Advice on how to develop better sleep habits

[eliz77]

Hi, ladies! FTM here, with a 10 week LO. I am having a very difficult time putting LO down for any reason...In the early days/weeks, I was afraid to put him down, and I think we have settled into this routine. But I was able to let him nap on his own during the day and watch him like a hawk. A big part of my issue is I have a hearing impairment and can't hear him breathing or moving around, and at night, I could sleep through any crying.

Now, if he's sound asleep or awake and happy, he does enjoy swing time. He'll even hang out in the RnP for a bit. But, when he really needs a nap or at bedtime, it has become a big event. Lots of hysterics. I end up holding him for long naps and letting him sleep in my bed, and then he is happy. This weekend and today, I tried to work on putting him down alone for nap time, thinking if we can get that part, bedtime would follow. But I have ended up with an overtired, unhappy baby. It hasn't always been this bad, but has gotten worse as he's gotten older. My H is getting frustrated and says I am spoiling him.

I know he's too little to spoil, but is there any way to create good habits? Without stressing him? I used to get 2-3 hour naps in RnP and now maybe get 30mins. I personally don't mind him sleeping on me, he almost STTN if we bed share, but now that I am back to work, I'm worried how this is going to affect him at the babysitters. So far, she just holds him all day and he naps on her.

Any insight, advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

[honeylemon]

You're not spoiling him! 10 weeks is still pretty little. At that age, I do whatever it takes to get good sleep for baby and parents. He's also probably starting to be more observant and notice things more and that could be affecting his sleep.

Is the babysitter ok with holding him for his naps?

Are you swaddling?

[honeylemon]

Feb 16, 2015 16:36:41 GMT -5 vigorousbabymama said:

When you say "more observant and notice things more and that could be affecting his sleep" do you mean distracted and therefore not able to just relax and "focus" on sleep or do you mean that at 10w a LO is noticing things like the pattern of being held for naps and is growing accustomed to it so w/o being held he notices and sleep is impacted??? Asking as I sit here with Vigorous Baby napping on my chest.

Oh, just that he has more going on in his brain with his development and it's keeping him from being able to really focus on sleep. I definitely don't think holding him for sleep at this age is detrimental at all.

Also, I typically notice sleep issues right before and during developmental milestones. Not sure if that's what's going on here or that he just wants the comfort of being touched while he's sleeping. Either way I think it's normal.

[chknma]

I don't have any good advice since neither if my DDs have been good nappers, DD1 started STTN at 5 weeks, now Dd2 cosleep and is still up 2-3 x for feedings at 9+ months.

I rely heavily on babywearing at night and in the weekends. dd2 took a 2 hour nap yesterday on my back while I was able to play with DD1 and do all sorts of stuff around the house.

I will also add that I've notice both girls have different sleeping habits at daycare. Some days Dd2 will nap for a few hours in then pack and play at daycare . She would never do that at home!

At 10 weeks I would agree that your LO is hitting so many developmental jumps that makes it hard. I feel like the first year is about survival, so whatever keeps you sane and functional is a win in my book!

[eliz77]

Feb 16, 2015 16:29:29 GMT -5 honeylemon said:

You're not spoiling him! 10 weeks is still pretty little. At that age, I do whatever it takes to get good sleep for baby and parents. He's also probably starting to be more observant and notice things more and that could be affecting his sleep.

Is the babysitter ok with holding him for his naps?

Are you swaddling?

The Nanny loves him and says she feels he is more secure/bonded with her when she holds him. I bring his RnP when she watches him but she only sets him down to use bathroom. She has only watched him 3x for like 5-6 hours so far, and basically holds him or is playing with him as he lays on a blanket when awake.

I've been wondering about the fact he has more going on in his brain as well as starting to want Mommy. I'm wondering if the changes of me not being home 24/7 have also affected his routine. 

He hates being swaddled. If I swaddle while he is awake, he fights it until he breaks his arms free. If I try to swaddle once asleep, it wake him up and he cries hysterically while fighting swaddle. I try to snuggle him in a blanket and then put him down in that in RnP and it used to help a lot. Not as much lately. I keep meaning to try swaddling but leaving arms free and see if he likes that.

[honeylemon]

Feb 16, 2015 17:50:20 GMT -5 eliz77 said:

The Nanny loves him and says she feels he is more secure/bonded with her when she holds him. I bring his RnP when she watches him but she only sets him down to use bathroom. She has only watched him 3x for like 5-6 hours so far, and basically holds him or is playing with him as he lays on a blanket when awake.

