Learning, Sharing, and Teaching > Mini Money Mustaches
Sleep help needed
ysette9:
My first baby was an appallingly bad sleeper. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sleeper. We read the books which were worthless and we hired a sleep coach who was stumped. Eventually she just figured out herself how to sleep through the night at 15 months.
Now with our second (3 months old, 1 month adjusted age), we seem to be on a path to have an even worse sleeper. At one point she gave us a 5-hour stretch at night, but then that regressed to no more than 2 hours at a time. Her best sleep is when she is being held or is sleeping on someone's chest. Napping is appalling unless she is being worn in the baby wrap/carrier (where she sleeps very well). For example, we try to lay her down in her bed, swaddled, on her back, and she wakes immediately. Or more recently, I lay her down drowsy but awake, swaddled, on her back, and she will manage to fall asleep (I think) but wake up after no more than 10 minutes. I rock her back into a calm but drowsy state, put her down again, and ten minutes later she is screaming.
We tried sleeping on her belly, which worked a bit better, but still only gave us about 2 hours at night. For the first few days I tried that she napped amazingly well during the day and was a happy baby. However, that stopped working also. Basically I am at my wit's end. I go back to work in 5 weeks and am scared of trying to function during the day after being up 6-8 times a night. Does anyone have any advice? Should be go ahead and hire another sleep coach now?
protostache:
3 months old and 8 weeks premature is a little young to be doing sleep training. She sounds like she's in the late third / "fourth" trimester stage of development where everything is unpredictable and frustrating, for you and for her. It sounds like you're making progress, with the 10 minutes at a time thing, but I totally understand the frustration.
When we hired a sleep coach around 6 months old (5 months adjusted) she said she would have told us to wait if we had contacted her earlier. They're just not ready for sleep training earlier, especially as young as your daughter is. Ours absolutely refused to sleep on her back, no matter what. Woke up instantly every single time we put her down on her back. Eventually we bought a Newton mattress (completely breathable firm open cell foam, completely washable, completely awesome and worth the money) and stopped worrying about putting her down on her belly.
I would encourage you to reach out to Pam, our sleep consultant, and see what she thinks: http://www.weebeedreaming.com
TheWifeHalf:
This may not be helpful to you, but it's my story:
When my first was born he was an AWFUL sleeper. After 2-3 mos, he had projectile vomiting and through a bunch of medical stuff, it was determined he was allergic to milk. At the time he was only breastfeeding and the doctors said he was allergic to the milk I was ingesting.
I stopped eating milk and he got better but we switched him over to a soy formula. Problem solved!
My second, I nursed and at about the same time she started showing the same signs. So, again, the soy formula, and she was fine.
The third? He got soy formula at the start.
At about 2 they seemed to no longer have a milk allergy.
ysette9:
Thanks for the responses. I’ve tried eliminating dairy for other problems and didn’t really see a change in the baby. She is on gas drops and an antacid for other reasons and that hasn't impacted sleep one way or the other.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that she is too young at this point for us to do much actively. I’ll just try to power through it and hope for an improvement organically until she is old enough to do sleep training. Then again, sleep training was prettt much a total disaster with my oldest, so I’m reluctant to go down that road again. One step at a time.
Does anyone know of a bouncy chair that is mechanized to keep bouncing on its own? She does pretty well when my husband can keep his foot on her chair to keep it bouncing up and down.
mousebandit:
Four preemie babies in 4 years. We did arms reach cosleeper for nighttime. I could hold baby's hand while sleeping, and pull baby right on over for nursing, then right back to their bed after. I kept a couple diapers and small wipe pack right at the foot of the cosleeper and did my best MJ shot towards the trash can after nighttime diaper changes, lol.
Daytime was either on me in a wrap, or in a bouncy seat immediately next to me, or in a battery operated swing. It was many months before any of mine would sleep very long, very well, or very far from me. They have radar, I swear it. :-)
It's a survival time. Do the best you can, enlist help where you can. Don't stand for a task if you can do it sitting. Don't sit up if you can do it reclining. Don't be awake if you can be asleep! Seriously. Mothers helpers during the day or night are worth every penny once you have a couple of toddlers plus a newborn. Pre-teen and young teen girls are a godsend. Young enough to be enthralled with littles, and old enough to not let anyone die.
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