[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma,

thank you for your answers.

Yes, I ended up bringing her to bed at 19:15 after a 2.5 hour last wake window. She ‘only’ slept until 5:55. But could have been worse.so in the future when that happens I will proceed like that, knowing that the transition from 4 to 3 naps is process and won’t work smoothly every day.

Thank you so much for all your helpful advice. I will update you how it goes.

Take care.

Best,

Luise

[Luise Deiters]

Hi Emma

Thanks for your thoughful questions.

– What time she wakes in the morning and if this is consistent: She used to wake up at 7:30 (bedtime 20:30-21:00), but lately I am getting a lot of earlier wakeups, around 6:30 ish, so I might need to move her wake-up time and therefore her bed time? Correction: Last night, I couldnt get her down for the bridge nap around 17:00 after trying for a 1:45 wake window, I had to abboard after 45 minutes of resistance, take a break and feed her to sleep after a 3 hour wake window (she was cranky as hell at this point though), asleep by 18:45, woke quickly at 19:30 – I decided to try to make this her night start and not to let her wake fully, so I fed her to sleep within minutes and then for the first time in weeks slept until 23:00 in a row, then again until 1:30, rest of the night were hourly wake-ups. Woke up this morning at 6:00 though.

– What time she naps and how long she naps for? Attached you can find the last week of naps. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ptb8adtqwts9m7wekgkl/Wochen-bersichtsprotokoll-f-r-kleine-Babys.pdf?rlkey=7xvbg89w6v5j7cfkaos2zbwvl&st=x669d1ef&dl=0

If I manage, I do 4 naps, they are between 30′-1:30 (almost all longer ones are “rescued” by me). WW I recently prolonged from 75-100 to 90′-110′, sometimes 120′ if she wont go down easily. This had not a lot of impact on the time to fall asleep, maybe slightly shorter now, I am noticing a little less complaining when I start bouncing her in the carrier.

Two weeks ago we were managing with WW of 75-100, 4-5 naps of the same length as today (also lots of rescued ones), time to fall asleep around 10′, bed time 20:30 – 7:30, 2-3 wake up feeds during the night. Sleeping 15 hours total (right now I barely manage 14), I dont know how things deteriorated so quickly.

– What time is bedtime and when she actually falls asleep and stays asleep at night? bedtime is between 20:00 and 20:30 (if I manage).

– What time she is waking overnight and how long these night feeds typically last. More or less every hour, rarely every 1.5-2. They last only minutes 3-15′ I’d say. I feed her and try to unlatch when sucking become slow and breathing quiet, so she can do the last 5% of falling asleep without the nipple, sometimes that fails and she screams and I have to start the soothing again (before this regression, at least during the night I could feed her, put her back down and she would fall asleep within seconds by herself).

– How you are helping her fall asleep at bedtime and what her bedtime routine is? I feed to sleep. Routine is: Book, fresh diaper, white noise, sleep sack, song, feed burb feed

– It sounds like for naps you’re putting her in the carrier and then bouncing on an exercise ball (a lot) to get her to fall asleep. Is that right? Yes, before is walking into the room, making it dark, I let her “unwind” some minutes in the snoo, start the white noise. Then I pick her up, walk in the room while I sing a long and then I put her in the carrier and start moving. Usually I try to get her to sleep by moving/dancing slightly and only sit on the yoga ball for some super gentle bouncing when she is asleep.
– Have you been able to start following the wake, feed, play, sleep routine now that she is older and staying awake following daytime feeds? Yes.

, unless I fail to get her to sleep, then I resort to feeding to sleep, but that happens maybe 1 a week.