I've been wondering about the fact he has more going on in his brain as well as starting to want Mommy. I'm wondering if the changes of me not being home 24/7 have also affected his routine. 

He hates being swaddled. If I swaddle while he is awake, he fights it until he breaks his arms free. If I try to swaddle once asleep, it wake him up and he cries hysterically while fighting swaddle. I try to snuggle him in a blanket and then put him down in that in RnP and it used to help a lot. Not as much lately. I keep meaning to try swaddling but leaving arms free and see if he likes that.

My son hated being swaddled at first too. Around 3 months I tried it again with a Miracle Blanket and it finally worked. He started sleeping better (aka not touching me) around 4 months. Not claiming it's an actual miracle, but it did work for us. Trying arms out is a good idea too.

I'm sorry you're having sleep struggles. It's definitely one of the hardest parts of motherhood. Hugs!

[doglover31]

I wish I could offer advice. Isaac is 5 months old and we still struggle with sleep...

[meagpt22]

We started a night time routine that we do every night. Bath, book, and bottle. Bottle given in dark room and the I try to put her down just a sleepy.

Napping still trying to get down. Haha. She doesn't nap well or have a consistent pattern.

[eliz77]

I really believe i need to establish a bedtime routine. Our schedules are so inconsistent as it is. I just follow LO's cues for what he needs as far as eat, sleep, diaper changes go, and there is no routine or pattern. Then when you add in my return to work, it throws things off more because 2 days of the week, we won't get home until 8pm. I feel like I could be doing more and like I need to figure something out.

On the plus side, it's 9:25pm and LO has been asleep in his RnP for the last hour and 15 minutes! However, he is still in his day clothes and probably needs another bottle and diaper change soon, so there goes any sort of normal bed time routine...I have to work tomorrow and would love to go to bed but I don't dare wake him!

[KMW08]

I'm not one to give any advice either.

Our schedule is random and late days. I'd say official bedtime is 10-11p. Some days LO will take a nap around 8, but this is really him getting started for night time.

I will say that the best thing I did was let LO sleep on his belly. Much better and longer sleep. The only problem I'm having now is that he scoots in his sleep and his head is always up against the crib slats.

Also, we had a time where LO would wake up immediately after leaving our arms. This has stopped now, but that was a rough time. I'm unsure why it stopped, he just became a better sleeper I guess.

[puglife5869]

I remember feeling the same way when my DD was about that age. I knew I needed to do something different but I didn't really know what that was. I was recommended the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by a lot of people and it was wonderful. I still use it to this day. It lays out different approaches and gives real life scenarios. It gives you an understanding of what your kiddo is going through and needs at different ages. It gave me and my husband a lot of different options and we decided what we were comfortable with and went with it. Now, my DD is what I would consider an easy child and was fairly easy to get on a good schedule but I don't think I would have gotten her to be such a good sleeper without that book. I know this may seem corny but it empowered me. I have referred back to it for this little guy as well and he has already gotten himself into a routine. I definitely haven't been pushing a schedule on him but I have been able to recognize his own pattern and encourage healthy habits. I'm now "that mom" who's hill to die on is sleep.

Also, you may want to look into wonder weeks. I always expect crappy sleep during the wonder weeks.

[meagpt22]

I second wonder weeks....it doesn't make fussiness go away but makes me know it's normal at this stage!

[kels09]

I see you have received some great advice. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about routine. As he gets a little older sticking to a routine will make your life easier with my DD it just established itself but with my boys I really had to work at it.


It's very hard in the beginning but you will both get the hang of it. Once you establish a routine that works for you will notice a pattern in your LO and recognize the signals for bedtime.

[oldbaylover1024]

You've gotten some really good advice. My DD isn't a great sleeper and never has been. However, we did see great improvement when we set a routine. Same time of night we'd do bath, night nurse in the darkest dark room possible, then right to the crib. We also found some very soft classical music (or any background noise) helped her sleep. It's very, very soft so it's just audible, but it really helped her.

J also fought the swaddle. We started letting her arms out and she really slept better. She's a mover and would lay her body still, but her arms were always wiggling.

Good luck. Sleep struggles are really hard. Remember that it's still early and you have plenty of time to set a routine. You're not spoiling your LO!

[dragonfly1809]

There is some great advice in this thread. I think most important is knowing it's all normal, and we're all doing the right things one way or another. It's so easy to let the lack of sleep become overwhelming.

