Is it only my baby who will only settle on his tummy????
From day 1 he has never settled on his back and now really only ever sleeps
on his tummy, even at night. He is now 3 months old and has been sleeping straight through the night for about 3.5 weeks. I daren`t tell the health visitor as I know I will be in for a telling off. As some people have pointed out though, years ago mothers were advised to put babies to sleep on their fronts. So my question is, how bad is it really? At the moment he is still in our room and sleeps only inches from my face in his crib. He is soon to go in his own room as he is fastly out:confused: growing the crib but I am worried as I won`t be able to check on him as quick as I can now.
:confused:

I think it becomes less of an issue once they can move around a little on their own.
My suggestion would be to buy an apnoea alarm. If he stops breathing an alarm will sound and although they can be expensive it provides vast peace of mind. We've got them for our twins who had breahting troubles in the early stages.
eBay does them cheaper than places like Mothercare but you have no guarantees if it isn't perfect.
But then people are right, mothers were well advised to sleep the baby on their front and they survived but the 'Back To Sleep' campaign is well researched too.
I'd say bite the bullet, let your son sleep how he pleases and buy an alarm.

Mine has always enjoyed sleeping on his tummy, too. As soon as he could turn himself over, that was it. Don't panic! They say that once they can turn themselves over on their own, the risk decreases drastically anyway. Our health visitor just said to turn him back over whenever we noticed he was on his tummy, but really not to worry about it, and certainly not to bother as far as getting up in the night to turn him.

Hope that helps

Thanks mummies! 1st time mum and after 3 months its a lot easier but you still worry naturally, so its good to talk to other parents!!!

you're right about the years old thing for sleeping them on their bellies. it's still the norm in various other places, too (france for one, judging by how french baby grows have the poppers up the back - most inconvenient for us!).

if that's the way your baby sleeps best then i really wouldn't worry about it - you've tried to get him on his back but he's just happier on his front. chances are that he wouldn't do that if it was really that bad for him (hey, it's not like it's addictive or anything), maybe he actually finds it easier to breathe on his front. not everyone is physiologically identical, after all.

My little boy is 12 months and has only recently taken to sleeping on his tummy. I have a different problem though - he sleeps on his tummy, then wakes up and cries because he can't yet turn back over. Is this unusual in a child of that age? I can't seem to teach him to turn back over either! Quite often as soon as I turn him onto his back, he turns back onto his tummy, falls asleep, then wakes up shortly afterwards crying again.:huh:

I'm just not really sure what "sleep through the night" actually means. baby babychicken is now nearly 3 months old, and for all but 5 weeks of that has been letting us go to bed around midnight and not feed her until 7.30, and we wake her to offer her the midnightish feed as she's already slept for 2 or 3 hours by then. Does this count as sleeping through the night? Should we not be waking her to feed her at midnight? I'd consult gina ford, but i find her far too obnoxious to inflict that on myself.

Thank you all (or at least whoever replies)!

Hiya,
We let our twins wake to feed at will and over time that stretched longer and longer, now at 10 months they sleep 7.30 (ISH) to 7.00am (ISH), have a bottle then go back to sleep for an hour.
If you were to follow what we did from 3 months it goes like this:
Bed at 8.30pm or after nearest bottle, top up if required.
Feed whenever she wakes and keep putting her back to bed until a normal getting up time for you.
Plus the controlled crying method - one minute each time for the first 3 nights, 2 minutes each time for next 3 nights and so on, never beyond 5 minutes though. We did it from 10 weeks and it worked pretty well - just make sure you go in if she sounds hysterical or similar.
I think in effect you've cracked it and techinically she's going most of the night - ours are definitely going all night and I think this is what you're aiming for. The overnight feeds were frequent at one stage but get later and less frequent as time goes on.
I don't intend for this to be patronising, just sharing what we did.
Now we made bedtime earlier because they've learnt the diurnal pattern and developed a routine, no problems.... cept for the teething bit! :D

It sounds to me as though she is doing really well. Both mine wanted feeding day and night every 2 hours. When they got to 6 months, I said "enough is enough" and stopped feeding them after they went to bed. It surprised me how quickly they adapted to this decision. They soon got fed up of being offered water in the night, it wasn't worth disturbing their sleep for!:hihi:

I agree with you about Gina Ford. I know people who follow her advice to the letter and have become absolutely ruled by her guidelines. The woman doesn't actually have any kids herself.:huh:

Hi

At that age 'sleeping through the night' can mean sleeping through for 6 hours at a time. We found our LO slept through when he started getting more physical activity ehen he started crawling so round about 9 months.

