SO. The past few days have been sort of rough. I haven’t worked out since Tuesday. I have not been able to finish things at work, in part because I’ve been totally inefficient. I had one terrifying moment on my drive home when I realized I was not as alert as I should have been (NOT okay to take micro-naps on the highway).
The obvious common demoninator: I AM SO TIRED. Yes, again. C, sweet thing that he is, still seems to think he is supposed to be on a newborn’s sleep schedule. And maybe he is! And that would probably be okay if I weren’t working full time (though still not easy).
Last night, he went to bed at 7:30pm, and was up to eat at:
– 10 pm
– midnight
– 2 am
– 5 am
Basically, the sleep patterns of your average 3 week old (he’s 4+ months). Luckily he DOES fall asleep after eating, but there are also sometimes additional wake ups when he loses the paci in between. He’s still in our room in the Rock ‘n’ Play, because I can’t bear to deal with the idea of going up and down stairs for this many wakeups. And he has yet to stay asleep for more than 10 minutes in the crib.
I am starting to feel crazy and not super happy, and I know it’s 100% sleep deprivation. Things I am going to try:
— Giving him a full bottle from the freezer stash at bedtime. I’ve been resisting this because — well, it seems like I can satisfy him just enough at the breast and therefore I haven’t been able to convince myself that this makes sense. If he doesn’t eat all night my supply will probably drop but at this point I think it will be worth the sacrifice.
— Starting baby oatmeal before bed. Apparently, the pendulum is swinging BACK to early food introduction (to be honest, I haven’t done the research on it myself). I’m willing to take her word for it especially if it might help satisfy him more and help him sleep.
— Continuing to work on the crib transition. I think he actually might be getting too hot all swaddled in the Rock ‘n’ Play, and I don’t think it’s helping his plagiocephaly (flat head – more on that later).
I definitely don’t feel like he’s old enough to do any sort of formal sleep training, but he’s 16 1/2 lbs. I think the q3h feedings probably don’t need to be happening anymore!
PS: He eats 15 oz (3 x 5oz bottles) while I’m at work and I breastfeed in the AM before work, at 6 pm, at bedtime (around 7:30pm is when he seems to get tired), and overnight a bunch of times as above. I totally don’t expect him to do 7:30 – 7:30 or anything like that (A never did!) but even just 1 or 2 wake ups would be a huge improvement at this point.
PPS: His thyroid function was checked 2 weeks ago since he’s on Synthroid for congenital hypothyroidism. I was hoping maybe he was overtreated so we could drop the dose, but levels were perfect.
11 Comments
In a randomized controlled trial, early solids before bed was not found to increase sleep. The study is on pub-med somewhere. Of course, it used rice instead of oatmeal, but baby oatmeal is so processed I can’t imaging it has a much better glycemic load, but who knows.
In terms of early solid foods, there’s not good research. It feels weird to be lecturing someone in pediatrics on this, but it seems like the signs of readiness are still considered to be the best indicator of whether or not a baby is ready for solids. So what that means is that if your baby is showing the signs at 4 months (interest in food, no tongue thrust reflex,etc.), you shouldn’t try to delay until 6 months (which was the APA’s sort-of recommendation when my first was that age), not that you should push food before 6 months.
And yes, what oldmdgirl said about regular sleep regressions. This too will pass. This stuff generally happens with growth spurts, mental leaps, and teething.
Touchpoints by Dr. Brazelton was my salvation. It was amazing how sleep problems coincided with development for my two. We stopped swaddling by 4 months and that helped. My youngest was a mama’s boy and really needed me nearby for quite a while. He nursed often day and night. I learned to nurse lying down and that helped immensely, I could rest more while he nursed. He also got good at latching on by himself in this position. I also found that when he seemed tired, he was actually over tired and didn’t stay asleep for very long at a time. I started putting him down earlier and that helped. He also took three naps during the day, the last about 45 minutes between 4 and 6 and then he was down by 7:30 till about 11-11:30. He really had a non traditional nap schedule and still requires more sleep even at 14.
Good luck. This is a very difficult time especially with a toddler and a full time job.
Oof – my sympathies!! I do a bottle of expressed milk at bedtime (5 oz). Not sure if she really needs it but can’t hurt for longer sleep.
We followed 12 hrs sleep by 12 weeks method for night weaning. Basically reduce the minutes nursed at one feeding at a time til the feeding is dropped.
Other things that helped us during night weaning – C probably doesn’t *need* to eat every 3 hrs at night.
1. We give 5 oz bottle of expressed milk at bedtime after nursing 20-30 min.
2. Have dad give bottle during night wakings.
3. Get rnp out of your room even in the hall outside your room will help.
Good luck & my sympathies. Sleep deprivation is BY FAR my least fave part of the new baby experience.
Long time reader but I think the last time I posted was before A!
As far as sleep, we have two (one almost 22 months the other 3months) and I found both times that even though I thought each weren’t ready to move out of RNP, that once I transitioned them it was sooo much better (also I second whomever said to get them out of the room). We literally had # 2 in the living room in a pack n play when we were in a 2 bedroom apt b/c we didn’t want him with us or his brother at that point and it seemed everyone slept better. If you have a PNP and don’t want to jump to the crib upstairs, maybe try that so he adjusts? Also, our first had terrible terrible constipation and the pediatrician suggested introducing oatmeal around 4.5-5months at that point to help alleviate it and I think 1) it did help with constipation (not sure why entirely) 2) it also seemed to help with sleep (maybe coincidence).
