[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Teething has been rough – I feel like we’ve gone backwards 😣

Baby is waking every two hours and it’s taking an hour plus to get her back to sleep.

I’ve tried just settling her without feeding, but I always end up feeding her and then I’m finding I put her down pretty much asleep and she wakes 10mins later and I have to start the whole process again and this is what’s waking an hour or more to get her back to sleep. Sometimes I’m giving her more painkillers in that time too which is an ordeal in itself!

Shes still going down at the beginning of the night fine and for naps, but overnight from about 10pm she’s waking and not settling easily.

I’m worried that I’m creating a bad habit because I’m holding her for a while when she’s stopped feeding to give her extra comfort and make sure she’s asleep. So I need to be concerned about this? Or do you think it’ll improve once the pain has stopped for her?

Just so exhausting how we always seem to make progress then everything goes bad again!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Just thought I’d update you!

Baby is doing really well AND we have moved her into her own room.

She is going down for most naps and bedtime pretty much immediately now and she’s been self soothing between sleep cycles. She’s started to settle herself on her side, and this is what she does to self soothe when she wakes up.

She was trying to do this in her crib next to me in our room and just didn’t have the space so it felt like the right time to move her to her own room.

She’s been in there for almost a week now and the first night was brilliant. Then we’ve had a few nights that weren’t so great, which I think was caused by teething. We’ve been giving her a bit of paracetamol when she won’t settle back down and her cheeks are flushed and that’s definitely helped.

During those nights before we realised it was probably teething pain keeping her up, she was waking a lot and I was feeding her back to sleep, but I think now the stretches might be starting to increase. We’re getting closer to three hours at a time, so hopefully that’ll keep increasing.

I’ll keep you posted, but just wanted to say thanks for all your help and advice!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Thanks for this Emma.

It’s great to be reminded how much progress we have actually made and in a relatively short space of time. It’s hard to see it ourselves!

I have been completing the watch and listen step outside of the room with every nap and bedtime. The only thing I struggle with is when she fusses immediately as I try to put her down. In that case I end up going straight into the settling pyramid right from the rocking step. But I guess this is ok as long as I’m letting her complete the last step by herself.

She’s definitely able to self soothe – we’ve watched her call out briefly and then go back to sleep during naps and soon after bedtime. But she is still waking properly through the night.

My partner tried to settle her at around 11pm last night instead of me feeding her, but she just woke up straight away after he put her down and I think it’s because she just wanted feeding. We’ll keep trying.

I am really considering moving her into her own room in the next few weeks. She’s six months now, and I do wonder if it might be easier for me to assess the best response to her by watching her on the monitor. I feel super sad about it, but also think she might benefit from less disturbance from us through the night as well. In the meantime I’ve moved her crib a bit further from me in our room.

I think she may have been a bit unwell this week as well. I’ve had a bit of a cold and she was up every hour a couple of nights ago. She’s also been much harder to settle overnight, needing to be held to fall back asleep. I’ve been letting this happen as I do think it’s just because she’s been feeling under the weather, so I’m hoping things will settle back down and we might start seeing those good stretches again!

Going to just keep going. I know she can self settle so we just need to keep giving her more of a chance to practice!

Thanks so much for all of your help and advice. Will keep you posted!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

With naps, we don’t really have a schedule as such – we watch for sleepy cues, and follow rough wake windows as a guide. Once we feel she’s tired and ready for a nap we’ll take her up to her room, close the blinds and curtains, put on the white noise, put her sleeping bag on, sing her a song and then put her down and work up and down the settling pyramid depending how easily she is going to sleep. She’s been doing anywhere between 30mins and 90min naps at the minute, and we’re probably getting a maximum of three naps a day and always try to finish the last nap between 4:30pm and 5pm, which is 2.5-3hours before her bedtime of 7:30pm.

For bedtime we feed her a bottle at 6:45pm whilst I run her bath, she has a bath, is dressed for bed then I try feeding her the rest of the bottle or breastfeed in our room with the lights on. Then we turn the lights off, put white noise on, put her sleeping bag on, sing her a song and then put her down working up and down the pyramid again. She is pretty consistently asleep between 7:30-8pm every night.