Hiya,

I asked my hv and they class sleeping thru as going 6hours, my daughter goes down about 7 and wakes anytime from 5-8 so shes classes as sleeping through,

Some babies take ages to sleep through it depends on them as babies

Sleeping through the night? Ah I can only dream..... I had two or three nights where babyHels slept 4hours at night and thought at last things were going to get gradually better. But, he's back to waking every two hours again :(

I never in a million years considered waking cosycub once he was asleep, not for anyone. Babies have their own rhythms, and from lots of anecdotal evidence, they do very well if you let them move along at their pace. Now he sleeps through, and he eats at normal times, and no struggling at all with routines and rules that make you feel inadequate and out of control.
I am NOT a fan of Gina and others like her. I think they harm rather than help, honestly.

I never in a million years considered waking cosycub once he was asleep, not for anyone. Babies have their own rhythms, and from lots of anecdotal evidence, they do very well if you let them move along at their pace. Now he sleeps through, and he eats at normal times, and no struggling at all with routines and rules that make you feel inadequate and out of control.
I am NOT a fan of Gina and others like her. I think they harm rather than help, honestly.

I agree - at least going with the experience i've had with my sprog, babies are capable of developing their own routines. besides, i get really ratty if people wake me when i'm tired, so why i'd deliberately do that to m'sprog just because gina ford doesn't like babies sleeping later than 7.30am i don't know. the only reason i wake baby babychickens to feed her late at night (with increasingly small feeds) is to make sure i get a good night - it think it's fine to expect her to be a little bit amenable - the late feed will hopefully be dropped within a couple of weeks.

gina ford.... Boo! Hiss!

I would have classed sleeping through the night as 5 to 6 hours and would have taken 5 quite happily. Little darling got up every night until he was 5 years old! Didn't want feeding, or changing desperately - just woke up!
My sister's new baby - three months old and already going from 10pm til 6am! Don't know how she does it!

Every sproglette is different.

Surfin jnr no.2 goes to bed after her last bottle by 7.30pm and does the full 12 hours. That would be great except for the fact that surfin jnr no.1 wakes up at 3 in the morning and shouts me in as his covers have come up over his feet!!!!

He's up every day, without fail, at 06.07am! I thought that with him starting school recently he'd sleep longer, but not the case as yet.

Hey Ho.

Jim:thumbsup:

Hi,

I was just wondering if at 3 months old there is a 'usual' pattern of sleeping and feeding through the night for babies? My son has a feed at around seven before going to sleep and his night time wakings vary every night by quite a lot. Sometimes he will wake up at around 11-12pm then 2-3am then 5 -6am, but other nights he has slept right through from 7pm to 3am and then not woken till 7am (which has been brill!) We tried waking him for feeds at around 10.30pm before going to bed but on these nights he seems to wake up more than if we let him sleep through. Theses variations are not a problem but I was just curious to see what other parents have experienced sleep-wise with babies of this age...? Also does there seem to be a difference between girls and boys? What age have most of you found that your baby settles into a routine through the night? (My son is breastfed by the way).

breast or bottle fed?

when i was breastfeeding i'd be up routinely every3 hours for a feed that lasted two hours. when i switched to bottle feeding (expressed milk) at about 5 weeks she started feeding faster and would go for longer periods between feeds.

Hiya Jellyfish and congrats on his arrival, glad to see you online again.
Our girls went through all this but we started dreamfeeding them around 10 weeks ish and the time between feeds slowly grew longer. I don't think it's predictable for ages but at 12 weeks we started getting them into a routine of bedtimes and dreamfeeds and so on and I think it made a difference.... the diurnal routine and so on.
Best of luck with it and hope to see you at Jellytots.

Hi Zebra - thanks! What do you mean by dream feeding? I will try to make it down to jellytots sometime...

Baby chickens - I am breastfeeding only.

It's funny that even three or four feeds a night still seems like a blessing compared to those first few weeks! :)

Hi Zebra - thanks! What do you mean by dream feeding? I will try to make it down to jellytots sometime...

Baby chickens - I am breastfeeding only.

