Restless baby ( 3 1/2 months )

mirwillbeback

Hi,

Anyone have advice for me please. We have a 14 week old baby, who doesnt really settle at night time. Mostly he goes down about 10 and sleeps til 4, but then gets really restless. At present we just keep giving him back the soother, but obviously this every 15mins is pretty unfeasible as we are both knackered!

Is there anything we can do, or should we go back to giving him a bottle during the night, even for a little while?

Any suggestions appreiciated.

Thanks
Paul

Trinity

Ah its hard work isnt it LOL

Mind you 6 hours sleeping for a 14 week old isnt bad going, my son woke every 2 hours for a feed. :eek:

What time is his last bottle before bed? It is quite possible that he is hungry if there is too long a gap between feeds.

squire1

Is he on solids yet?

Our youngest is 21 weeks and only started sleeping the night when we started him on solids (16 weeks or so). He gets his dinner at about 6 or 7pm, gets his final bottle at 10 or 11 and sleeps until 8am. All kids are different but maybe he will sleep better when you start him on solids.

embee

He's probably hungry.

If he's waking consistently at around the same time every night, is restless and is spitting out the dummy that you're giving him, that would suggest to me that he wants some food. He's still a very new baby - they need frequent feeding and just won't sleep if they're hungry.

He's almost old enough to go onto solids - 4 months is the average time bottlefed babies are weaned. I found that my daughter slept a lot sounder during the night once she started on solids.

Kashkai

Be thankful your baby lets you get 6 hours sleep at night.

We have 10 month old twins who never sleep - I got 1 hours sleep last night, three hours the night before and two the night before that. I could go on but I'm too tired.

If you want to swop, let me know.;)

Nevyn

Prosperous Dave have you been in touch with your local health nurse yet to seek aid they have programs for families that are struggle with such issues and there is a support network there if you access it.

Please do so for your familys sake and your own.

Khannie

Jaysus Dave. That's horrific. Are the twins waking each other? Or what's the craic there? Are they sleeping during the day?

daramwalsh

Hi there
I understand exactly what your going through. I have two sons, one is 2 and half, and the other is just hitting 6months now.

We learnt a lot of lessons/solutions with our first one for sleep problems that we've been implementing with no. 2. We had similar problems, that he'd take ages to go down to sleep, and then he'd wake lots for feeds etc..

I have to disagree firstly with one of the posters here about if they're waking at the same time that it definately means they're hungry. How much are they taking, are you bottle feeding? If they're only taking small amounts of food at this time, it is most likely a habbit that they're waking at the same time every night.

I'll give you one big tip.. get the book, 'Secrets of the baby whisperer'. Best buy ever. you can get on amazon.

Also, the child going to sleep at 10pm is probably one of the biggest problems your hitting. A child that age should really be getting 11hours sleep if not more. Ideally you should have them going down around 7pm, 7.30pm. Otherwise they are overtired and then don't sleep well for the rest of the night as a result. This may seem very early, and In todays society where most of us are only getting in from work around then, there is a temptation to keep your kid up longer so you can see them. But trust me, your only making things worse.

Get your child into a good bedtime routine. Even from as early as newborn, you can start this. We feed our kids, get them into a bath, then read a book and then off to bed. Same routine every night, in and around the same time. The trick is routine and not clock watching.. As long as your in around the same time and sticking to routine, the children know what to expect and start to wind down, and by feeding first, you don't associate a feed with sleep, so they don't get a dependancy on a bottle/breast to fall asleep.

Then what we do, come around 10.30, 11pm, we dream feed our 6month old.
I.e. feed him while he's asleep. You can gently lift him/her out of the cot, without waking, pop a bottle in their mouth and they will feed away, and should require burping as they are so relaxed. Then pop them back in.
This should keep them going for another few hours, and ecourages longer stretches of sleep. You may find after a while then your child will stretch to untill around 2am - 4am or so .. and probably at 14weeks they will be hungry.
Again feed again, keeping things quite and in a darkened room, feed and put back in to bed. Hopefully should settle back.

If your problem is with the dummy also, It seems like this has become a prop also. I'd look at getting rid of the dummy totally. It sounds like your child doesn't know how to get themself back to sleep, and needs the dummy.

