Hmm help please ladies

Since hitting the 12 week mark Elijah seems to have stopped sleeping! I have been making an effort to get up earlier (10am rather than 12noon) in the hope that he will fall asleep earlier, but what has happened is the following:

Elijah still stays up until between 1am and 2.30am, stays awake all day with the exception of 2 or 3 naps (either in the car or pram generally but not at home), then is up a couple of times in the night for feeds which seem to take 30-60 minutes.

I try and stay awake when he wakes to feed at between 8.30-9.30am and start our day then, but I'm so knackered! Is this a normal amount of sleep for Eli? It doesn't seem like much at all, but then he was asleep for about the first 5 weeks of his life so I don't know if I have just been spoiled!

(p.s it did occur to me that maybe me and his daddy are somehow keeping him awake by accident, by not putting him down and leaving him until he seems ready to sleep - maybe we should be doing this at a bedtime we choose, or is this just going to upset Elijah and wake him up more hmm :? )

Do you have a bedtime routine? I would try to get him into a routine and get him to bed earlier (8pm) then wake up for a dream feed and only feed through the night if you think he really needs it. Then try getting up around am every morning and wake him up. It will take a while for him to fall into the routine and you will most probs feel knackered for while but he will do it eventually.

When he is in the routine then you can relax it a little eg let him sleep in on a morning etc.

Through the day i would try putting him in the cot when he seems tired.

He is too young for CC really.

At his age they need around 14 hrs sleep a day/night xx

hmmmm I don't plan on doing cc with him, I'm not sure that he will go into his cot earlier, he screams if he isn't really sleepy and seems to be wide awake for most of the evening especially after maybe 10pm. We do have a bedtime routine, or try to, but it's very difficult to keep doing it at 8pm when he then screams until 1am haha seems a bit futile :? I don't know, maybe he will just grow out of it.......

I have tried a few time to type a reply to your post hun but it always ends up sounding a bit patronising and thats not how I want it to come across but in all honesty I think you have answered your own problem in the way you describe you and OH keepng Eli up and your problem with getting up in the morning

Basically from what you have said hun - it sounds like you need a full day routine not just a bed time one. When Eli wakes for his 8.30 feed I would use that as a signal to start the day. Move him from the bedroom and change his bum and give him a quick top and tail to wake him up properly. Give him his feed in a bright environment with some background noise, chatter to him throughout and just basically start your day. It doesn't matter if he goes to sleep after this feed, just look at this as a 'nap' not a continuation of his 'night time' and you can join him if you need to . As soon as he is awake again continue your day as normal but watch out for sleepy signs, rubbing/scratching face/ears etc a good indication of tiredness in teeny ones is crying for no apparent reason - usually means they are over tired which you may find is the reason Eli is so unsettled of an evening.

In my limited experience I have found that sleep promotes sleep - i.e. the better they nap in the day the better they settle and sleep at night. Even now if Thomas misses a nap he can be a nightmare to settle and can have a disturbed night. As soon as you spot a sign of tiredness try to settle him for a nap. It's easy to say put him down and let him learn to self sooth but tbh hun but in reality it's not always that easy. Hannah is brilliant and will, Thomas on the other hand was a nightmare to get to nap. I used to have to put him in his pram/buggy and rock constantly in the kitchen then sneak out when he had gone off and stay as quiet as I could, even though it was a pain in the bum it eventually worked and he got into a nap routine and I could start putting him in his cot for naps, he is still in the same routine now.

Personaly If Eli is waking at around 8.30am then I would choose 8.30pm as his bedtime. Start his bedtime routine at about 7.30 and keep lights low, noise to a minimum and talk to him quietly and calmly. After his feed (Im sure I read you give a formula feed in the evenings? if so this is a perfect signal for him to associate with bedtime) just keep him calm and quiet - if this involves cuddling him/rocking him etc then so be it - he can learn self soothing once he has got his bedtime sorted - one thing at a time As soon as he starts to look sleepy put him to bed. If he cries pick him up and sooth him again - as mara says, he is too young for CC at this age - and put him down as soon as he looks sleepy again, stay in the bedroom with the lights low and no noise - try not to talk to him other than sshhhhh or maybe singing a quiet lullaby. It might seem like a pain at first but he will soon learn the difference between bedtime and up time. Any feeds during the 'night' i.e. 8.30 pm - 8.30am, keep quiet and dark and put him straight back down after.

You will probably find he will start to get himself a little daytime pattern and you can adopt this as his routine. All babies are different, some can be very flexible and other thrive on strict routine its just a matter of finding what suits yours best. I have one of each which is great as it help me to get things done around them but is a pain if im tired as its difficult to synchronise their naps at the moment.

