Holy False Starts

[texn89]

We’re having a hard time and I just need to vent for a minute. We’re about 2 weeks in to cry it out and baby girl is doing GREAT for that first fall asleep—flips to her tummy, yowls for a minute or two, then passes out. But without fail, she wakes up after 30 minutes and screams like the world is ending. Our pediatrician says she’s not connecting her sleep cycles yet… Is she just a drama queen and feels the need to scream bloody murder for 30 minutes? Oh, and god forbid I return her to her crib after feeding her at night. She’ll make sure everyone on the block knows about that atrocity.

I’ve read through Ferber and PLS and TCB and r/sleeptrain and it’s so hard to get a clear answer on wtf is going on. She’s overtired, she’s not tired enough, she’s napping too much or maybe not enough, her bedtime is too early, wait, no, it’s too late.

I can’t stand the screaming. I worry about my 3 y/o waking up to it. Anyone else go through something similar? Find a magic miracle cure?

LO is 5mo. WWs are between 2 and 2.25 hrs, 3 naps, trying to lengthen the last WW a bit to see if that helps with the false start (it doesn’t). Naps in the crib are a precise 30 minutes; if we baby wear, she can go all day, but we cap it depending on how much day sleep she’s getting.

…. ugh.

 

[ronniesgrl1]

@texn89 We are recently experiencing something similar. Our 5 month old is waking up after 2 hours into their night time sleep and crying for 30 minutes. We check on them 5 minute, 10 minute, 15 minute intervals but they refuse any help. We just let them cry until they figure it out. And lately they wake up in the middle of the night that way and we’re forced to do the same thing.

I think this is the good stretch. Meaning they finally understand they have to do it on their own and they are less crying for help and more crying out of frustration. So I just say words of encouragement, give them the tools (I.e. pacifier and a video monitor to check on them), and leave them to it. It’s grating on my nerves, but it’s also progress.

 

[candy7]

@texn89 We found that we had false starts when my babe's day wasn't long enough. Wake windows and naps and whatnot all seemed good, but he was waking up around 7 and we were trying to put him down for bed at 7. Once we shifted wake up to 6:30 and bed to 7:30, he was able to go down and stay down. Sometimes we had to cap a nap very early and then sneak in an extra super short cat nap later, but the 13 hour day was a game changer for us in months 4 and 5, maybe even into 6.