One of the big parts in the babywhisper book is basically what I've touched on here, and its sleep training. children need to be thought how to sleep. THings like dummys and bottles can become props for getting them back to sleep, when they should be learning how to self sooth.

AS we sleep we go through cycles of sleep and sometime babies have problems moving into the next cycle and wake.. e.g. looking for the dummy or bottle.. So get the book 'secrets of the babywhisperer' and it teaches methods of encouraging self soothing, so the baby can sleep better and move between sleep cycles on their own.

also check out babywhisperer.com there is a good community support message board section on that site with good tips.

My first son, used to take an hour to go to sleep, he'd wake regularly and we were knackered.. Now he just goes to bed at 7pm, sleeps right through to 8am in the morning.

My second, the 6month old, he's down at same time, 7pm, sleeps all evening, gets his dream feed at 10.30 - 11pm. goes back to sleep and maybe wakes at 5.30 6am.. we're still working on it, but he can sleep untill 7.30 also.

Hope this helps, it takes a bit of perseverance, and doesn't take as longs you'd think, but well worth it.

We now get the evening to ourselves, and a better night sleep, and its mostly down to the books we read from Tracy Hogg.

What I've said here, is probably a bit simplified, but essentially, its all about learning about your babys cues, routing, training them to self sooth, and how to avoid the easy pitfalls which can seem like easy fix now, but make it harder in long run.. . e.g taking kid in to bed, using a bottle to get them to sleep, rocking back to sleep etc. etc.. you know yourself....

I don't mean to sound like I know it all... far from it, but I just would so strongly reccommmend this book to any tired parent..

loyatemu

i'd generally agree with a lot of the points already made:

-give him a bath before bed - this gets him into a routine and he knows its time to go to sleep
-get him to bed early - by 8 at the latest.
-wake him up for a late feed around 11
-if he wakes during the night, try to settle him without feeding him.
-try to make sure he falls asleep in his cot rather than in your arms
-try not to let him sleep too much during the day and try to get him to take his naps around the same time each day

he'll probably still wake up pretty early in the morning, but it might be 6am rather than 4am. Babys that young can only go so long without feeding, but should be able to manage 7 hours or so.

The main thing is that they recognise the difference between day and night and know how to go back to sleep by themselves if the wake up. All this worked very well for us, but of course your mileage may vary...

Kashkai

Khannie wrote:

Jaysus Dave. That's horrific. Are the twins waking each other? Or what's the craic there? Are they sleeping during the day?

My daughter will sleep for an hour or two at a time and generally only wakes up once or twice a night.

My son, on the other hand, is a terrible sleeper - I'm not exaggerating. He'll only sleep for 20 - 30 minutes in total during the day. At night we put him down at 8.30 but he'll be awake by 11.00pm regular as clockwork. He wakes up screaming with tears running down his face. Picking him up and rocking him usually works but as soon as you lie him down again, he'll start the crying again. If we let him go too long, he wakes his sister. Our house is too small (just 2 bedrooms at the moment but we're extending) to separate them as the twins and my wife and I share the same bedroom and our oldest daughter is in the other bedroom.

I've suggested to my wife that we bring him for a medical check but she is reluctant to waste money on a doctor who'll tell us that there is nothing wrong with him and he'll grow out of it. Our local health nurse is useless - on her first visit to check out the twins, she spent 20 minutes phoning her previous appointments to see if she had left her scarf in their houses. She then gave the twins a cursory check and left.

I'm going to suggest to my wife that she sleeps in the sitting room and I'll mind the babies for a night and then we'll swop the next night as its pointless us both dying from exhaustion - again I'm not exaggerating. I've never felt so tired in my life.

Nevyn

You have to fight for the help you need.
Honestly if you feel you must by pass the dr and take the boy twin to you rlocal hospital with a pedatric unit.
Get in touch with the local health nurses there is usaually more then one bring the twins and yourself in your exhausted state and demand serive and if you don't get the help go above them in the heath excutive.

mirwillbeback

Thanks to all for the advice. We normally let him sleep from about 5 - 7, then wake him, keep him awake until about 9, give him bottle and put himn down. He settled great for about two weeks, so we probably got greedy and thought everything would be ok forevermore!!! Problem with the 2nd child is that your first one wont let you sleep when the baby does.
Appreciate everybody's opinions and help especially daramwalsh - very conclusive post. I do however feel guilty for complaining after reading Dave's post. Jaysus!!!!!!!!!!