My partner has stopped offering contact naps unless he absolutely can’t get her down for a nap in her room.

Nights are a bit unpredictable, but essentially we’ll get her to sleep by 8pm at the latest, and usually she’s awake by 90mins-2hours after that and then that continues throughout the night pretty much. I’ve been feeding her back to sleep each time after we’d stopped feeding her to sleep at bedtime, you’d suggested with this and the settling pyramid she might naturally stop this. But to be honest, it is the quickest way to get her back to sleep so I’ve been doing it to get her back down. Sometimes she won’t go back to sleep for an hour to two hours, this is usually in the early hours of the morning near 3am. But not always.

It’s all a bit of a mixed bag as she did a nearly 6 hour stretch two nights ago, but last night was pretty much wakes every two hours!

Not sure that’s much help, but let me know if you do have any suggestions.

Thanks

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

We’re back to the two hour stretches 🫠

Baby is going down pretty easily, but she’s waking every couple of hours again.

I’ve been feeding her at every waking, and maybe need to start to give her a bit more time to get back to sleep – I’ve been feeding her to get her back to sleep quickly. Is there anything you’d suggest for trying to get her to do some longer stretches. I feel like she feeds pretty actively each time and she is pretty terrible for snacking rather than getting a full feed and obviously through the night she falls back asleep during the feeds.

Any suggestions?? Should we try the settling pyramid overnight and maybe reduce feeding back to sleep?

She’s also coming up to six months old this week so is there anything else we need to be thinking about or do we just carry on?

Thanks

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma,

Again, trying not to get too excited but we had some great nights with stretches of up to four hours so I was feeling a bit more human!

Last night wasn’t brilliant. We’re having some problems getting her to take a full feed so she had a couple of false starts and then I ended up feeding her to sleep and then she was up every 90mins-2hours likely because she still hadn’t taken a full feed. Tonight’s bedtime was a nightmare and I had to stop the routine about five times because she kept realising she was still hungry! I then tried really hard to keep her awake during her last feed with lights on and white noise off, and even moved her around a bit before putting her in her cot, but she was pretty much gone, so who knows for tonight! I’m thinking we might start trying to feed her before the bedtime routine and then do a bit more at the end as usual just to make sure she’s filling up.

Prior to all of that I was able to leave the room and only had to go back in and work up the pyramid once before last night and tonight. And the sides are still up on her next to me cot and it’s definitely helping me with not reacting so quickly to any of her movements overnight.

I’m wondering if you have any information about how menstrual cycle can affect babies sleep? I’m pretty certain that the peak of our troubles have been around the time I’m pre-menstrual, and I am at the minute so wondering if there’s something in it that’s contributing!

Thanks

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

I don’t want to count my chickens too much, but last night I did the first watch and listen from outside of our room with the monitor. I didn’t watch and listen for as long as I’d have liked… she sleeps in a next to me crib with the side down, but as I was watching it looked as though she was going to roll out of it, so I had to rush up and put the side up on it for the first time. After that I did have to pick her up to settle her, and I thought that the change in crib set up might confuse her so I did fully settle her, but she went down straight away and didn’t wake again until 3.5hours later, which is massive! She hasn’t done that since before this all started!

She still woke every 90mins to 2hours after that, and I am still feeding her back to sleep in those instances, but she was going straight back to sleep, so all in all a pretty good night.

And this morning I put her down for her first nap of the day and i literally sang her a song whilst rocking, shushed for seconds, put her down and left the room and she went straight to sleep and slept for an hour and a half! The rest of the day’s naps were not as successful.

So maybe it’s all starting to click…

Also I’ve turned the white noise up a bit and wonder if that’s helping too.

So now she’s in her crib in our room, and she’s been napping in her big for in her room, so I’m hoping the transition will be ok. But I don’t think we’ll do it until she’s got the hang of self soothing and we’ve got weaning underway!