It's funny that even three or four feeds a night still seems like a blessing compared to those first few weeks! :)

um, on rereading your post you did say you were breastfeeding. i have the attention span of a daddylonglegs and didn't read the whole thing, sorry.

babybabychickens was predictably sleeping through from 11-8 by the time she was 6 weeks old, but i think this is a miracle compared to most babies. didn't do me any good anyway as i was still up expressing every 2 hours for 45 minutes trying to increase my supply sufficiently to feed her properly.

My daughter has just started sleeping though the night (9pm to 8am) at ten weeks old and she is 100% breastfed.

Before this her sleep patterns varied a lot...I usually got a block of 4/6 hours of sleep, though some nights I was up several times and got a lot less !!!

Jellyfish.
'Dream Feeding' is the art of giving your baby a late feed without waking them up, I think this is only possible with bottle babies (please correct me if I am wrong) as my daughter refuses to nurse unless she is fully awake, her lips are sealed shut !

Dream feeding is supposed to be possible for both breastfed and bottlefed babies, and I thought it sounded fantastic...but cosycub would take neither breast nor bottle if picked up in the night, so I had to give it up as a bad job... wish it had worked for him, though.

Ah I see. Dreamfeeding doesn't work for baby jellyfish either - inasmuchas he doesn't sleep for any longer if he has an extra feed - he just takes it as a bonus meal!

Hi Jellyfish, I fed my son on demand and he stirred for feeds every two hours 24/7 for nearly a year! Mind you, I had got rightfully tired of it by then and started to just soothe him back to sleep offering only water from a sippycup so he was only getting one or maybe two milk feeds through the night. Thinking back now I am sure this would have worked earlier, but I hadn't realised or considered it (i.e. starting to 'manage' the demand feeding) - and then a year had passed..!
.

Hi Henrietta, I can well believe a year just flying past without realising. I'm sure the rules if time change or warp or something the moment you get pregnant!! I'm going to bear the whole using cooled water trick in mind if baby jellyfish hasn't settled in a few months. Although at night I'm loathe to try new things in case they dont work and then I'm up all night...:rolleyes: PS - darn, I keep writing replies under my partner's login!! Jellyfish x

My daughter has been sleeping from 11:30pm til 8:00am since she was about 2 weeks old, she 11 wks now.

Hi Clareyfairy, do you mean that she sleeps through without a feed?

A bit confused about what to do for the best for 3 month old.

She currently sleeps from 11pm/12 to 8:30/9am (I wake her), then has another 40-60 minute kip in the morning and then sleeps for 4 hours in the afternoon. When she sleeps in the day, I basically leave her to sleep in the reclining chair, or put on the sofa to sleep (pillows are placed to ensure she doesn't fall off and I watch her).

I've read that at 3 months, some people take them to their cot to sleep, have set nap times and put them to bed at 8:30pm at night.

What do you do/did for your 3 month old?

I did and still do whatever's easiest for both of us. Cosycub usually naps on the sofa, for instance, and has learned to be a deep sleeper, not too bothered about noise.
He fell into a sleep routine all by himself, and I'm a big fan of baby-led sleep and feeding at such an early age (within reason, lol).
But different things work for different babies, so unfortunately I don't think there's any hard and fast rules that will make it all work swimmingly. Go with your Mummy instincts, they're your best advice.

A bit confused about what to do for the best for 3 month old.

She currently sleeps from 11pm/12 to 8:30/9am (I wake her), then has another 40-60 minute kip in the morning and then sleeps for 4 hours in the afternoon. When she sleeps in the day, I basically leave her to sleep in the reclining chair, or put on the sofa to sleep (pillows are placed to ensure she doesn't fall off and I watch her).

I've read that at 3 months, some people take them to their cot to sleep, have set nap times and put them to bed at 8:30pm at night.

What do you do/did for your 3 month old?

since about 3 months i've been leaving babybabychickens on the lounge floor to sleep during the day (or, if she falls asleep in her car seat in the car, i'll leave her in it...the seat, not the car, obviously). she only goes in a darkened room at night in her crib. since she learnt to roll over i've found the floor to be fantastic - i wedge cushions under her so she can't roll, and just leave her there. she's happy to sleep in blazing sunlight, and i can lie on the floor with if she's having trouble dropping off. she sleeps whenever she wants and for as long as she wants, and established a very predictable routine without my interference (very similar to your baby's routine, in fact). i decided i wanted her to be able to sleep anywhere, so didn't want her to have any special sleeping place...that said, she gets really excited when she's tired and she sees her crib, which is really very cute. she only gets put in htere when she's clearly tired so that she's never got used to lying in there and squawking...she's also silent if she wakes during the night - don't know why, but i assume it's because it's dark and hence she knows she won't get any attention. at 5 1/2 months we're just in the process of dropping her last feed of the night, so once we've done that she'll be in bed by 9 every night whether she's still awake or not.

if your baby has no trouble sleeping, then leave her to it - don't assume that other peoples' advice about sleeping should apply to your baby.