I find our evening/night routine keeps me sane.

[threetexans]

I third Wonder Weeks! It helped us a lot. There is also an app available for your phone, although it was not helpful for us. The app doesn't take adjusted age into account. 

ETA:  I'm also a big fan of "The Baby Whisperer" books.  She has some good calming techniques, ideas on setting up routines, and sleep help when LO is a bit older.  She isn't CIO, and is easy to adjust to meet your needs. 

We too got into habits with M.  Initially she wouldn't sleep without milk, either breast or bottle. Then she wouldn't sleep unless we rocked her.  Initially we thought she disliked swaddling.  We reintroduced it again, and I am so glad we did.  It really helped us.  Now I'm a big advocate for swaddling and routine.  M has been a sleep self-soother since 8 months, when we used the Baby Whisper and moved her into her own room.  I'm sure it would have happened much earlier, if we had tried.  We had the best intentions to read some parenting books, but just hadn't gotten to it before M was born at 32 weeks. 

[bootsorhearts]

We had to learn the hard way that one of the keys to good sleep is to let baby fall asleep on his own. Literally, not in your arms or on your lap or in your bed, but on his own in his own bed/bassinet without your help. Otherwise he wakes up and goes 'hey! where the  hell is the person I fell asleep on? or the big hand I was playing with? or the person who was singing to me?' and it's very disconcerting. Set up a bedtime 'routine' and follow it religiously at nighttime so there is predictability. For us, it's just walking around and saying goodnight to everything on the way up to his bedroom 'goodnight door! goodnight kitchen! etc. He gets cuddles and a kiss and then he's put down drowsy but not asleep. Now sometimes it takes picking him up for another cuddle or two and laying him back down again if he cries, but generally within 10 minutes he is settled and happy and awake but very drowsy, then we slowly leave the room and let him put himself to sleep. It's never too early to start getting into those habits.

[ClassyMrsA]

Sorry, I'm hijacking this a bit...

bootsorhearts,I have a question about the drowsy but awake thing. We put her down and she immediately cries which quickly escalates to a screaming tantrum. It takes us anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get her to stop crying and relax again. She sleeps in our room and the only way we can set her down without crying is if she is SUPER asleep. We get like 3-4 hours of her in the pnp like that and then once she wakes up she wont go back in there no matter how many times I try. She ends up sleeping with us for the rest of the night. We at last have had some success with her sleeping on her own between us, but our bed is not really big enough for that and once she is crawling around I wont feel like it's a safe option anymore.

Any tips? I'm going to see if the library has any good books about sleep today, too. But I'm going crazy. Everything we've read and been told just isn't working. Oh, and we do have a bedtime routine.

[bootsorhearts]

Feb 20, 2015 11:46:24 GMT -5 ClassyMrsA said:

Sorry, I'm hijacking this a bit...

bootsorhearts,I have a question about the drowsy but awake thing. We put her down and she immediately cries which quickly escalates to a screaming tantrum. It takes us anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get her to stop crying and relax again. She sleeps in our room and the only way we can set her down without crying is if she is SUPER asleep. We get like 3-4 hours of her in the pnp like that and then once she wakes up she wont go back in there no matter how many times I try. She ends up sleeping with us for the rest of the night. We at last have had some success with her sleeping on her own between us, but our bed is not really big enough for that and once she is crawling around I wont feel like it's a safe option anymore.

Any tips? I'm going to see if the library has any good books about sleep today, too. But I'm going crazy. Everything we've read and been told just isn't working. Oh, and we do have a bedtime routine.

Yeah it's a struggle. We had to break through that by just continuing to pick him up at the first sign of crying, settle him and gently lay him down again. The first time, it took probably 30 minutes and picking him up and putting him down 25-30 times. It was rough but after that first time, it got a lot easier and now bedtime is really easy or at worst (if he's over tired or teething) it may take 3-5 times of laying him back down and a bit of fussing. It's sort of a battle of wills that first time but eventually you will win because they will tire themselves out.

