Reply To: Wakes after one sleep cycle and feeding blends with sleeping

[Emily Silk]

Hi Emma,

Many thanks for your message, and no trouble re the questions – I have a few myself!

I changed my diet at the end of January. Feeds can take anything from 20-60 minutes now. His weight is tracking fine and following the curve of the 9th centile. We had him weighed yesterday and he was just under 5kg.

Yes he can fall asleep in my arms with a pacifier which is how I have been trying the pyramid but it takes a while to get there. He is hard to hold, arching his back and crying while I try. As soon as we put him in the crib he usually wakes up and cries. That being said, we have been persevering and occasionally he will sleep 25 minutes in the crib, but that’s the maximum. He is also waking when he realises the pacifier has fallen out of his mouth. No matter how hard we try to settle him in the crib he won’t fall back to sleep, yet as soon as I pick him up out of the crib he falls asleep in my arms within 1-2 minutes. Then if I try to put him back in, he wakes up and cries.

Our nap routine is to take him up to the bedroom, swaddle him, close the curtains, turn on the white noise machine, then I hold him and rock him while singing a lullaby before attempting to put him in the crib. Although I feed him after waking up and have every intention to play with him after, because feeding can take so long I don’t get a chance as his wake window has been depleted. When he’s falling asleep while feeding, and I notice the sucking isn’t really eating anymore, if I try to remove him to take him up for the nap, he cries straight away and all through the nap routine.

Bedtime routine is similar to the nap routine but I give him a massage with baby oil before swaddling. I would feed him at the start of the routine, but it can take a long time and he falls asleep. Then when I try to do the bedtime routine he’s crying because I’ve taken him off my breast. My partner has tried to help soothe him after this too but he just cries either until he goes back on the breast, or until I’ve rocked him in my arms which can take 20-60 minutes for him to settle and fall asleep.

He falls asleep in my arms then when I put him in the crib he stays asleep for 5 mins then wakes up. We have had no luck whatsoever with trying to put him in the crib while drowsy. As soon as we put him down, his eyes open wide and the crying starts again.

We currently swaddle him with his arms down. We did start off with his arms up as he does suck on his hands, but because he gets so distressed with arching his back, squirming etc, he kept managing to get his arms out completely so then he would just startle himself awake with the Moro reflex.

I have actually been working on this since my message and determined to keep him in the crib. Before he started off in the crib, then after the 25 mins had passed, he woke and he wouldn’t settle, I had him on the big bed with me. He slept for longer periods on the big bed before waking, approx 60 minutes, but when he woke up and realises he’s not attached to my breast, he would cry until he is. He then generally sucked for a small bit of food but it changed to comfort sucking quite quick. He seemed to have the longer feeds at around 1am, 4am, and 6am. Since my message I have been constantly trying to keep going with the pyramid instead. I haven’t had him on the big bed, I just keep getting up, settle him, put him back in the crib, and repeat. I am still having to get up every hour to get him back to sleep, and this can take longer now as he escalates to the top of the pyramid immediately so I worry he’s not getting as much sleep at night in total. I have continued to feed at 1am, 4am, and 6am .

He was waking up between 7.30-8am but in the last week we have had a couple of days of him waking between 6-6.30am for the longer feeds then not wanting to go back to sleep. So I just start the day earlier.

I try to watch for cues and how long he slept last nap to figure out how long we will be awake for so it varies. Sometimes it is as quick as 30 minutes, other times he can go 90 minutes.

When he falls asleep for a nap I try to use the crib every time and I keep trying with the pyramid. But usually if I have been trying for an hour I give up and hold him for his nap.

During the day he can typically go 2-3 hours between feeds. It depends if he has not actually eaten much because of continuing to fall asleep while feeding.

He doesn’t usually have breastmilk from the bottle because I rarely have time to express with his feeds taking so long and trying to get him to nap taking so long. But if he does have a bottle it only takes 5-10 minutes for him to finish it.

If I put him in my baby wrap he will nap for about 2 hours with a few wake ups in between, but other than that his naps have only ever lasted a max of 35 minutes. Sometimes I am lucky and can settle him back to sleep in my arms for another 25 minutes or so. He’s only sleeping 3-4 hours worth of naps and 6-7 hours in total at night, but I also don’t know how long he’s sleeping when he does fall asleep while eating.

When he’s awake he’s content and happy, enjoys his play mat and playtime with me. Only time he’s squirmy is when he needs to pass gas. He’s still a gassy baby but the doctor has told us there is nothing else that can be done and he will grow out of it. I hope that’s true!

When taking him out for a walk in the pram he seems to fight sleep and will only doze from time to time and wake easily. I walked for 90 minutes one day to see if he would drop off but still just dozing and waking at every bump in the pavement. In the car he seems so interested in the window that sleep doesn’t really happen there either. If it does, it’s the usual short nap.

If he falls asleep while eating should I still wake him up and do playtime even though he’s distressed and crying?

He will be 11 weeks old on Tuesday, should we be trying an earlier bedtime as he’s approaching 3 months?

When he wakes after the 25 minutes in the crib, how long do we wait to see if he settles himself before we start the pyramid? He seems to jump to crying so quickly.

Also, when he wakes after 25 minutes, how do you know if he still needs to sleep because he woke himself up or if you just shouldn’t bother trying and just go for the next wake window? If the latter, could this mean he ends up needing many more naps in the day?

I know he’s not sleeping enough which worries me and he is often overtired but I just don’t know what to do. It’s making the routines rushed and stressful. I’d love to be able to read him a book before bedtime but it feels impossible at the moment.

Huge thank you in advance again.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by  Emily Silk.
• This reply was modified 2 days ago by  Emma H.