I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going! I’m sure there’ll be a few more bumps in the road.

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Absolutely no consistency here at the mo!

She definitely flings her legs up and down during the day on her play mat, and when we’re changing her, but less so I think in her bed.

She hasn’t actually been doing it overnight for the past few nights. Instead she’s just grappling at her feet in her sleeping bag and is back to crying when she wakes and we’ve been having hourly and hour-long wakings again ☹️

It does feel like we’re getting somewhere, it just isn’t linear. Like she’s stopped being so frustrated about not being fed to sleep, and she is getting easier to get down to sleep, but we still haven’t managed a settling pyramid from the start because she always starts to cry as soon as we’re putting her down.

When she’s waking through the night she doesn’t always want feeding anymore, which is progress. But a lot of the time we can just pick her up and hold her still and she’ll go back to sleep almost immediately and then get upset when we’re putting her back down.

So all a mixed bag!

She’ll be 6 months in a few weeks – presumably we just keep going until it sticks? And then we need to think about transitioning her into her own room – any advice on the best time to do this??

Thanks!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

It certainly is a mixed bag at the minute!

I’m not managing to start trying the settling pyramid yet – baby is still quite aggressively trying to feed whilst I rock her after songs in our routine. I’m having to bounce her to settle her down as she is pulling at my top, sucking on me and getting quite upset.

So I’m ending up rocking her pretty much to sleep and then it takes a few attempts to be able to put her down. I’m doing the hands off approach – rocking and decreasing movement before I put her down and that’s working, it’s just she is still getting upset the first few times I try to put her down. We’re persevering and I hope it’ll click soon so we can move onto settling pyramid.

In the meantime, she’s started lifting her legs and slamming them down on the mattress when she wakes at night. I’ve read this is a self soothing technique. Do you know anything about this? Should I ignore her and leave her to it unless she cries out for me so you think?

And in other news she has mastered her first roll back to front, so lots going on developmentally!

Still not getting anything longer than a two hour stretch of sleep at the min 🫠

Thanks

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Yep, definitely a mix. Last night was back to the hourly wake ups which was not fun! She was feeding a lot every wake up, and she did a big feed this morning when she woke for the day at 5:30am (ugh) followed by another one only an hour later, so maybe she’s having a growth spurt??

My partner and I have agreed that we will try to put her down for as many naps as possible in her big cot. But if she doesn’t go down, or it becomes a struggle later in the day then a pram/car nap or a contact nap are fine to just get her some daytime sleep. Since I’ve started to put her in her cot for the past week she’s been doing very short (30mins max) naps and probably not getting enough daytime sleep, but at the minute there’s no way of telling whether it’s having an impact on her nighttime sleep because that’s so inconsistent anyway.

The only thing that is consistent at the minute is she is pretty much always asleep by 7:30-7:45pm, and always awake before 6am. I don’t suppose there’s much I can do about that at the minute.

We haven’t actually moved feeding in the bedtime routine, we’re just doing it in a lit room and I sing to her whilst she’s feeding, and then when she’s done we turn the lights off and put the white noise machine on and put her in her sleeping bag. She’s definitely started to understand this routine, and isn’t trying to get to my nipple to feed anymore, but I am rocking her a bit more to settle her, so I think we need to make a start on the settling pyramid and see how we go!

Naps are different, she’s still actively trying to feed, and I’m having to do much more rocking and settling, but I think this is ok as she’s still getting used to her big bed. Dad hasn’t tried a cot nap with her yet – he loves contact naps with her, so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on with settling her as he doesn’t have any milk!

That’s positive that it might all stick soon. Happy to keep practicing and trying to be as patient as possible when being woken so much!

We’ll keep you posted, thanks so much!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Thanks Emma.

We had the worst night yet two nights ago where baby was up every 45mins-one hour and there were two points in the night where she was up for two hours – the second till 5am when I eventually gave up and got up with her. The night before last was really good – she was up every two hours, but I fed her and she went straight back to sleep each time. Last night was a little less good. She slept initially for two and a half hours with no false start which is unusual. She. then did some two hour stretches, but a few 45min-hour ones as well, but she did go straight back to sleep after feeding each time. She’s been awake at around 6am the past two mornings.

