!
This article may help some...
http://www.babysleepsite.com/how-we-sleep/4-month-old-sleep/
Oh, you poor things! I hope things get better soon!
Oh, and since I'm commenting, sometimes these weird changes in sleep (aka making mom's lives suck) can be the prelude to a growth spurt or an advance (rolling, crawling, sitting, etc). Also often include more demand for food (brain and muscle dev.). But when the new thing (skill or growth) is done, old patterns often go back to baseline, if not better!!!!
Lots of love and best luck! You are doing great!
I agree that it could be overtiredness (is that a word?). We just got back from vacation and our usual awesome sleeper now wakes up at 4am everyday! The only thing that has changed is that hes been skipping one of his naps. We are now going to do whatever we can to make sure they both get BOTH of their naps and see if it helps.
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