Regarding your “diagnosis” that she is simply not tired in the video. It looks to me the same. She video was recorded maybe 105 minutes after waking up from the last nap. But it is sooo hard with her. She can become quiet, jawn already and rub her eyes at 45-60′ and, continue playing happily, when the ww is close to an end and I am seeing another jawn and eye rubbing, then I will start the nap routine (the video was recorded in such a moment), she cycles usually through a couple of periods of being a bit quieter, but most of the time she is breathing fast, kicking and throwing her arms around for the whole wake window. I never ever see her really looking sleepy, like droopy eyelids, turning away from stimulation etc. I just see her, awake, playful, enganged,throwing herself towards every possible stimulation, but happy and after a while at some point screaming will start. A couple of times we skipped naps due to witching hour fuzziness, or doctors apointments, and even then, she seemed alert, happy if you let her play and will start screaming when you try to get her to sleep. I tried “training” her for the pram a couple of times. Same story, happy, alert, looking around, she even seemed a bit quieter (like nature and movement made her a bit calmer), but not falling asleep and at some point screeming started.

Thank you so much for your help.

Best,

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.

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[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma,

First of all my apologies for not replying to your last reply. Somehow the problem got better on its own and I forgot about it.

I have some questions and I am positing it here, since it is the same baby…

She is 15 weeks now, and we are in the middle of the 4 month sleep regression I am afraid.

She is waking up sometimes 8 or more times a night, and what worked before (holding, sushing, waiting) isnt working anymore, so I started feeding her every time out of desperation.

Also during the day, my idea was implementing your strategies, slowly reducing movement, giving her chances to fall asleep on her own.

It is just not working. She started having troubles falling asleep even with full support more and more, to the point that I cant even go for a walk anymore with her outside in the carrier, she wont fall asleep,, or take forever, or wake up a lot… so I gave up on it, and spending now my time inside a dark room, with white noise, bouncing my daughter on a gym ball (and reducing movement once she is asleep).

I started practicing with her falling asleep in the snoo. Putting her down calm but awake – because I never see her drowsy, just wide awake or asleep.

this is an excerpt of what happens:

https://youtu.be/GO_r0tMV-xw

she just smiles, brabbles, rolls around, looks at shadows on the wall… she can keep that up for a looong time before crying at some point. If i make the room pitch dark, she will cry or look for the light that enters through the key hole. She just doesnt seem to get that she should sleep or she is completly unable to do it by herself.

So my 3 questions are:

1. What can I do, if the carrier is now the only place she sleeps during the day, but she cries more and more everytime I place her there and I can’t seem to be able to reduce movement (instead need to work “harder”) everytime. (FYI, I started playing with wake window, and a longer or shorter window doesnt seem to solve the problem – depending on her nap before, she falls asleep after 1.5-2 and balancing my nervous system by breathing and meditating has also only improved the situation slightly)

2. How can I teach her falling asleep independently, when all she does is play around, smile and “push through her tiredness” (because I am seeing sleepy cues like yawning and eye rubbing – so I dont think she is a very low sleep need kid – I stopped swaddling because she is turning around, but also with swaddle it wasnt better. She knows that she snoo is for sleeping and it is also not better if I try it on her mattress next to me, where she sleeps during the night. I do have a nap routine, going to the bed room, darken it, singing a song, switching on white noise, putting her in the carrier and then starting to dance/bounce).

3. Anything I can try for these terrible nights if she refuses to fall asleep without being fed?

We have quite some ADHD in the family and I was wondering if she migh have some kind of issues with self-regulation that show up without (excessiv) screaming?

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.

[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma, thanks for all your helpful advice. I am eager to try it all out once I have the capacity. There is something going on with my LO since a couple of days, where I would like to get your take on.

One day we had a happening where we couldnt bring her to sleep in time at mid day… this escalated and she almost didnt sleep at all that day. Not sure if it is related to that, but since then she is not able to connect sleep cycles anymore during the day, so only sleeping for 50-60 min max at a time and even with patting and sushing she cant connect them anymore. And also at night, we went from hacing stretches of 4.5 or at least 3 hours, to waking up every 90 minutes or so. And during the day she keeps falling asleep while feeding, sometimes her wake window is just 20 minutes, because she falls asleep while eating. And she shows sleepy cues really early, sometimes just 10 minutes after waking up, so I am confused if she is already or still tired? Very unlike her. She doesnt have a fever, rash, or anything. The stool seems a bit more “liquid” than usual, but, she is also feeeding way more often (now I give her one breast every time she wakes, so unfortunetly, she is snacking quite a bit during the day, but if I dont do that, she doesnt fall asleep anymore.