If I did want her to go to bed earlier, how would you change the bedtime? If she is wide awake at 8pm, do I just put her in moses basket and hope she falls asleep?

Also, I have woken her up every morning now, as she doesn't seem to wake up herself and I think that 10 hours without a feed is a bit excessive. Am I doing the right thing? Should I leave her and see if she does wake up on her own? How long would you leave a 3 month old without having a feed?

well, i left babybabychickens without her last feed for the first time last night, and 14hrs later she still hadn't woken, so i woke and fed her anyway - taht was more to fit in with me and so her meals were at normal times than anything particular to do with me thinking she was going to waste away in her sleep. you are allowed to have your sprog fit in with you, too, it doesn't make you evil. if she does it again, let her sleep unless you need to be anywhere at a set time that day - if she has a routine, i doubt having a lie-in would alter that, anymore than not having a lie-in would mean she's always tired. she, like babybaby, is hardly likely to starve in her sleep - she'll wake if she's really hungry. of course, she might be truly horrible when she does wake until you feed her.

to get her to sleep earlier - put her to bed, switch off the lights, and leave her to it! if she's still awake and squawking half an hour later, give her a hug until she's calm again, and leave her to it again. my guess would be that she'll go to sleep within 15mins of the light going off though.

I'm with you, Babychickens, on the leaving-for-a-lie-in idea. Id go with that too except have found quite by chance with my own that if I (reluctantly, sometimes!) wake her if she hasn't woken up, I am more guaranteed a smooth-running day and good night's sleep. I guess my advice would be to try several different ideas and see what works.

To re-iterate, 'do what is right for both you and your baby.' - I was very regimental before I had Teeky-Little and envisioned being a Gina Ford conformist by 4 weeks however, like Babybabychicken, mine found her own routine without any interference from me! (And by 20 weeks I stopped worrying/caring about what other people thought!)

You sound like you're doing a great job! Well done!!

i had my little ones in a routine by about 3 weeks old,,, during the day let them nap when the felt lke it and at night i wud bath them for about 6/6.30 feed them an have them in bed by about 7.15, i just found that easier for me, i cud have a bath knowing they were fast asleep in the other room safe and full, they wud usualy wake for about 11 for a final feed and sleep thru till 6/7 the next morning!

changing a babies routine wont take a few days if you want to do it stick with it for about a week or ten days! have the routine set out in your head too, so u know at 7 she will b in the bath and by 7.30 shes in bed and dont let anything alter it.

i like my mummy time but i like the"me" time more! especially at night, i have lots of friends who keep their children up till 9 or later and i cudnt do it my children go to bed at 7, bathed and fed wether they like it or not,, but because i did it from almost day dot....... its their normal!

I agree with all responses! It's down to you - your baby does find a routine but you can also lead it...I read somewhere the other day that if you want to introduce changes, to try it gradually in half and hour periods over a week and after a couple of weeks it should become routine.

I never had a fixed routine with my first born (2.5) and she is a nightmare sleeper even though at night she has bath time, story time and sleep time. I also have a three month old and he is routined like I have never known! I bath and feed him from around 6.30 - 7pm and he is in bed and asleep by 8pm not to wake until 7am next morning. We started this from around 3 weeks purely because I was so worried about managing them both at nighttime.

I would never worry about leaving him without food (your baby will more that likely tell you if she is hungry!)...he then has a morning nap of about 40mins. In the afternoon, he does go for the same long marathon nap, which I find does him good, occasionally I do wake him as I have to ensure he has a bath at 6.30pm.

So, it's up to you and baby. Yes, they find their own routine, but if it isn't working for you - lead it to be more comfortable - after all - if you are not going to bed until midnight each night - you get tired too and unlike babies, us mums don't get to enjoy the same sleeps in the afternoon as our babies do(as our other halfs seem to think!)...

