I’m having a weird issue with my 8 week old daughter (will be 2 months on Tuesday). She sleeps swaddled in her crib with white noise. I sleep on a mat next to her crib.
She’s doing GREAT overnight. I’m getting two 4-5 hour stretches out of her. I’m getting good at knowing when she’s waking to eat and when she’s just making sleep noise. Last night we got a record 6hrs 20min. I’m thrilled. BUT bedtime itself is a 90 minute nightmare, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong with her schedule. Here’s what’s happening:
6:30/7: Awake, out of crib, feed
8-9:30/10: Nap 1
11:15/11:30-1:00: Nap 2
2:30-4: Nap 3
5:30/5:45-6:30: Nap 4 (catnap)
So her wake windows are about 75-90 minutes, and she seems fine with this. I watch her for sleep signals and let those guide nap times. Although she does seem to wake up grouchy from naps, and we’re at the age where she can make it through 1 sleep cycle on her own but typically needs help extending a nap beyond that, so naps are definitely interrupted.
Evening is where the wheels seem to fall off. She wakes up from her catnap around 6:30 PM, I feed her, and she has quiet awake time until around 7:30, when we try for bed. I’m not kidding when I say she cries on and off until 9. Nonstop. It almost seems like she’s having a 5th catnap because she goes down drowsy in the crib and then wakes 20 minutes later and cries on and off for an hour. BUT, around 9 PM she settles, sleeps until 12 or 1, eats, and sleeps again until 6:30 AM. Last night in frustration and because it had been a while, I fed her again at 9:20 PM. She ate and immediately settled and went to sleep and slept over 6 hours until after 4 AM today. BUT then I had to wake her at 7 to stay on schedule and she was super tired.
My thought is that I need to wait after her catnap and not feed her immediately. There’s like an hour between eating and going to bed. Maybe feed her closer to bedtime so it has more of a “night feed” vibe? She goes right back down easily after her night feed. Or am I doing bedtime too late and she’s trying to make a shift from a late bedtime to much much earlier and I’m just not catching on with how to do that?
I know I’m lucky to be getting such long night stretches at this age. I just need help solving this 90 minute nightly crying fest from 7:30-9 PM. I’m basically a hostage in her room, and my husband is home now to help with our other child’s bedtime, but he travels for work and leaves for 3 weeks at the end of the month and I’m stressing so hard about it.
HELP!
She’s doing GREAT overnight. I’m getting two 4-5 hour stretches out of her. I’m getting good at knowing when she’s waking to eat and when she’s just making sleep noise. Last night we got a record 6hrs 20min. I’m thrilled. BUT bedtime itself is a 90 minute nightmare, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong with her schedule. Here’s what’s happening:
6:30/7: Awake, out of crib, feed
8-9:30/10: Nap 1
11:15/11:30-1:00: Nap 2
2:30-4: Nap 3
5:30/5:45-6:30: Nap 4 (catnap)
So her wake windows are about 75-90 minutes, and she seems fine with this. I watch her for sleep signals and let those guide nap times. Although she does seem to wake up grouchy from naps, and we’re at the age where she can make it through 1 sleep cycle on her own but typically needs help extending a nap beyond that, so naps are definitely interrupted.
Evening is where the wheels seem to fall off. She wakes up from her catnap around 6:30 PM, I feed her, and she has quiet awake time until around 7:30, when we try for bed. I’m not kidding when I say she cries on and off until 9. Nonstop. It almost seems like she’s having a 5th catnap because she goes down drowsy in the crib and then wakes 20 minutes later and cries on and off for an hour. BUT, around 9 PM she settles, sleeps until 12 or 1, eats, and sleeps again until 6:30 AM. Last night in frustration and because it had been a while, I fed her again at 9:20 PM. She ate and immediately settled and went to sleep and slept over 6 hours until after 4 AM today. BUT then I had to wake her at 7 to stay on schedule and she was super tired.
My thought is that I need to wait after her catnap and not feed her immediately. There’s like an hour between eating and going to bed. Maybe feed her closer to bedtime so it has more of a “night feed” vibe? She goes right back down easily after her night feed. Or am I doing bedtime too late and she’s trying to make a shift from a late bedtime to much much earlier and I’m just not catching on with how to do that?
I know I’m lucky to be getting such long night stretches at this age. I just need help solving this 90 minute nightly crying fest from 7:30-9 PM. I’m basically a hostage in her room, and my husband is home now to help with our other child’s bedtime, but he travels for work and leaves for 3 weeks at the end of the month and I’m stressing so hard about it.
HELP!