[Julia]

I forgot to mention that baby is now nearly 7 months old.

Regarding her routine, I bring her into my room, dress her in a sleep sack, and sing a song to her and put her down. Then I leave the room. She is normally awake and settles to sleep on her own.

The lights are normally already turned off and airconditioner turned on a few minutes prior to her nap.

Update: Her first nap has become longer since my last post for the last two days, so just today it was 1.5 hours. With a 2.5-3hr wake window, this pushes her night sleep to 8-8.30pm, and she wakes at 6.30am-7am.

So her updated schedule today is like this:

6:30-7am – Wake

9:00am – Nap 1

10:30am – Wake

1:00pm – Nap 2

1:45pm – Wake

4:45pm – Nap 3

5:30pm – Wake

8-8:30pm – Sleep

I tried to get her third nap earlier but she was still quite awake and resisting her nap but she eventually did. Is there anything you would change?

Thanks,

Julia

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Julia.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Julia.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Julia.

[Julia]

Thanks Emma

This is very helpful. I’ll try to wake her at around the same time every day.

So you would recommend to still achieve roughly a 7-8pm sleep time and a 7am wake time? It’s tempting to get her to sleep later while we’re on holiday.

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Dear Emma

Baby Emily is now nearly 6 months old.

She was able to sleep without the arms in swaddle and now able to in a grobag sleep sack. After that, her sleep was quite good, having 3 naps a day, with the first or second nap lasting 1-2 hours. She normally sleeps at 7pm and wakes at 7am with 2 overnight wakes. However, we have recently traveled a 13 hr flight to Malaysia and our new time zone is 8 hours apart. She is struggling so much with jet lag. She is able to nap but wakes up after 30-45 mins at night as it’s equivalent to day time in my home country in the UK.

We will be here for 3 months. I tried to adjust her sleep, such as waking up 4 hours earlier than her usual sleep time to transition the 8 hr difference, but she still wouldn’t sleep at night time but just “nap” so we end up playing with her at night. As a result, she doesn’t get a full 11-12hr sleep like she has done previously, but only naps with wake windows throughout the day and night.

What would your advice be to manage this?

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks Emma,

Her daytime naps are now usually 30mins-1hr with the longest being the lunchtime nap. I no longer use the pacifier for daytime naps. I think this is getting better.

For night time, I did arms out of the swaddle last night after nearly a week of transitioning with 1 arm out (which she managed) but I don’t think the transition really helped.. few days ago she would sleep from 7-10pm then she started waking every 2 hrs after but with 1 arm in she was able to self settle in the times she doesn’t normally feed. Now with both arms out she couldn’t self settle for the same wakes so we end up patting her on and off for about an hour but at best, she would settle and wake again a few minutes later, so I try again and she the same thing happens, then I give up and feed. So I ended up feeding one extra time last night. Prior to last night I would feed at around 12am, then 4am, and she wakes at 7am. My night now looked like this:

7pm – bedtime

10.15pm – wake + settling pyramid

11.30pm – still awake + crying -> feed -> sleep

12.00am – wake + self settles

2.15am – wake + settling pyramid

2.55am – still awake + crying -> feed -> sleep

5.45am – wake + settling pyramid

6.30am – still awake + crying -> feed -> sleep

8.00am – wake

I plan to persevere as she is now nearly rolling although a part of me wants to keep swaddling her until she actually rolls. It should get better with a few days, right? Should I do anything differently? I read about Ferber but I think it’s too harsh at this stage.

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks Emma,

Like you said I found that 2.5 hours is too long especially for their first nap, so I’ve now cut it back to 2hrs moving gradually to 2.5 for her last nap.

You’d mentioned before that she was self-settling at nap time, but it sounds like she may be relying more on the pacifier at the moment. Could you update me on how you’re currently settling her to sleep, including what her nap routine looks like? I’d also love to know what happens if the pacifier falls out as she’s drifting off, and whether she stirs or wakes during her nap if it comes out then.