Kashkai

mirwillbeback wrote:

Thanks to all for the advice. We normally let him sleep from about 5 - 7, then wake him, keep him awake until about 9, give him bottle and put himn down. He settled great for about two weeks, so we probably got greedy and thought everything would be ok forevermore!!! Problem with the 2nd child is that your first one wont let you sleep when the baby does.
Appreciate everybody's opinions and help especially daramwalsh - very conclusive post. I do however feel guilty for complaining after reading Dave's post. Jaysus!!!!!!!!!!

Complain all you want Paul - these boards are designed for it and as parents of infants, we have a God given right to moan and bitch all we want!!!!!:D

In our case we were spoiled by our first daughter who was sleeping through the night from 6 weeks. I guess the nightmare time we're having now is nature's way of evening up the score:rolleyes:

Finally, it is a small comfort to know that when you're trying to settle a baby in the small hours, there are thousands of parents around the country doing the same.

Best of luck

Dave

embee

daramwalsh wrote:

Hi there
I understand exactly what your going through. I have two sons, one is 2 and half, and the other is just hitting 6months now.

We learnt a lot of lessons/solutions with our first one for sleep problems that we've been implementing with no. 2. We had similar problems, that he'd take ages to go down to sleep, and then he'd wake lots for feeds etc..

I have to disagree firstly with one of the posters here about if they're waking at the same time that it definately means they're hungry. How much are they taking, are you bottle feeding? If they're only taking small amounts of food at this time, it is most likely a habbit that they're waking at the same time every night.

I'll give you one big tip.. get the book, 'Secrets of the baby whisperer'. Best buy ever. you can get on amazon.

Also, the child going to sleep at 10pm is probably one of the biggest problems your hitting. A child that age should really be getting 11hours sleep if not more. Ideally you should have them going down around 7pm, 7.30pm. Otherwise they are overtired and then don't sleep well for the rest of the night as a result. This may seem very early, and In todays society where most of us are only getting in from work around then, there is a temptation to keep your kid up longer so you can see them. But trust me, your only making things worse.

Get your child into a good bedtime routine. Even from as early as newborn, you can start this. We feed our kids, get them into a bath, then read a book and then off to bed. Same routine every night, in and around the same time. The trick is routine and not clock watching.. As long as your in around the same time and sticking to routine, the children know what to expect and start to wind down, and by feeding first, you don't associate a feed with sleep, so they don't get a dependancy on a bottle/breast to fall asleep.

Then what we do, come around 10.30, 11pm, we dream feed our 6month old.
I.e. feed him while he's asleep. You can gently lift him/her out of the cot, without waking, pop a bottle in their mouth and they will feed away, and should require burping as they are so relaxed. Then pop them back in.
This should keep them going for another few hours, and ecourages longer stretches of sleep. You may find after a while then your child will stretch to untill around 2am - 4am or so .. and probably at 14weeks they will be hungry.
Again feed again, keeping things quite and in a darkened room, feed and put back in to bed. Hopefully should settle back.

If your problem is with the dummy also, It seems like this has become a prop also. I'd look at getting rid of the dummy totally. It sounds like your child doesn't know how to get themself back to sleep, and needs the dummy.

One of the big parts in the babywhisper book is basically what I've touched on here, and its sleep training. children need to be thought how to sleep. THings like dummys and bottles can become props for getting them back to sleep, when they should be learning how to self sooth.

AS we sleep we go through cycles of sleep and sometime babies have problems moving into the next cycle and wake.. e.g. looking for the dummy or bottle.. So get the book 'secrets of the babywhisperer' and it teaches methods of encouraging self soothing, so the baby can sleep better and move between sleep cycles on their own.

also check out babywhisperer.com there is a good community support message board section on that site with good tips.

My first son, used to take an hour to go to sleep, he'd wake regularly and we were knackered.. Now he just goes to bed at 7pm, sleeps right through to 8am in the morning.