It is a bit early for the 4 month sleep regression, what might be going on here?

She is 10 weeks now.

Thanks!

[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma,

Thanks for your detailed answer. Amazing!

I will keep a record on the nap length – wake window length/time it took to settle her. Because I am still a bit confused, if she is showing sleepy cues, how long I can wait? A couple of days ago as an experiment I really took her quite early for her nap, and then it went almost faster then if I waited a bit more – so not sure if your hypothesis of her needing longer wake windows is true. But then again, that is when the frequent wakings in the night started happening. So I will experiment and track to find out.

I will try doing her sleeping routine with the carrier in our bedroom. Great idea!

FYI, I have been trying to get her to sleep in the snoo in the morning even the last days. So far I have not had success with drowsy but awake. Even asleep is really hard these days, just today I “fucked up” her ideal sleep time and she ended up being awake for more than 2 hours. So my question is, for how long should I try? Because if it regularly takes her more than 10 minutes (sometimes 20 or more) to fall asleep with the full support, I wonder how realistic it is to expect her to fall asleep on her own by that time? And fyi, she “never” gets unsettled if she sees me, she is just lying there with wide open eyes not sleeping ^^.

If it stop bouncing her, when I realise she is waking up, her naps will automatically become shorter. Shall I still offer to feed her in between two naps? I have never seen her fall asleep between naps, if I didnt but I also dont want to encourage “snacking” or even more over-proportional weight gain…

Regarding bedtime and overnight, I usually dont change her clothes and also dont bath her (she both hates the bath and removing and putting on new clothes), I bath her only when there was a poop accident and when we bath her 2-3times a week. Hope that is ok. So she will have to figure out it is time to sleep with the other cues.

My partner brings her to bed, so I can have some quality sleep and I take over when she wakes up for the first time, usually 2-3 hours after falling asleep on him, so around midnight. Then I feed her and put her down on her mattress, where she falls asleep within seconds on her own. During the night, I pick her up for a feed, if the last feed was 2-3 hour ago, or I just feed her lying sideways if I am simply using the feed to settle her back to sleep, if the last feed was less then 2 hours ago. There she seems to fall asleep on her own just fine. And is not waking up in a different place (e.g. my arms), so I wonder where the confusion might come from for the frequent wakings?…

Thank you so much, I am hoping with your tips her sleep will improve, before I ruin my back ^^

Best,

Luise

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Luise Deiters.

[Luise Deiters]

Hi Emma

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, she cluster feeds often, or that is what I offer her when she cant fall asleep between 19:00 and 21:00 and she happily takes it. I dont really see her slow way down though, her breathing is most of the time very “agitated” while sucking – matching her awake and slightly agitated state she has in the evening. I am pretty sure I have enough milk for her. She gain weight rather too quickly, so I am pretty sure I rather over-feed her. She just almost never stops on her own.

• What time does she usually wake up in the morning? Usually around 7:30. Lately sometimes ealier.

• How many naps does she take each day? Depends, we dont have a schedule yet, because it varies so much how long she sleeps and how long it takes me to put her down, I’d say between 4-5, depending on the length. Length vary between 30 min to 2.5 hours (rarly 3 hours). When she only slept for less than an hour, I try extending the sleep by getting her back to sleep right away while bouncing on a sitting ball, while patting her. Because once I take her out of the carrier and she fully wakes up, I wont be able to get her to sleep again later without feeding her (doesnt matter if the last feed was only 1.5hours ago – so I always try prolonging her naps if possible). Lately the first hour of sleep seems very shallow, with lots of quick wakenings, where I need to go and move or bounce for a bit, usually after 1 hour sleep feels deeper and she manages to stay asleep 2 hours.