I’m still doing the usual sleep routine by putting her in a sleep sack with arms out for her first nap, and arms in for the rest of the day including night time as she hasn’t rolled from back to front. I haven’t managed to successfully put her down to sleep for bedtime with arms out yet. Then I sing a lullaby before placing her down. In the past she consistently would be ready for sleep at this point but recently she would still be unsettled when I’m singing the lullaby and remains or becomes more unsettled when she is on the crib. Then I wait for around 5-10 minutes to see if she self settles, and if she doesn’t I pat and shush, and shortly after I realise it’s not enough and then I use the pacifier. I don’t think she’s reliant on the pacifier as this is not all the time but only on some naps/bedtime. When the pacifier falls out I reinsert it if she’s awake, otherwise she’s already asleep by then, and completes her usual nap by the time she wakes. Once during bedtime, she woke after 2 hours so that was not bad (although prior to these events she managed 4 hours uninterrupted sleep without the pacifier).

Sometimes her naps are as short as 15 minutes and she can’t go back to sleep. Do I still wait for another 2 hours after this before her next nap?

Thanks,

Julia

[Julia]

Dear Emma,

My baby is now 4.5 months old.

Your advice has been great, now using a sized up diaper she no longer leaks overnight.

We had a few family events such as weddings and dinners in the last week so we had to get her to sleep in the pram outside with walking her and using the rokit. Now that these have ended and she’s back to sleeping at home she struggles to self soothe and I am now needing to use the pacifier even for her naps. Hopefully this will resolve in time when we get her back to her usual sleep routine.

I have followed your sample sleep schedule for a 4 month old but I notice that she fights sleep more and perhaps she needs a longer wake window to 2.5 hours. Also, her naps are very short, only 30-45 minutes each so I’m not sure how to adjust her wake window based on this.

She still sleeps generally from 8pm-8am overnight with 2 overnight feedings. Do you think I should try a longer wake window? After my simple calculation this means that realistically her schedule now will be something like this :

8am – wake

10.30am – Nap 1

11.00am – Wake

1.30pm – Nap 2

2.00pm – Wake

4.30pm – Nap 3

5.00pm – Wake

7.30pm / 8pm – Bedtime

This means that she only has 1.5-2hrs of naps in the daytime.

Do you have any other advice to get her to nap longer or would this improve with time?

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks Emma,

I’ve started not to feed her between bedtime at 7/8pm and 12am.. she just makes it as she wakes at 11/1130pm ish, goes back to sleep with the paci only to wake up half an hour later. It’s like she has decided to go on strike as she woke every hour last night. Could this be coincidentally the 4 month sleep regression or is this a response..? She is now about 3.5 months. At this point I’m just craving for sleep.

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks Emma.

Her first nap has shortened now to about 50 mins and her second nap has now lengthened to 1-2 hours, so that’s great news.

I also took your advice and brought her third nap earlier to 4.30pm and that works.

However, what if her second naps extends beyond 2.30pm? Does that mean I keep her awake until 7pm? Would that be time to transition to two naps?

I have just purchased temporary black out blinds, hope that will help too.

I think she may be teething recently so I hope that doesn’t cause too much sleep regression. Earlier I said she slept through the night, but on most days she wakes up once at about midnight. I wonder if on these days it’s because I haven’t fed her enough in the daytime?

Overall I’m fairly happy about her sleep, especially compared to where I started. Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Julia

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Julia.

[Julia]

Dear Emma

Thank you so much, Emily has started to sleep through the night! It is glorious, and am very grateful. However, wanting to optimise her sleep, her naps in the day time are still short.

Her daytime schedule is something like this:

6.30-7am : Wake

8.30/9am : Nap 1 (45 minutes)

12pm : Nap 2 (45 minutes)

3.30pm : Nap 3 (30-45 minutes)

7.30-8pm : Bedtime

It seems that no matter how late I put her down to sleep, she doesn’t wake later than 7.30am, I think a big factor is the sunrise. As we are traveling we don’t have black out curtains so that doesn’t help.

