difficult bedtime routine - 2.5 mo

[wilddreamergrl]

My 2.5 mo son has been having quite a hard time getting down for bed. Our bedtime routine is as follows: approximately 2 hours after his last nap of the day, when he's displaying a lot of tired signs, we take a bath, put pajamas on, sometimes read a story (I know, silly at this age, but dad and I like it!), nurse, listen to calming music. Without fail, he falls asleep. I'll then lay down with him. 

Then, no matter how deeply asleep he seems (I often do the limp-limb test), he wakes up. Sometimes he wakes up if I get up to go to the bathroom, other times he wakes up when I'm still there. 

Then, this dance happens at least another time, sometimes 2-3 more times before he is finally out for the night. 

Usually after he wakes up he does not want to nurse again. Sometimes he is WIDE awake, and will have a full 1.5 hour awake cycle before being tired enough to go back to sleep. Other times he will be cranky and tired still, so we will rock, or I'll put him in the mei tai or Moby and walk him back to sleep. 

Once he is truly asleep, he'll sleep really well - 5-7 hours without waking. 

Any ideas? The 2-3 hour bedtime routine is starting to really get to me.

[Beauchamp]

It could be that your first "bedtime" is actually his last nap. I think it's okay to not have a solid routine emerging yet at 2.5 months old. My advice is to stay flexible on the bedtime routine. If he wakes up, maybe just treat it as a nap, so that way it doesn't stress you out so much. Maybe do the bedtime routine stuff a little later, and obviously if he doesn't wake the first time you "go to bed", then skip it. IMO, this is still the "very flexible" stage for sleep, as much as we'd like a reliable routine, it's still so early. Right now the routine is NON-routine, and that's hard. But reality, I think. Hang in there mama!

Getting a 5-7 hour stretch is pretty darn awesome, BTW.

NAK

[wilddreamergrl]

Thank you....the whole "treat it like his last nap" thing is a really good idea and I think would make it a LOT less stressful. :-P I think the reason I haven't looked at it that way is that it's so late (9-10 pm usually) and while sometimes after he wakes up he'll be happy and wide awake, other times you can clearly see that he's still groggy and *wants* to be asleep. But you're right...the routine at this point is non-routine. I think maybe I should just be less anxious to go to bed and more grateful that once he DOES truly go to sleep, he sleeps for SO long. :-P

What's weird is that, without fail, no matter what time he eventually falls asleep at night, he wakes up at 8 am like an alarm clock. :-P 

[Beauchamp]

Originally Posted by wilddreamergrl 

Thank you....the whole "treat it like his last nap" thing is a really good idea and I think would make it a LOT less stressful. :-P I think the reason I haven't looked at it that way is that it's so late (9-10 pm usually) and while sometimes after he wakes up he'll be happy and wide awake, other times you can clearly see that he's still groggy and *wants* to be asleep. But you're right...the routine at this point is non-routine. I think maybe I should just be less anxious to go to bed and more grateful that once he DOES truly go to sleep, he sleeps for SO long. :-P

What's weird is that, without fail, no matter what time he eventually falls asleep at night, he wakes up at 8 am like an alarm clock. :-P 

Yes! I do know how hard it is when you desperately want/need to sleep.

[gemasita]

My son is ready to go to sleep as soon as he shows tired sign (rubbing eyes, etc).  If we tried to do the routine that you do (bath, etc) when he was showing tired signs, we'd miss our window by quite a long time.  I wonder if you could try skipping some of that routine and putting him to bed at the first signs of tiredness.  Don't know if it'll work but it might be worth a try.

Also, my son almost always wakes up 30 mins after we put him down for either naps or nighttime.  I think he's just waking up at the end of a sleep cycle - not really ready to wake up.  That might be something to keep in mind as you are trouble-shooting.

[Jewels*]

Originally Posted by gemasita 

My son is ready to go to sleep as soon as he shows tired sign (rubbing eyes, etc).  If we tried to do the routine that you do (bath, etc) when he was showing tired signs, we'd miss our window by quite a long time.  I wonder if you could try skipping some of that routine and putting him to bed at the first signs of tiredness.  Don't know if it'll work but it might be worth a try.

Yes! I second this! My DD would have "THE WINDOW" as Dh and I called it.  If you missed it, you're screwed.  Once we learned that, Bedtime went much better, we'd still have a bedtime routine, but it was much shorter and would be cut short at anytime if fussing to nurse happened.  Then we'd just nurse and bounce to sleep!