Waking from a nap after 3 minutes??

[pastrygirl]

Is anyone else's baby like this? He's been taking short naps in the crib, maybe 30 minutes tops. That's what my older son did, so I'm used to it. But 75% of the time, he'll wake up after only 3 minutes, and that's the end of the nap. It's so frustrating. I don't know why he won't sleep soundly.

Unlike the other thread, he's MISERABLE when he's awake. Even if I wear him, it's 50/50 that he'll nap. I'm SO TIRED of spending my days getting him to sleep. I did that with my older son and was so hoping that I'd get a better sleeper this time around. I'm irritated that I got a worse sleeper. Argh!

The past few nights have been horrible, too. He'd been on a nice pattern of waking twice for a few weeks, but now he's back to waking every hour. He doesn't necessarily want to nurse, but he kicks, snorts, rubs his face into the mattress, etc., until I nurse him or rock him or something. I'm back to feeling that I made a mistake -- I didn't sign up for this!!! I thought my older son was as bad as it could get. Boy was I wrong.

Talk about birth control. I don't ever ever E.V.E.R want to have another one of these again!

[cristeen]

Will he tolerate a swaddle? My little guy was like this early on until I learned to swaddle him. Do you co-sleep? That can also help, my guy thrashes less when I have an arm wrapped around him and have him held to my side than when I'm 6 inches away. We gave up on the bassinet weeks ago because he'd only sleep 30 minutes in it.

Will he sleep in the car seat?

And as silly as it sounds... have you tried a bouncy chair? My little guy sleeps like a dream in his bouncy chair, so long as I catch it when the vibrator turns off and flip it back on. Like right now he's been asleep since 8 in his bouncy chair (3:20), even though he hasn't eaten since about 6:00 this morning. I was so against extraneous equipment, but I caved and picked one up at a consignment store for $10 and it was the BEST money I've spent on him, by far.

Another thing I've discovered with his night wakings is that he's more bothered by a wet diaper at night than he is during the day. If he is thrashing in the night, my first step now is to check his diaper, and we started using dipes with stay-dry liners (fleece) so that the feeling of wet didn't wake him in the night.

HTH

[pastrygirl]

At night, he sleeps swaddled in the crib, and unswaddled with a sleepsack when he's with me. He actually wakes less often when he's in the crib, so that's why I started putting him in the crib. I bring him to my bed (and co-sleeper) after he wakes the first time to nurse -- used to be at 2:30am, but is now between 11:30 and 12:30. He also sleeps better in the co-sleeper than in my bed. During the day, I can't get him to nap with me in my bed at all! It's so strange, because that made my older son pass out for a good 3 hours when he was a baby! I really wish Caleb would nap with me, because I desperately need the sleep.

We change his diaper 1-3 times a night, because he does hate a wet diaper, but also because he pees through them and ends up soaked if we don't change him.

He won't nap in the bouncy. Yesterday he napped in the swing for the first time (swaddled) -- and I've been trying since bringing him home! He napped again in the swing today but still woke every 5 minutes. He didn't fuss, though, just opened his eyes and made sucking noises, and went back to sleep. In the crib, if he wakes, he cries.

He HATES the car seat, but he'll fall asleep it in at 8:30 or 9am for a quick 30-minute nap if we're driving somewhere or I put him in the bathroom with the fan on. That's it. Any other time I put him in, he screams until the car is moving and I have white noise BLARING... even then, there's no guarantee that he'll sleep. We're about 50/50 now, sleep or screamfest.

During the day, he still nurses every hour, maaaaaybe two hours. No 3-hour stretches in sight.

[kismetbaby]

No help here, but just wanted to say, I hear you mama! I am struggling with this myself. All the kids/babies I've been around in the past would nap so long and deep and my guy just dozes for 5-10 minutes most times he falls asleep and thinks he has had a nap! He's pretty happy when he is awake, but I know that this isn't enough sleep. When he was younger he slept well as long as I slept with him, but now not even that is doing it. Maybe its just a developmental phase? b/c he is suddenly so much more aware of the world and interested in lookin at things, I wonder if this is keeping him awake. He hates the car, won't stay swaddled. He will sleep okay in the Moby wrap, but only if I keep walking/moving around and there is only so much of that my back can take in one day. He has probably one nap a day that is longer than half and hour and all the rest are short.

He seems to be doing better at night, but he is very restless. . .lots of thrashing and rooting even when he's not hungry. Sigh.

I'm mostly trying to a)follow his cues b) try different things to see if they help and mostly c) wait and hope he outgrows this! The Dr Sears book suggests that babies don't regulate their sleep till about 4 months. . .and that before that they sleep very differently than adults.

[cristeen]

How's his weight gain? Nursing every hour at this age doesn't sound right, but that might explain the trouble sleeping.

[pastrygirl]

He's almost 17 pounds -- great weight gain! He had tongue tie, and I suspect that it wasn't clipped properly. But my older son's was clipped properly and he didn't space his feedings to every 3 hours until he was 6 months old. He also has reflux and I'm pretty sure he's teething.

[cristeen]

If it wasn't clipped properly, that may explain the eating every hour... because he's not getting enough in a single feed to fill his belly, he stops when he gets tired, but then still needs to fill his belly. My little guy was like that early on with his lip tie. Unfortunately we didn't get a diagnosis or clipped at the time, we just switched him to a bottle because he wasn't gaining weight at all.

Do you/can you pump? I know it's a pain, but if you pump after a feed, and then put that in a nursing supplementer at the next feed, you may get longer sleep stretches out of him.

He may also not be getting enough hind milk to satisfy him if he's having trouble moving milk, which may be another reason he's waking so much, and could be helped by pumping after he's finished feeding and giving that to him at the next feeding.

I would really suspect that the eating every hour and the no sleeping are linked.

[lisa_nc]

Our son loves the Amby bed. Maybe something like that would help?

[confustication]

Originally Posted by lisa_nc

Our son loves the Amby bed. Maybe something like that would help?

There's a big hullabaloo about these at the moment- suffocation risks apparently.

Keagan doesn't sleep long stretches either, but I've found myself very zen about it lately. I know that it will change sooner or later, and the exhaustion will be a thing of the past.

That said, for Christmas he's getting a hammock bed- as much for me as it is for him... hooks are being installed in the kitchen beside my desk, in the livingroom, and in the bedroom.