• A typical good day could look like this. Play time is usually quite short, after feeding and diaper change, there is not much time left, and play time stimulates her a lot and I need to factor in quite a long time for falling asleep (10-30 min walking or bouncing):

• • 7:30 AM – Wake up & feed
  • 8:15 AM – 9:30 AM- Nap 1 (1:15h)
  • 9:30 AM – Feed & play
  • 10:30 – 11:45 AM – Nap 2 (1:15h)
  • 11:45 Feed + play
  • 12:45 – 2:30 PM – Nap 3 (1:45h)
  • 2:30 PM – Feed & play
  • 3:45 – 5:30 PM – Nap 4 (1:45h)
  • 5:30 Feed + play
  • 6:30 – 7:30 PM – Nap 5 (but usually this nap comes hard and is very “light”) (1h)
  • 7:30 – 8:45 PM Cluster feeding -impossible to get her to sleep
  • 8:45 PM bedtime, but usually doesnt sleep until 9:30/10:00 PM . Then waking up approx. 3-4 times for quick feeds and right back to sleep until morning. (approx. maybe 7-8h of sleep)
  • Daytime sleep: 6.5 or 7 hours
  • Nighttime sleep: 7-8 hours

• How long is she awake between those naps? 45-105 minutes (sometimes 120 if I cant settle her in time and sometimes just 30 minutes if she only had a really short nap and seems still really sleepy ). How long would you wait after seeing sleepy cues? Sometimes I am not sure if she needs so long to fall asleep, or if she is over-tired/stimulated already or if I took her too early because I am afraid to take her too late (all the complaining is making me unsure).

• Are you following a wake → feed → play → sleep routine during the day? Usually yes, sometimes if I cant get her down after 105-120 minutes, I feed again before trying again with sleep. I considered follwing a wake-play-feed schedule, but she usually wakes up grumpy and fuzzy and wont stop crying until I give her something to eat – exception is the morning where she slowly wakes up and it up for some cuddling and playtime before eating)

• Does she use a pacifier when napping? Nope, she hates it and keeps spitting it out, we tried already sooo many times.

• Do you swaddle her for every nap? When I try for the snoo, then yes and during the night. The carrier is kind of a swaddle.

• When you pop her into the SNOO, is the rocking and white-noise turned on? Yes.

• Have you got a nap-time routine going? If so, what steps do you follow? Back when I used the snoo more I tried going with: swaddle, turn on white noise, sing a lullaby, rock her until asleep (or 95% asleep), place her into the snoo asleep – I tried a couple time with drowsy but not asleep, without success, but anyways many times she wakes up while placing her down and then I had a 10% success rate with patting and sushing to get her back to sleep in the snoo.. The last 10 days I almost stopped entirely with this routine though, because she is quite heavy already (around 5.5 pounds) and I cant keep rocking her in my arms for 15-30 minutes (yes, that is how long it can take for her to be asleep in my arms), just to have a 50% snoo success rate. And I am afraid of am missing the optimal end of her wake window and it gets sooo hard.

• . When the snoo works, she sleeps in there for 30 min to 3 hours. Nowadays I am just wrapping her up in the baby carrier, then I go outside for a walk, and gently patting her on the back until she is asleep – that usually takes between 5-30 minutes, but lately she is protesting in crying alot as soon as I take her into the carrier. But I dont know what else to do, since no other method works. . When she is asleep I go back home and sit down or lay back on the couch or do household stuff.

• Is she on breastmilk, formula, or a mix of both? during the day breastmilk, in the evening my partner gives her a bottle with a mix of breastmilk and goat milk formula – because I am off the clock between 21:00 to 0:30 and it is hard for me to pump enough milk with her in the carrier all day.

• You mentioned she’s harder to settle lately—does that happen with every nap or just the late-day one? More during late day, but also the mornings are more challenging than before. Her eyes are just always wiiide open, I never really see her “drowsy” anymore. Yes I can see some sleepy cues like her eyelids are getting reddish, etc. and she starts jawning, but her eyes are always wiiiiiide open.

• What’s her daytime sleep space like—light levels, temperature, and any background sounds? We are outside, so some birds I guess, and day light, though I put something over her head so she cant look out, temperatures are around 20-21 °C indoors and 17-24 outdoors. And in the house I try to do the household as quitly as possible.

Thank you!