My second, the 6month old, he's down at same time, 7pm, sleeps all evening, gets his dream feed at 10.30 - 11pm. goes back to sleep and maybe wakes at 5.30 6am.. we're still working on it, but he can sleep untill 7.30 also.

Hope this helps, it takes a bit of perseverance, and doesn't take as longs you'd think, but well worth it.

We now get the evening to ourselves, and a better night sleep, and its mostly down to the books we read from Tracy Hogg.

What I've said here, is probably a bit simplified, but essentially, its all about learning about your babys cues, routing, training them to self sooth, and how to avoid the easy pitfalls which can seem like easy fix now, but make it harder in long run.. . e.g taking kid in to bed, using a bottle to get them to sleep, rocking back to sleep etc. etc.. you know yourself....

I don't mean to sound like I know it all... far from it, but I just would so strongly reccommmend this book to any tired parent..

Just to add my tuppenceworth on The Baby Whisperer...

It doesn't work. It didn't for me. I followed Tracy Hoggs instructions to the letter and beyond. Pick Up/Put Down doesn't work. I tried it for a month solidly and never wavered from the instructions, and things only got worse.

Tracy Hoggs methods, in my opinion, have a lot of value in them, but you REALLY HAVE to be using the methods from day 1. She would disagree in her books (and of course, she would, otherwise her book would be deemed useless to parents of non-newborn babies), but her methods (particularly Pick Up/Put Down) just do not work for a baby who's that little bit older and that little bit more savvy.

She does bang home the ethos of "routine, routine, routine" and there is definitely a lot to be said for this - but find your own routine, don't pick one from a book. My DD would fail disastrously on Tracy Hoggs "routine", as she is an active baby and genuinely doesn't sleep during the day. She hasn't slept during the day since she was about 3 months old. (When I say "slept", I am referring to these hour long naps babies are "meant" to take according to books like the Baby Whisperer, but she dozes here and there... probably totalling 1 hour max over the entire day, but we're talking 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there sort of thing). Any attempt I made to get her to do this (whilst I was reading the Baby Whisperer) was only met with resistance, tears, screeching and horrible nighttimes. She was in her own routine that she'd fallen into herself - awake all day, sleep all night. And, just because I "thought" she wasn't getting "enough" sleep, I went and disrupted it on the advice of a book!!

My daughter is now 8 months old, and her routine consists of getting up at 7.30-8 am, breakfast at 8.30-9. Playtime all morning. She would doze PERHAPS for maximum 20 minutes in the late morning, but not every day. Lunchtime - feed, then playtime. Afternoon - out for a walk in her buggy, or a spin in the car. The buggy and/or car would also SOMETIMES make her sleep, but more often than not they don't. She is just an alert, active baby and thrives perfectly well on virtually no sleep during the day.

At 6pm ish, she'll have her last solid meal. Then, playtime, but gentler play, in that she's winding down, so instead of the usual play where she's roaring laughing, squealing in delight, thrashing her arms etc, she's giggling, cooing, rocking herself. Evening play usually consists of singing gentle songs to her, giving her a massage (baby massage can work wonders), playing with some of her soft, non-noisy toys. Then.. about 7.30-8 - bathtime. A bath with lavender babywash ALWAYS. The minute she's in the tub, you can see the relaxation starting. Its common for her to be yawning towards the end of her bath. Then, its out of the bath, into pyjamas, and STRAIGHT to the bedroom, which is dark and warm. Darkness will naturally put babies into drowzy mode. She'll usually take an ounce or so of warm milk before bed.

I don't agree that you shouldn't give your baby a feed before bed. They're about to do a lot of their growing in their sleep, and some babies need to have sustenance whilst they snooze. Its not a prop - some babies NEED that food before bed. Some don't. Not all babies are the same, and thats the major problem with these books that try to impose a uniform routine - it just doesn't work for some people.

Tracy Hogg isn't saying anything new in her books - parents have known for centuries that bath before bed soothes baby. They know that sometimes, their babies like a bottle before bed. They know that their babies are fractious at night sometimes, even with our best efforts. Tracy Hogg is no genius - she just took the word "routine" and ran with it.

daramwalsh

Just a few notes on last post there and disagree on Tracey hoggs methods having to be done from day1. Generally most people came to her when situations had got unbearable and need a solution.