She has taken longer naps if she slept less the night before, for example, if I put her to sleep at 9pm, and wakes at 7am. I try to avoid 4 naps as this brings her bedtime even later.

Do you have any other advice to increase the length of her naps?

Thanks

Julia

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  Julia.

[Julia]

Thanks Emma

This was very helpful. I found that a bedtime of 8-8.30pm suits my lifestyle and she wakes up at around 7-8am. Her naps are relatively short, totaling to about 1.5-2hrs in the daytime.

Currently I pump milk in the morning, to top up her bedtime feed, as I noticed without it, she wakes a few minutes after being put down. Do you think that more “cortisol rich” morning milk can affect her bedtime sleep?

She still wakes around twice at night, that is at around 11-12am and 3am. I’m struggling to cut these down. When I reduce the milk, she is unsatisfied and ends up crying more after put down. I think it’s out of habit probably. She is also rolling a lot more, and last night after the 11pm feed she was awake for about half an hour, not settling with the settling pyramid so I had to pick her up to soothe her.

Do you have any other advice for this?

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks Emma,

I found these and your live demonstration videos helpful, particularly that my baby is now 5 months old. She is napping 30mins-1hr for each nap now with 3-4 naps as you described in your 4 months sample schedule, and we are transitioning to remove the swaddle now that she is nearly but hasn’t rolled yet. Her night sleep is still decent, with 2 overnight wakes, sleeping between 7-7.30pm and waking between 6.30-7.30am.

Could you give me examples of a 5-month and 6-month schedule? I have found them very helpful.

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Dear Emma

I followed this schedule for my 3-month-old and it worked very well.

She is now turning 4 months soon. How do we change her times as she grows older? Can you provide a sample routine for a 4-month-old based on this?

Thanks

Julia

[Julia]

Thanks, this is great advice, will do this and let you know it goes!

[Julia]

Thanks, that’s right!

It’s a big improvement now that last night, she slept 8pm, woke at 11.15pm, and woke again at 3.25am and 6.15am. I normally put her back down after so she woke at 7.30am. This was without a diaper change, and I found that by the 7.30am wake she soakes pee onto the bedding. The soaking has been quite consistent by 7.30am. Would it be better to change her diaper at around the 6am wake, and risk that she would wake up fully then?

Thanks,
Julia

• This reply was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by  Julia.
• This reply was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by  Julia.
• This reply was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by  Julia.

[Julia]

Thanks for your kind words and advice! These are very helpful.

She normally goes to bed around 8-9pm, so I was pushing it when I tried to put her down for bedtime at 7:20pm the other day. I did anyway as it was 2hours after her last wake. She couldn’t go back to sleep straight away after waking so I waited for an hour before her next sleep. Similarly last night, she woke from her last nap at 6:45pm, but was very tired and cranky by 8:00pm (1 hr 15 minutes wake window) so I put her down to bed. Her wake time is usually 7-8:00am.

Last night, I tried to follow your advice to drop the earlier night feed before midnight so it was like this. I initially tried using the settling pyramid when she woke but I couldn’t settle her so I ended up using a pacifier (which she only rarely keeps in).

6:45pm – Wakes from final nap

8:00pm – Bedtime

9:00pm – Wake + pacifier + back to sleep

10:35pm – Wake + pacifier + back to sleep

11:50pm – Wake + feed

12:10am – Sleep

2:50am – Wake + pacifier + back to sleep

3:25am – Wake + feed

3:40am – Sleep

6:00am – Wake + feed

6:10am – Sleep

8:40am – Wake (later than her usual wake time, but I woke up late too)

I do find that when I wean/ stop a feed she ends up waking shortly after (earlier than her usual wake time overnight). Should I continue with the hope that one day she will eventually sleep through it? Or should I wean the feed gently instead of using the paci in the above example?

Thanks

Julia

• This reply was modified 7 months, 3 weeks ago by  Julia.