We’ve been practicing getting her into her big cot for her first nap of the day, which has been really hard and so far we’ve only managed a 20min nap in there! I’m sort of worried about the change in environment feeling like a big step for her, but also felt it makes more sense than doing it in her Moses basket or next to me cots given she’ll be moving into her own room fairly soon.

I had to feed her to sleep yesterday whilst out with friends just to get her to nap because she hadn’t for a while and was getting very cranky, but I’m really trying not to. It does mean that I come away looking like I’ve been attacked by a cat whilst she scratches and pulls at my top desperately trying to get to my nipple! But I think she’s definitely getting the hang of it at bedtime.

Do you think there’ll be a point where she’s understood that there’s no feeding to sleep, and we can then start trying the settling pyramid properly? I’m still trying as much as I can to put her down before she’s totally asleep and doing some shushing and patting in her cot so that she gets used to settling in there. Sometimes it takes a few attempts and I only have to lift her out and hold her still for her to calm down, so we definitely need her to get used to settling in her space.

Anyway, just keep practicing and I’ll let you know how it all goes! Hoping that we’ll have it cracked in a few weeks – am I being too optimistic?!

Thanks

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Bedtime has been ok. We’ve been feeding baby after her bath and pjs with lights on and then turning lights off and putting white noise and sleeping bag on. She definitely gets drowsy whilst feeding, so stopping that and getting her ready for bed is still waking her up fully and she’s not happy about not feeding to sleep! Tonight I ended up feeding her to sleep after 40mins of attempting to settle her – she kept waking up crying a couple of minutes after I’d settled her to sleep with patting and shushing.

I’ve been nagging my partner to start getting her into her crib for naps rather than on him. She doesn’t seem to have a sleeping on us association luckily, but I think building the same routine for naps will really help. I’ve asked him to watch the course and I will again so we can agree our approach.

I took some feeding data and timed all the feeds last night. Whilst it did feel like a couple of feeds were more about feeding back to sleep than genuine hunger, the feeds were all a relatively similar length. Do you think I should just keep feeding her through the night rather than trying to withhold any feeding? I think feeding her back to sleep overnight would certainly help with my sanity in the short term whilst we’re practicing the settling pyramid at bed and nap times to try get her to self soothe. Otherwise I worry I’ll be up for hours trying to resettle her every time! Also desperately trying to get more feeds in her through the day to see if that helps, but she’s so easily distracted and I turn out to be her biggest distraction because she just wants to chat to me!

One final question I had was about the settling pyramid. At the minute because she’s so angry about me not letting her feed to sleep I’m ending up rocking her almost totally to sleep. I try to put her down when she calms and before she gets too sleepy but she pings awake and either gets upset that I’m putting her down or starts fidgeting which makes it hard to pat her because she’s so busy trying to grab my fingers and flinging her legs in the air! Im assuming she needs to be awake when I put her down? I’m definitely stopping rocking her so that she doesn’t become too reliant on rocking to sleep, and I just pat her whilst holding her still once she’s calm.

Thanks again!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Just an update… tried keeping everything light and fed her with lights and everything on. She still started to drift off so I’m not sure if she got a full feed.

After putting her in her sleeping bag, closing blinds, turning lights off, putting on white noise she was WIDE awake and it took me about 15-20minutes to settle her by rocking whilst she tried very hard to feed through my top!

Managed to settle her by patting and shushing in her crib but after quite a lot of rocking to get her sleepy.

Guess that’s a success but much harder work!

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Answers below.

• What times does she typically wake up for feeds during the night?

We’re getting her to sleep by 7:30pm and usually she wakes up 45mins-1hour after that because she’s still hungry (because of falling asleep during feeding I think). Then she tends to wake at midnight, 3am (long wake up) and then not till 7am ish. The past couple of nights she’s been waking up more frequently though. More like every 90mins-2hours after the first wake up after bedtime, which has been hard. So more like 9:30/10pm, midnight, 2am/3am (long wake) then asleep again by 5am till 7am ish.