I agree it has to work with your own personal situation, and i would just say it worked for us and its worth a go if your having problems with sleep. A lot of it is just common sense and just watching out for common pitfalls.

Following it strictly by the book may not exactly work as it can just vary depending on your personal situation and the child in question.

re: bottle before bed.. it might not be a problem now, but it might be in the future..bottle before bed is probably fine as long as they're not falling asleep on the bottle and using it as a method to fall asleep, same as needing to be rocked back to sleep.. the idea being that they need to learn to fall asleep and fall back to seelp themselves. Giving them some independece.

Our 2 year old, when he was about 6 or 7 months old, we had an awful time getting him to sleep, it would take a good hour for him to settle, I had to hold him, rock him to sleep etc.. woke all the time etc.. etc..and that is when we started to implement the baby whisperer techniques. Pick up / put down really worked for us. Its by no means easy, but now everyone around us can't get over how easily he goes to bed now.. no complaints, straight into bed, off to sleep, no fussing, just striaght to sleep after his bath and doesn't wake untill the morning.

I agree you shouldn't take someone elses routine from a book, However her way is a method more than a routine, and is quite flexible in that she doesn't say do X, Y , Z, she more just says do it in this order and these are samples of types of things you can do.

Also, its not just a night time routine, its a whole day routine. Its about managing the childs expectations and so they know when the light goes off or when I'm put in my cot, and I've already had my feed and book, its now time to sleep.

My youngest is 6 months and he's recently been put in a spica cast (chest to toes body cast) to treat a clicky hip problem, and one might expect that this would impact his sleep,but as we're still sticking to his routines, and not making an exception just because hes in a cast he is sleeping as well as he was without it. It would be the same in other situations where he may be sick/teething and you be tempted to bring them into the bed, or give them a bottle etc, but this just ends up confusing things for them and putting you a step back.

I'm not trying to say I'm perfect here.. He was awake at 5am last night.. but 90% of the time he is good and simply it can work.



The babywhisperer.com website forums are probably the handiest thing to consult, as the book can only do so much, and there are experts on that board who can advise more closely to your own personal situation and get you through the rough times.

hallelujajordan

"The contented little baby book" . . by Gina Ford

It really is all about routine . . building a routine around your baby that will lead to them sleeping soundly for the night. . . I have two kids and was very skeptical about this , but my wife was determined from the very beginning. Both slept through the night from 6 weeks and continued from then on. . .

viking

hallelujajordan wrote:

"The contented little baby book" . . by Gina Ford

Got this book on the advise of a friend to try and get our 3 week old daughter into a routine. To be honest the routine outlined in the book for a child her age was not suiting her at all and it was also adding pressure on us when trying to adhere to it. I think also because she was suffering from silent reflux (and is now on infant gaviscon) it was creating problems as she would be very distressed at the bedtimes suggested by the book and would be very hard to settle which meant we would miss the bedtime by up to an hour and a half sometimes throwing the routine out of whack completely.

We've now moved to incorporate a routine that we feel our daughter has herself but also taking into account various good points that Gina makes in the book. She'll still wakes twice for a feed @ ~2am and ~5am (goes to bed at 10.30-11pm) but is beginning to be easier to settle, touch wood...

I'm also not sure about a bath every night as this can wash away natural oils that baby produces.

Maybe we'll look at the Gina Ford routines again in a few weeks and they might be more suitable for her but for the moment she seems happier and so do Mammy and Daddy

daramwalsh

viking wrote:

I'm also not sure about a bath every night as this can wash away natural oils that baby produces.

Try using Almond Oil in the bath, this should help! I suffer with excema and my kids can have dry skin also, but still regular bath with the oil does help, or Oats in the bath also help (wrapped in old tights or something).


Re: routine and not settling... it can also be quite scary how little it takes to make the child overtired and making sure you get them before they are overtired. 10mins can make all the difference. Or if they need a cat nap of 30-40mins begining an hour or so before they get into their bed time routine that can help also.