One last thing… I don’t think you have any control over your advertisements, but I usually read this blog on my phone while pumping at work or nursing (yes, I know I should be savoring my baby but whatever, I read blogs a lot) and today I literally could not get the ad to go away from the screen so I switched to computer (hence why I took time to write a comment). Either way, I am not sure if you are following the controversy of open carry and target (basically people are toting semi-automatics into target b/c they can) but it made me a bit sad that as a mom of two and a pediatrician you have ads for target on your website (this was the add that was blocking me from reading your comment which I could not find the "x" for). I realize that the ad is chosen and generated by blogher, but I would hope blogher would try to veer away from this. Again, I don’t want to be political but many moms are trying to avoid target til they ask customers to leave guns at home (this strategy has actually changed policies at Starbucks and Chick-filet amongst others). Just food for thought…
Yup, 4 month sleep regression. We had it pretty bad with L, who was actually sleeping through the night from 8 weeks to right after I went back to work (and then didn’t get it back together again until…wait…never). It sounds like your situation will be short-lived, given that he’s going back to sleep after eating and not terribly fussy. We tried the oatmeal thing with B and it just caused some weird GI stuff, and did NOT help the sleep. The bottle from the freezer stash is what helped a bit with L (getting him to stretch a little longer before the first night feeding). I think my supply wasn’t as great as it had been, and he wasn’t getting full at the bedtime feed. Giving 3-4 ounces top up (it KILLED me, I was so stingy about those ounces at first), really helped him fall asleep and stay asleep for a few hours.
I know you said more later on the plagiocephaly, but I thought I’d just note that for our daughter, it actually seemed easier to position her so she wasn’t laying on the flat spot in the Rock’n’Play than in the crib – she’d generally stay as we placed her in the RnP, I think because we had the angles to help a bit, but no matter what we did in the crib, she’d turn her head to lie on the flat spot within a couple of minutes. She did wind up in a helmet for a few months, so who knows, maybe that would have been avoidable without the Rock’n’Play, but I honestly don’t think so, at least not in our case.
I feel your pain. Our issue isn’t so much frequent wakings but it is just damn IMPOSSIBLE to get her back down. She was up for 2.5 hours at one of her middle of the night wake-ups last night. Our twice-nightly feedings end up meaning 2-4 hours of sleep lost and I feel like I’m starting to lose it. Annika has always been this way so I’m not sure if it’s even 4-month-regression stuff or just her normal. Even though she’s young, we’re going to try sleep training soon because we just can’t take it anymore.
Anyway, sending you a commiserative hug and a glass of wine. Or coffee. Or both.
Just the two cents of a first time mom, but with our three month old its helped to let him cry for up to 5 minutes to help him work on self soothing and to determine if he was just transitioning through aleep cycles, and to make sure he was actually taking a full feeding by unswaddling/talking him through/etc. to make sure he wasn’t back up to see me within an hour or two. I’m not sure if the four month sleep regression is too mighty for these tactics, though! Our son also gets incredibly hot in the rock and play, and we’re working on transitioning to the crib with the help of the Potteryn Barn chenille sheets that feel sort of like the bunny. I’m son impressed that you’re able to work and function with that wake up schedule!
Others have said it but I bet this is totally the 4 month sleep regression. It hit us HARD with Camille. For naps and bedtime. After a few weeks it seemed to calm down a bit.
Now. . . if you have any advice on how to break Camille from her swaddle then please let me know. Ha! She will be 6 months July 14th, and I feel like we need to break this habit, but I am not sure I am ready to wake up 500x a night!!!
I have a 9 month old and a 26 month old. The 9 month old was up every 2-3 hours, every night, until 8.5 months. At that point I had had enough! He hasn’t been too interested in solids, so force feeding cereals wasn’t an appealing solution. So one night, after trying a few other unsuccessful techniques and undergoing 8.5 mo of sleep deprivation, I gave him a bottle of (gasp, the horror!) formula before bed. He proceeded to sleep for 11 hours! Of course I had to get up and pump during the night, but the fact he slept was shocking. As I have heard, the formula takes longer to digest and keeps them fuller longer. Since that night, our routine has been to breastfeed then top off with formula before bed. He usually takes 2-4 oz of formula in addition to whatever he got from the breast, but I’m comforted knowing he is full. He has been up 1-2x per night (between 5:30pm-6:00am) and I try to wait 20 min before going in to see if he will settle himself. I realized I had been rushing in to get him too soon previously. I can handle 1-2 wake ups! I have always been hesitant to do formula, but I think it helped him get full and subsequently break his waking habit and now the few ounces he gets in the evening are just for my convenience so I don’t have to defrost and warm frozen milk during the harried bedtime hour!
Good luck, you will figure it out with your awesome motherly instincts and looking back the sleepless nights will all be a blur!
Just the two cents of a first time mom, but with our three month old its helped to let him cry for up to 5 minutes to help him work on self soothing and to determine if he was just transitioning through aleep cycles, and to make sure he was actually taking a full feeding by unswaddling/talking him through/etc. to make sure he wasn’t back up to see me within an hour or two. I’m not sure if the four month sleep regression is too mighty for these tactics, though! Our son also gets incredibly hot in the rock and play, and we’re working on transitioning to the crib with the help of the Potteryn Barn chenille sheets that feel sort of like the bunny. I’m son impressed that you’re able to work and function with that wake up schedule!
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