• What’s her usual wake-up time in the morning?

Usually around 7am, but it can be anywhere between 6:30am and 7:30am – should I be getting her up at the exact same time every day?

• Are you feeding her to sleep for her naps, or are you following a wake, feed, play, sleep routine? How are you settling her to sleep if it’s the latter?

My partner is actually stay at home dad so he has her sleep on him which isn’t ideal! I get her to sleep in her Moses basket in the living room for her first nap of the day. I’d say I probably do feed her to sleep for that one at the minute, but mainly because she hasn’t done that one for a few weeks so I think I’ve been trying to get her back on track and have probably ended up feeding to sleep then transferring her into her Moses basket. My partner tends to give her a bottle (she doesn’t fall asleep during a bottle feed) and then settle her on him, so this is an area we really need to work on, but we’ve just been trying to make sure she naps! And we’re definitely feeding before naps rather than going from play to sleep, purely because she always seems to be hungry every two hours!

• Regarding your question about telling the difference between feeding to sleep out of habit and genuine hunger, are you asking about the overnight feeds or during daytime feeds?

I meant overnight feeds as daytime it’s pretty obvious when she’s hungry.

We’ll give that adjusted routine a go tonight and see if it makes a difference.

And I’ll do a bit more pausing with her overnight cries. I’m pretty convinced she doesn’t do very much stopping and it does ramp up quite quickly but I could be wrong.

Thanks so much again!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

Thanks so much for responding so quickly and in so much detail – this support is unbelievable!

In answer to your questions:

• Is the 3 am wake-up the only time she wakes up during the night? Or does she wake up at other times, but just has a feed and falls back to sleep quickly?

She wakes up at other times for a feed and then falls back to sleep quickly.

• Where do you usually feed her during these night wake-ups? What’s the setting like—do you keep the lights on or off, and do you change her diaper?

She is in a next to me cot so I just pick her up and feed her in bed. I don’t turn any lights on. We only to a nappy change when she wakes around midnight, and I just leave it till the morning after that. I have tried changing her when she won’t go back to sleep in that 3-5am wake up, just in case she’s uncomfortable, but it makes no difference and generally she doesn’t mind being in a soggy nappy.

• Could you also share what her daytime nap schedule looks like—both the times and the duration of the naps?

He daytime nap schedule is really varied – I haven’t worked out any correlation with these two things yet. She usually has three fairly long naps a day – two 90min-two hour ones and then maybe a 30-45min one which takes us up to two hours before her bedtime of 7:30pm. We try to stop her napping by 5:30pm at the latest, but sometimes she ends up with her last nap finishing nearer 4:30pm or earlier.

Agh, the feeding to sleep is so hard. I wish I’d known before that it could be a difficult crutch! Is there a way to tell the difference between feeding to sleep need and genuine hunger but falling asleep whilst feeding? She does often come off the breast and settle, but I definitely feed her to sleep throughout her nighttime wakings.

Our routine at the minute is bath, into pjs and fresh nappy, then feed in bed with lights dim and white noise on, put her in her sleeping bag and continue feeding till she’s had enough or till she falls asleep. I’ve been trying to feed her a bit before the bath but sometimes she’s not hungry and sometimes is doesn’t make a difference anyway! I wonder if I could still do a feed before bath if she’ll take it, bath, pjs and nappy, and then bring her into the bedroom fully lit, do the final feed then close blinds, turn off lights, put her in her sleeping bag and turn on white noise and see how that goes? We are also combi feeding but she tends to want to have her last feed as a breast feed, probably because it helps her sleep.

One other question. When she is waking overnight, I maybe am too quick to respond, but she always wakes up immediately crying. There’s rarely a gristle before she’s crying out. How long should I pause? A lot of the time I worry that if I pause too long she’ll go into overdrive because she is already crying!

Soooo many questions, thank you so much for your help!

Maddie