Hello everyone. I am still struggling over here with false starts every single night and have been since baby was 8 weeks old. She is 21 weeks old (5 months old next Tuesday). Last week she gave me four days in a row of not having a false start and I naively thought we had finally made it! But then we’ve been back to this nonsense and it’s driving me crazy. She is in full day daycare five days a week.
I put her down drowsy but awake for all naps and for what I hope will be her bedtime. Bedtime is 8:30 p.m. (or thereabouts) and wake up time is 7 a.m. (she sometimes wakes between 6:45-7:15 a.m.). After she wakes up from her false start I usually (all in the mostly dark with the white noise still on) change her, feed her, put her back in her crib and lightly pat her chest or just keep my hand on her chest – I’ve been doing the patting instead of bouncing for a month now (and we have slowly been decreasing the time but can’t seem to get to zero amount of time).
When she is home on the weekends, she usually takes 35-minute naps and we aim for four naps per day (these shorter naps are newer – she used to sleep a long stretch, up to 2 hours, and then subsequent naps were short in which case I would aim for 3 naps per day). On daycare days I don’t know her exact schedule, but I believe it is two to three naps (one longer one in the morning), and she is always up around 3:30 p.m. and we pick her up at 5:15 p.m. so we get home and I put her down for a 30-minute cat nap at 5:30 p.m.
Her longest stretches have been 10 hours which she has done numerous times; she frequently sleeps 8 hours straight. If she wakes up it’s usually around 5/5:30 a.m. for a feed and then I put her back down to sleep.
Is our false start issue here that she is only getting a 2.5 hour stretch between last nap and bedtime? How should I deal with that last nap of the day if the earliest I can put her down is 5:30? I just don’t think she could hang until a reasonable hour of 7/7:30/8 if her last nap ends at 3:30. Is she too young to drop that last cat nap?
Should I be doing something differently when she does her false start? We tried letting her fuss it out (like not even going in there when she woke up) and twice had her go back to sleep, but it usually ends up in full on screaming.
Advice or schedules for similarly aged babies welcome!
I put her down drowsy but awake for all naps and for what I hope will be her bedtime. Bedtime is 8:30 p.m. (or thereabouts) and wake up time is 7 a.m. (she sometimes wakes between 6:45-7:15 a.m.). After she wakes up from her false start I usually (all in the mostly dark with the white noise still on) change her, feed her, put her back in her crib and lightly pat her chest or just keep my hand on her chest – I’ve been doing the patting instead of bouncing for a month now (and we have slowly been decreasing the time but can’t seem to get to zero amount of time).
When she is home on the weekends, she usually takes 35-minute naps and we aim for four naps per day (these shorter naps are newer – she used to sleep a long stretch, up to 2 hours, and then subsequent naps were short in which case I would aim for 3 naps per day). On daycare days I don’t know her exact schedule, but I believe it is two to three naps (one longer one in the morning), and she is always up around 3:30 p.m. and we pick her up at 5:15 p.m. so we get home and I put her down for a 30-minute cat nap at 5:30 p.m.
Her longest stretches have been 10 hours which she has done numerous times; she frequently sleeps 8 hours straight. If she wakes up it’s usually around 5/5:30 a.m. for a feed and then I put her back down to sleep.
Is our false start issue here that she is only getting a 2.5 hour stretch between last nap and bedtime? How should I deal with that last nap of the day if the earliest I can put her down is 5:30? I just don’t think she could hang until a reasonable hour of 7/7:30/8 if her last nap ends at 3:30. Is she too young to drop that last cat nap?
Should I be doing something differently when she does her false start? We tried letting her fuss it out (like not even going in there when she woke up) and twice had her go back to sleep, but it usually ends up in full on screaming.
Advice or schedules for similarly aged babies welcome!