Threads merged, for parents of older children please see the Big Toddlers Sleep Thread.
Cheers
Zebra

My baby is 5 months old and we are trying to get her to sleep in her own room at a reasonable time.
Up until now she's stayed up with me and her Dad and gone to bed at the same times as us (stupid, I know!) in her moses basket in our room.
We want her to go to bed for 8pm so tonight gave her a bath, feed and then story and she went straight to sleep. But now she is screaming the house down and I just want to go and cuddle her!

What should I do? Any tips please?

Controlled crying! We did it at 10 weeks with our twins, 1 min between visits for 3 nights, 2 minutes between visits for 3 nights and so on until we got to five minutes by which time we had cracked it.
I spent quite a bit of time sat on the top step of the stairs reading trashy magazines with short articles about the best variety of beans and where to get an outfit just like Cameron Diaz's latest. It's about all I could take in in between.
We did the plug and run version, plug in the dummy and leave once it's slurped in, we now do it that we leave as soon as they've stopped crying again.
However, those first nights of torture and feeling sorry for them have paid off and our girls go to bed very well at 16 months and have done ever since.
Everytime they develop a new trick to keep you in the room you go through the routine again and it works.
Don't feel guilty, you can be a better parent when your daughter is up and about if you've had some time to relax and do what you want when she's asleep. I remember feeling so relieved once we did the sleep training and we could watch a DVD or keep track of a series on tv, pick up a book and read more than a few pages. That's when I regained the smallest amount of sanity.
Stick with it and when it drives you crazy - just remember so many other parents have done it and you can too - you'll thank yourself for it later!
We even had to do it last night but tonight they went to bed like angels so a 1 night reminder of the rules saved me a lot of grief.

Hi Susie. First of all, you have my every sympathy! The crying rips you up, doesn't it?
It's well worth reading up on controlled crying before jumping in with both feet, i think. Though I am a BIG believer in it. And this is a good place to start: the Big Little Baby sleep Thread: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=163984&highlight=controlled+crying
Every little one is different, and it may take a little experimenting, and I have to be honest, more weeks than days for us...but it does work and it is worth it.
One big tip I have is to spend major quality time with the little one the hour before bed...they will feel safe and loved, and your conscience will be at least a little soothed when you leave them screaming later.
And hang in there - for anything to work, you have to stick with it.
Oh, and they won't hold it against you forever - do you remember being five months old?

aww honey, that's no fun at all. if it was me i'd go for gradual but rapid changes (half an hour earlier to bed per day until she gets to 8pm), but i'd stay with her for the first few nights until she's fallen asleep - you don't want her thinking she's alone and no-one is nearby. after maybe a week i'd switch to mroe controlled crying.

that, however, is what i'd like to think i'd do in your situation. the reality would almost certainly be go in and comfort her at the first sign of discontent.

i shall rejoin this thread tomorrow. babybabychickens is now 9 months old, and tonight is the first night she's having in ehr own room, as it wasn't decorated until last weekend. i expect we won't be getting much sleep for a night or two.

good luck

I couldnt do it :( I would wisk her out and giver her a cuddle! But bear in mind my 13 month old son is still in my bedroom so if you want a baby who sleeps in her own room with an 8.00 bedtime then dont listen to me!
Im a softy, they dont stay little for long so I make the most of our cuddles :)

Aw Babychickens I hated it when we moved the girls and our room felt empty, must be a strange night for you!
Good luck.

Ok... Did a stupid thing and went in and picked her up. She was crying so much and it was breaking my heart.
Will read up on controlled crying though and give it another bash tomorrow.

Not sure if she should be in her own room yet anyway, the birth to five book says six months but not all babies are textbook are they...?

Not stupid, susie. Understandable. It's worth hyping yourself up for it a bit, planning a way forward, agreeing to it, and then doing it from a prepared, positive place.

BTW, cosycub was in his own room after two weeks...better for both our sanity, lol. Every baby is different, and the books are only guides. Follow your own instincts.

Got to agree with Cosy here, your instinct says go and in and pick her up - spot on. Just try and hold yourself back for 30 seconds or a minute, it's a beginning.
Or, set yourself the task of beginning it tomorrow and just react as you see fit for tonight.
You're her Mum, preprogrammed to respond, it's normal and natural :)

hello all,
don't want to butt in or hijack the thread, but babybaby started in her own room last night, which was nice because it meant we could HAVE THE LIGHT ON in our own room!!! not a whimper was heard from her all night! luck, not judgement, i suspect, but still. good luck for tonight, susiesue...