Best,

Luise

Ps: lately also night sleep is deteriorating, with wakings every two hours and after 5 it gets even harder, waking up around 5, 6 and then 7, and I can’t get her back to sleep if I don’t breastfeed. Patting and shushing won’t work and I am too tired to get up to try swaying/rocking. Could that be related to my boyfriends methods of bringing her to bed? He usually takes over at around 9 PM and refuses to bounce her, so he takes her on his chest, pats her gently until she falls asleep, this takes latetely around 30 minutes of crying and protesting until she “colapses”. I have my doubts about this method and am afraid it is harmful.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Luise Deiters.

[Luise Deiters]

Thank you, Emma. For your thoughtful response and the video!

Best,

Luise

[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma,

thank you so much for taking the time to answer. I hope your little one feeling much better and will have a swift recovery.

It makes sense what you are saying. I have a doctors appointment in 10 days and if he also gives me the green light I will start with the training – either in the snoo or on her mattress where she sleeps next to me during the night – I find that she fusses less there than in the snoo, and the snoo is anyway only until 6 month. But I will try both since the movement of the snoo might help at the beginning.

I understand correctly, I will put her down in the evening lets say at 1:30 min after being awake (she does best with not such a super long last wake window) and wait 20 minutes+ using the pyramid if needed. If she doesnt fall asleep by 2:00++, I resort back to what works to avoid overtiredness melt-down.

I will try and let you know how the progress is. I am so curious to see how she will do. I dont want to set her up for a self-fulfilling prohecy, but I am struggling to imagine my super alert baby fall asleep by herself :), but I like a challenge.

Last question. I am now trying 2 hours wake windows, that leaves me with a problem today. My don’t have time for 4 naps anymore, but 3 won’t be enough, as she will likely wake up around 4:30 from her last nap, and my usually bed time is around 7:45. You think it can be moved up to 6:30/6:45… I am afraid to get super early wake up again tomorrow 🙈

Thank you so much.

Best,

Luise

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  Luise Deiters.

[Luise Deiters]

Dear Emma,

Thanks so much for your thoughful suggestions. A couple of questions back and then I am ready to start.

You are sure she is undertired and not already overtired? I have heard from a midwife that there are sensitive babies whose sleep cues can be very mild (e.g. a fleeting yawn, a moment of stillness, or slight gaze aversion) and then quickly overridden by stimulation-seeking behavior and they might not cry a lot, even when they are exhausted — making it harder for parents to detect their needs.

I am really confused, because I am prolonging her wake windows more and more and she is sleeping badly during the night and now I am seeing more and more early starts (last night she slept from 7:30 pm to 5 am, waking every hour – so for sure not more than 8-8:30 hours night sleep; today again awake at 5:55 (bed time 8 pm), and now 5:45 (bed time 7:45 pm)). So the total sleep is decreasing. A month ago it was 15 hours, now maybe 13 hours. Interestingly she is protesting less against the carrier, and since 2 days falling asleep in under 10 min in the carrier – so she must be quite tired.

She is generally super happy, but the last days she started crying out of nowhere a couple times during the day, worse towards the evening.

I kept her already up a couple of times for 2+ hours or longer, and even then she didnt seem really tired or sleepy to me. Like I said, she seems to be able to push through all tiredness, never really drowsy – rather she seems hyper-alert even at the end of typical wake windows, making me wonder if this is a second wind – coritsol related phenomena. I am also confused about these recent super early wake-ups, or is that also a normal 4 month sleep regression phneomena?

I dont want to question your expertise and experience, I am grateful for your opinion and advice, just trying to make sure I am not misreading her.

Teach Her to Fall Asleep On Her Own
How long shall I try that for at night or in the morning, before aborting and feeding or rocking to sleep? Usually when I feed to sleep, she is really agitated at first and after 30 min of sucking, the breathing relaxes and she finally drifts off, in the carrier it takes 15-20 minutes of rocking usually.

Make the timing of her first nap consistent

So when she wakes between 6:00 and 6:30 I keep putting her down e.g. at 8:15, so the time will be consistent but the wake window length changes, right? What is with early starts like at 5:00? Last time I kept it dark and managed to have er askeep again by feeding by 6:20, she woke again at 7:10, so not ideal timing wise.

Thank you so much.

Best,

Luise

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Luise Deiters.