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Hey Emma, thanks for your reply.
This response is on the back of an unusually good night with our little one, but I’ll answer based on the experience we were having before, and hope that whatever we did yesterday is repeatable…
1. When we were an parental leave, we were often holding her during her naps (with a few in the bassinet in our living room which we would try to darken), but since we started up work again, we’ve had a nanny help us. She takes (at best) half of her naps in her crib. We’ve tried to encourage all naps in the separate room (regardless of in arms or in crib), wearing a swaddle/sleep sack. On average over past week, she’s been sleeping about 5 hours during the day. We’ve been rocking her to sleep and then trying to put her in the crib, but if she stirs, we’ll pick her up and finish the nap in arms. We’ve recently started using the Pyramid method for the first nap of the day and for bedtime.
2. Over the last two weeks, for the problem nights, she was waking every 20-45 minutes throughout the night, not necessarily at beginning or at end. Last night (an exception), she was stirring more in the second half of the night.
We’ve attempted to find a deep sleep ‘time’ but not exactly sure when it might be. We do think she starts stirring around 30-35 minutes after we put her down. Last night (again, feels like exception), we put her down around 745p, gave a ‘dream feed’ at 10p, 3 hours after her last feed. She didn’t stir/wake at all until around 2a.
3. There were some nights where we held her in our arms almost all night. It seemed random, but during the times we would put her down in the crib, it would either stick for 20-30 minutes, or stick for 1.5-2 hours. It was so random, that we felt like we needed to make sure she would sleep rather than try to put her back in the crib everytime.
We really appreciate the strategies…and we keep telling ourselves to be persistent and consistent. Quick comments on your suggestions:
1. We started doing this a few days ago…practice makes perfect though. We are doing it for the first nap of the day (when we are around), and for the final bedtime. Our nanny also offered to try for naps during the day, which I think would be great additional practice.
2. We have tried so many swaddles…she is so strong. Recently, it seems she’s discovered her hands, and so gets frustrated if she can’t get to them. The majority of times when she would wake up, we would find her hands near the neckline and she would be wide awake. We started unswaddling one arm, to varying success. We have tried the HALO sleepsack, but tried it when she was younger and stopped. Perhaps we can try again. The one we used last night is the Baby Merlin sleep suit. It appears to subdue the startle reflex while still giving her access to her hands and keeping her the appropriate temperature. Any thoughts on that one?
3. Understood on the waiting part. At night, we sleep in a different room, and have a monitor. There is a slight delay on the feed, so we check our phones when we hear her and then wait to go into her room until we’re sure she’s awake. There have probably been 3 or 4 times where she’s gone back to sleep without us intervening despite her yelping.
4. Except for the dream feed, we’ve been following those steps, except we’ve been changing the diaper before the feed. Due to her reflux, we need to keep her up after the feed…if we lay her down for a diaper change after the feed, she often spits up (requiring an outfit change), or yells (especially if the feed is later in the night, since we give her medicine before her last feed of the day). Once we re-swaddle, we often give the bottle offering again, hold up a bit longer, and then put to bed. Do we follow the pyramid when we put her down after night feeds as well?
5. Over the past week, we’ve tried to ensure a 7:30a wake up, as it works well with our work and nanny schedule. Are there other things we can do to encourage the circadian rhythm development? We’ve been trying to take her outside, vitamin D, extending the wake windows during day / right before sleep.
Thanks again so much! Hope we’re doing this right!
JB & Jackie