Controlled crying and the back to sleep method do work and routine!

Both my boys were put into a routine very early on and it paid off, whilst other parents still had children up and about at 9pm mine were always in bed, not necessarily asleep but in bed.

Even now when I tell my kids to go to bed I don't get arguments, they know when I say its time they go. (Granted 12 yr old goes to his room puts the stereo on and reads a book) but all that training worked.

Its a long time since mine were babies, but reading this has took me right back. We were the same with our eldest, she stayed up with us till we went to bed and slept i our room. Eventually got her in her own room but it took a long time and a lot of tear, both hers and mine before she slept through. When the youngest came along she went in her own room on the day she came home from hospital and only ever woke up once a night for a feed from day one. Never had any fuss from her about bedtime, up until now and shes 14 and think she knows best lol.

I wish you luck.

Congratualtions, babychickens! I've got my fingers crossed that it continues to go smoothly.
L x

Our daughter can sometimes go to bed without any intervention and other times she will cry. If she cries, we go in to her room and we will try just soothing her by holding her hand, once she stops crying, we stand in the room until she is settled and then go out. We try this a few times and then eventually we will nurse her to sleep.

Most times now, she will self settle at night with just the odd night that I or hubby will have to go in her room.

One thing that I find that helps is our winnie the pooh (http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Product.aspx/BruHome/BruNursery/BruNurseryMonitorsNightlights/BruNurseryMonitorsNightlightsNightlights/225029) light night which projects on to the ceiling and plays music. We always put her in to bed, give her her dummy and then put the light night on, say night night and go out of the room. I'd say 9 out of 10 times she settles down her self, with just the odd night we have to do a bit of soothing or nursing.

We got something similar in the way of a night light...cosycub adores the pictures going round and round on the ceiling. For a while it was his favourite toy, but now we only need it when he won't settle at all.

Don't beat yourself up if controlled crying doesn't work - it really depends on your baby and you know them best. We tried it for about 10 mins and then gave up! I honestly think my daughter had wind or something that wouldn't allow her to sleep without being cuddled. Anyway she's now 14 months old and goes to bed at 7pm no fuss and sleeps through - which she's done since she was about 6 months old. (We have the Winnie the Pooh thing as well - but no dummy - she used to have one then suddenly wasn't bothered).

You don't make it clear but sounds like you've tried to change her room and bedtime at the same time - maybe one or the other would be a good start - e.g. bath and story etc into your room to sleep at 8pm, or put her in her own bedroom at usual time first.

Yes we did change bedtime and room at the same time. We thought it was a bit too much too soon but popped her in there so we could still do stuff without having to tip toe round in the dark!
We have decided afetr the hysterics of the other night not to put her through that again and try to gradually put her to be a bit earlier each night. Last night and the night before she went down at 11 no fuss and didn't wake up til 8. It's still very late for a little un to be going to bed but we're going to work it back over a few nights til she's going to bed at a reasonable time!
Then we have to transfer her to her own room and then the fun will begin agian! Time to invest on one of those Pooh bear mobiles methinks...!

Thought I'd let u all have an update-

My little 'un has started going down at 9 (quite an improvement!) with just a little bit of fuss thanks to the projector that we have borrowed from a friend.

The only problem is now she is getting me up at half five cos she's got a wet bum and is hungry!
So now I'm back to being shattered all day again- hopefully soon she might start sleeping back through to 7 or even 8 (how nice would that be!?!?!?)

:) :smile: :bigsmile:

She's very young yet, susiesue, it does get easier. I used to get up with cosycub, change his nappy and feed him, and then he'd fall asleep again straight away in his bouncy chair while I thought 'why did we have to get up again?'. Lol.

You sound like you're doing pretty well. Controlled crying's not for me so , like you, I started putting my baby down at 9, then an hour earlier etc and now he's tired at 6.30 and ready for his last feed then. I'm lucky if he sleeps longer than 8 hours at a stretch though so if he sleeps through til 3 or 4 am, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'll feed him again then and he'll sleep til the morning (6 am til 8 am). Their tummies are only tiny so they can't sleep for long before they get hungry. The sleep deprivation is bloody awful, but it gets better and sometimes I just go to bed early: sleep when he does. Good luck!

Hi Guys.......any advice for a frazzled mum?