I hope some of that waffle 1) helps and 2) makes sense

Good luck

xx

Thank you Debs, god you end up trying to sort out all of my various baby troubles! haha

We are already managing elements of what you said, so I suppose it is just building on that - the mornings are entirely my own fault and I need to start making myself get up - it seems like the only way I will finally get that early night!

The night feeds and self soothing are ok - I can put Eli back in his crib straight away and he will chat himself to sleep if needs be, and he will nap in the day when he needs to, so we are part way there maybe I need to put him into his crib for those naps too as otherwise hes on the living room floor (very small flat!). He has also cut himself down to 2 feeds in the night, thank god, but maybe that will turn into 3 if he goes to sleep earlier, thats fine though as he falls asleep find afterwards usually.

Our morning routine is quite good, he has his nakey bum time, bath, playtime etc nearly every day, its definitely better than when he first came home and was up *all* night, we just still need to shift back a few more hours haha

Thanks so much, where would I be without you ladies?! I think if he is in the mood we will use our newly acquired baby massage skills as it relaxes him more than excites him, and bottle, and daddy always does reading the stories too

As my mother tells me, its highly unlikely that he will still be nocturnal by the time he is 5 but that is a bit far away for me

Lol Mari - your mum is right but you have many many more challenges to overcome before he is 5 Best get the sleeping sorted now to save your sanity and energy for weaning, self feeding, walking/climbing (heart attack material), talking, TANTRUMS ,big boy beds and potty training - and that's only up till 2 they certainly keep us busy, these little monkeys!

Tbh hun it sound like you are almost there with the night feeds etc so like you say you just need to drag it all forward a few hours. Unfortunately that does mean getting up earlier and omg did i find that hard (when on mat leave before Thomas I was lucky to drag myself out of my pit before lunch so was my own fault for getting into a bad habit ) but it will good practice for when Eli hits the 10-12 month "I wanna get up and play at 5.30am" stage

Just keep an eye out for those sleepy signs in the day time and whip him into his cot straight away, he will soon get used to his naps and hopefully, like Thomas, start 'asking' to go to bed

Remember: Sleeping baby = happy baby = happy mummy = more BANDA time

xx

thanks for that, I was happily in denial about what the future holds!

I have put him in his crib just now because I know he is tired (he keeps nodding off - giant clue!) but hes in there merrily giggling away - I have no idea what at! But he is happy. I'm reluctant to leave him in there for too long so he knows the crib is for sleeptime not playtime, but I will give him a bit longer

Thanks again (oh, and don't mention the tantrum word! My little angel will never have those hahaha)

Does eli have a dummy hun? When alfie is tired during the day i give him his dummy and he has a comfort blanket that i put over his face (altho not suffocating him!!) and he goes straight off to sleep. He only really gets his dummy during the day for naps so he knows that when he gets it its nap time.

I think that everything that Debs has said is true. Its so hard getting into a routine as your scared of things not working and if it goes wrong the first time u try it u think its not gonna work so stop trying. I remember the first time we put alfie upstairs to sleep at 7.30 rather than keeping him downstairs with us till 10. The first night he just cried and cried - i gave it ten mins and went upstairs and got him and brought him back down! But i realised i was just feeding him - sticking him in his cot and leaving him - he obvs felt abandoned. So from the next night i took him upstairs at 7 and done all his night time routine in his bedroom in the dark (ish). He gets bath at about 7.15 with dad, then he has nakey cuddle time with daddy, into pjs and sleeping bag and bottle at 7.30 and then he is usually asleep by 8pm. Now when we goes upstairs and goes in the bath he knows its bed time!!

I know how hard it is to get up on a morning too lol. Alfie tends to sleep till about 8ish but if he wakes up before that i dont go into his room until 8am!! And he knows it lol! He happily chatters to himself until mammy is ready to get up. He always has his first bottle at 9am and doesn even cry for it cos he knows its coming. Its mad for fast babys adapt to a routine.

I wud really try and get some sort of routine going and stick to it. I know how hard it is but once youve got the hang of it - ull be soooo glad u stuck to it!

Gud luck!

x

Rargh! Hahaha we did have a dummy for a while but Elijah has refused it for a month or so, so I thought, well it saves us trying to wean him off it later

Well, on the health visitors advice we tried postponing Elijahs (natural) teatime nap, and tried to send him off to bed about 8. We ended up with a very cross overtired baby who wanted to feed from 6pm til 1am instead of normal 10pm til 1am! So not quite according to plan, we did manage to get up at about 10 today though :?

Im not sure whether to keep trying with the pushing the nap further back or if it isn't the right way to go. And why wasn't Elijah born with instructions hmm???

I've never been great at routine, but I know what I should be doing, and hopefully Elijah does too. Hmm I probably need to learn to be more strict with myself before I can expect Eli to do it :? pesky growing up!