[ClassyMrsA]

Feb 20, 2015 11:55:39 GMT -5 bootsorhearts said:

Feb 20, 2015 11:46:24 GMT -5 ClassyMrsA said:

Sorry, I'm hijacking this a bit...

bootsorhearts,I have a question about the drowsy but awake thing. We put her down and she immediately cries which quickly escalates to a screaming tantrum. It takes us anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get her to stop crying and relax again. She sleeps in our room and the only way we can set her down without crying is if she is SUPER asleep. We get like 3-4 hours of her in the pnp like that and then once she wakes up she wont go back in there no matter how many times I try. She ends up sleeping with us for the rest of the night. We at last have had some success with her sleeping on her own between us, but our bed is not really big enough for that and once she is crawling around I wont feel like it's a safe option anymore.

Any tips? I'm going to see if the library has any good books about sleep today, too. But I'm going crazy. Everything we've read and been told just isn't working. Oh, and we do have a bedtime routine.

Yeah it's a struggle. We had to break through that by just continuing to pick him up at the first sign of crying, settle him and gently lay him down again. The first time, it took probably 30 minutes and picking him up and putting him down 25-30 times. It was rough but after that first time, it got a lot easier and now bedtime is really easy or at worst (if he's over tired or teething) it may take 3-5 times of laying him back down and a bit of fussing. It's sort of a battle of wills that first time but eventually you will win because they will tire themselves out.

Thanks.  We'll definitely try that tonight!

[threetexans]

Feb 20, 2015 10:12:03 GMT -5 bootsorhearts said:

We had to learn the hard way that one of the keys to good sleep is to let baby fall asleep on his own. Literally, not in your arms or on your lap or in your bed, but on his own in his own bed/bassinet without your help. Otherwise he wakes up and goes 'hey! where the  hell is the person I fell asleep on? or the big hand I was playing with? or the person who was singing to me?' and it's very disconcerting. Set up a bedtime 'routine' and follow it religiously at nighttime so there is predictability. For us, it's just walking around and saying goodnight to everything on the way up to his bedroom 'goodnight door! goodnight kitchen! etc. He gets cuddles and a kiss and then he's put down drowsy but not asleep. Now sometimes it takes picking him up for another cuddle or two and laying him back down again if he cries, but generally within 10 minutes he is settled and happy and awake but very drowsy, then we slowly leave the room and let him put himself to sleep. It's never too early to start getting into those habits.

We kicked ourselves, that we didn't start sooner.  It took a few weeks to break old habits and establish new ones.  Almost a year later, and she is an excellent self-soother.  We still have issues sleeping away from home, but we use the old techniques and she will eventually go down and stay asleep.  

[threetexans]

We started at 8 months, so 6 months adjusted. We moved her into her own room at 7 months, but she still had to be rocked to sleep. The time it took to rock her was getting longer and longer, so we finally jumped with the sleep training. I used this book as a guide, and it's set up to show routines and tips for various ages. We liked it, because we couldn't do CIO. As M gains a new skill, we have seen small regressions, but she bounces back fairly quickly.

[meagpt22]

Feb 20, 2015 17:24:47 GMT -5 vigorousbabymama said:

threetexans and @ bootsorhearts how old were your LOs when you started the routines you described?

Just butting in I started the nighttime routine around 5 weeks when she moved into the crib but no bath everyday then. Around 9 weeks I started the bath routine daily bc I noticed how when I did that how much better she was a bedtime. Honestly though I only started a routine bc I started to notice she had a pattern. I do think it's about about what the baby is like and paying attention to their cues. I say "Its Emmas world I only live in it" haha. However doing the routine means once she's down she's out with the occasionally fuss requiring putting pacific we back in and even that is within the first hour of going down...this I hope she'll learn to do soon on her own.

[honeylemon]

I wanted to add about the drowsy but awake thing.

Some kids will do it and some won't, no matter how hard you try. My first would nurse, get drowsy, I'd lay him down in his crib and he'd roll over and go to sleep. This started around 8 months. My daughter is 18 months and still has to fall asleep on me or DH before we can lay her down. We've tried every trick in the book(s) and she just won't do it. Putting her in her crib awake results in hours of crying and back patting before I finally just pick her up and rock her to sleep. She won't do this forever so I'm not going to force anything right now.

If it works for you, awesome. It really is amazing. But if someone reading this is wondering what they're doing "wrong" because their baby won't do it, well, I think all babies are different and some of them just need more physical touch at bed times.

[taberbtb]

I am stalking this thread like crazy because I am also wondering when to start a night time routine with B. She's just 3 weeks today, so likely too early yet. Thoughts?

[eliz77]

I think it's always a good ides to have a routine, just can't really expect a set schedule yet, if that makes sense! From get go I notice we do certain tasks in the same order, but when it happens dictated by baby.