Baby M has been having an afternoon nap since she was born (she's 8 weeks now) which has been great (for us both) but this last week she's taken to waking up after approx 45 mins and simply can't settle back to sleep. She wants to go back to sleep but just as she's dropping off she jumps and wakes herself up again after this has happened about twice she gets distressed and then won't settle at all. She's pretty grumpy by 4pmish but I can't get her to have more than 30 mins then, so by bedtime she's a cross patch. She sleeps through at night without problem.

Someone has recommended swaddling her for a few days........any suggestions, I've read about but am not overly keen on the idea of controlled crying.

Hi Musey. It's not that long ago for me, but it seems like a hundred years (cosycub is 2 now). So any advice I give is a little removed from the situation.

I was/am a believer in letting the baby lead the way with nap times (to an extent, lol) and your little one is very young yet. Cosycub moved from one long nap (great) to two shorter ones (not so great) back to one long one, which is now getting shorter. I think that's perfectly normal. I wouldn't intervene, personally, certainly not forcing anything at 8 weeks with swaddling (just my opinion, of course).

If getting about is an issue - some people glue themselves to their home religiously for nap times, which can make changes like 2 naps a bit of a pain - I would personally suggest you go out anyway. Little one will sleep in pushchair/car and you can get stuff done. That's the great thing about the really little ones, they're easily portable as my husband puts it.

Good luck!

Is it only my baby who will only settle on his tummy????
From day 1 he has never settled on his back and now really only ever sleeps
on his tummy, even at night. He is now 3 months old and has been sleeping straight through the night for about 3.5 weeks. I daren`t tell the health visitor as I know I will be in for a telling off. As some people have pointed out though, years ago mothers were advised to put babies to sleep on their fronts. So my question is, how bad is it really? At the moment he is still in our room and sleeps only inches from my face in his crib. He is soon to go in his own room as he is fastly out:confused: growing the crib but I am worried as I won`t be able to check on him as quick as I can now.
:confused:

my 3rd was just like this and always slept on his tummy and now 2yrs later he still does

Thought I would give this post a bump as I'm having trouble getting my 6 month old to sleep without a breastfeed. I'm thinking of giving controlled crying a try. He also used to sleep for around 6 hours but following a recent chest infection where he required a lot of nursing to get to sleep he's now waking every 2 hours. Hopefully if I can start putting him to bed awake and getting him to learn how to fall asleep he'll be able to settle himself in the night - fingers crossed, the waking every 2 hours is driving me mad.

My 5 1/2 month old is having a few sleeping issues recently. He is still breastfed and we got him used to a bed routine since his was 1 1/2 months. His bed routine starts around 6.30 with a bath, followed by some gentle cuddle time and then a feed. He used to fall asleep almost immediately and then wake up every three hours through the night, feed then sleep again immediately.

It is now one week that he suddenly does not care about his routine anymore.
After the bath and the cuddles he wants a feed but then when fed he is full of energy and wants to play.

We started putting him in his cot and use a bit of controlled crying but without help, he will go on clearly tired and upset for at least 2-3 hours till he finally falls asleep (usually with another feed) around 11. Then he never sleeps for much more than 2 hours, then stays awake for at least an hour often more inbetween, playing, bouncing with his legs on the bed and squealing. It looks like he has forgotten the distinction between day and night and he just naps in the night for a couple of hours and then he wants to play.

He seems clearly tired at times and is definitely teething upon occasions (using bonjella and tried a herbal aid but it never rereally makes much difference). I'm unsure the lack of sleeping is totally teething related.

We also started introducing him to solid foods (baby rice and carrot puree) but if anything it made him worst - we stopped giving him solids before going to bed, as that kept him even more awake, as he had too much energy.

We started giving him solids (3 teaspoons) in the morning but did not make much difference.

During the day he is more cranky then usual, but he still has just 2 naps of 40mins/1 hour each.

He is driving us crazy as we do not manage to get any sleep in the night or relax in the evening.

Any suggestion? (will ask at the clinic but our usual contact is on holiday and the replacement has proved less than helpful)

Oh, I'm sorry, I have very little useful recollection of that age, so I'm pretty useless.

My usual mantra is: everything is a phase, be it good or bad...this, too, will pass.
Therefore, I'd say keep up with the 'night is boring, exciting things do not happen at night' routine (I understand controlled crying is hard at so early an age, but there are no-cry methods someone here will be able to point you in the right direction)...just no or low lights, no or very little interaction, water not milk unless it's definitely hunger and not messing about, etc.

Hopefully someone will be able to flesh that out with more helpful stuff. Good luck!

I am going with cosy: It is a phase.

You have to remember that your baby is getting more and more aware of what is going on around him. So night time is the time when his little brain is working overtime as he has to digest everything that has happened.

I understand that it must be very frustrating when you had a routine from a really early age and it might take a while before you are back in that routine (sorry).

Have you tried changing his sleep pattern during the day? We found that monsterbaby would not go to sleep in the evening for example when he slept after four (going to bed at seven).

Also, getting out more into the fresh air helped (I know not easy in this weather).

Not a fan of cc at all and if anything I would say that he is too young for it (even the bloke who wrote the book backed down saying that it should not really be done before either 6 months or a year of age).

Hope you find a solution.

Thanks for the help monstermummy and cosywolf, will battle on for now. We think its also a phase and we never liked the idea of controlled crying anyway.

As for fresh air he demands at least one walk a day ;)

Tonight he calmed down a little, we think although not certain yet that sitting quietly in the same room until he falls asleep or holding his hands when walking up in the night but no noise is slowly starting to have an effect, will see how this latest plan goes anyway.

Thanks again.

Adam is now 8 weeks old. He is fairly regular in his own routine but has now thrown a spanner in!
He feeds at 7pm and is asleep by 8. That's remained the same. However, he used to wake at 11, 3, and then 6/7 and during those times he'd have his nappy changed and be fed, and then straight back to sleep. He is pretty good (so far!) with the day/night thing.
And then...bed as usual, but is now sleeping until 1.30! So I fed him/changed, etc, but he seemed pretty awake. I put him down and he did eventually drift off after just lying there gurgling. Until 3am, then all hell broke loose. He was screaming like he had bad wind, so we did all the necessary. He then just didn't settle until 6am when we just had to get him up. One thing we did notice was a very full nappy (sorry, we just didn't notice earlier!).

We repeated this the next night and he woke again at 1.30, fed and slept til 5 (aarrgghh). He was pretty grumpy all day as well!

Now the HV says we should try 'dreamfeeding' him at 10/11 pm to allow us more sleep. We did but to be honest he is in a very very deep sleep at that point and really won't latch. We tried again last night and he took 6oz expressed milk at 11pm. He woke AGAIN at 2.30, fed at 3 and has taken an age to go down. I'm not sure when he will wake as it's 4am now as I type!

Now I'm flipping confused. Do we just give up the dreamfeed and let him set his own pattern? How will he EVER get through the night?!

AARRGGHHH!! they are such hard work!

He WILL get through the night eventually. 8 weeks is really very early to be demanding a set routine - besdies, there is never a 'set' routine, there are just shorter phases and longer phases, lol.

I never did dreamfeeding, as I couldn't get cosycub to drink and sleep at the same time, but it does work for some. You could also just stretch out his last feed before 'bedtime' to as late as possible, as another option.

But honestly, I would say it was wa-ay to early to be expecting to sleep through (just because some - rare - babies do), and as tiring and frustrating as it is, his feeds will lessen naturally.

Perhaps leave it a little longer? As time goes on he will eventually drop the feeds he doesn't need himself, or you will get a feel for when he is waking out of habit and can trade water for milk to put him off, etc.
Definitely don't frustrate yourself with some mad idea that he should be doing this or that by now - if only it was that simple!

my son is nearly 8 week old he has been sleeping through the nights since he was 6 week old i take him upstairs at bout 11pm change him feed him (5oz) wind him and then he wakes up about 8am but in the day time he wants a bottle nearly every 2 hour and hardly ever sleeps

Ours was 'sleeping through' from about 8 weeks or so - though he gets put to bed at 11pm, not the traditional 7pm! We find it easier to keep him downstairs to tend to him rather then trek upstairs and rely on a monitor (that 'bedtime routine' can come later). Anyway, due to colic, he preferred to feed in an evening and sleep more in a morning, so he has got a habit of a big late evening bottle, which is good as it still settles him very well at about 15 weeks.

How we dropped middle of the night feeds is by not giving him any fuss at ALL when he did wake, then he gradually would just wake and grizzle for a minute or two then go back to sleep and eventually didn't wake and cry at all. So he now goes 11.30pm - 7.30am. And I'm touching wood saying that in case he breaks his pattern now! :o

I still say they're the rare ones.

I would also point out that it's unlikely to last, what with big growth spurts, and particularly when teething starts, but that would be mean... :D