Coffee Catchup 20th Jan with Dorothy Waide

If my 10 week old naps for 1 hour, wakes, and then I resettle her (a few minutes of patting and shushing is all it takes) and she then sleeps for another hour, is that counted as a 2 hour nap? Is she getting a deep sleep?

Hi there, I have a 16 week old 7.5kg beautiful baby girl who started to wake in the night due to hunger, I have recently changed her last fed to bottle express milk from morning. This has helped the problem she now sleeps for 9 hours a quick fed then back to sleep for another 3. I think that this will only be a short term fix due to her weight, what was your suggestion you did tap on for 4 months starting solids? With not breastfeeding the last fed should I express as well to keep up milk supply? Also she takes bottle well and also from dad however if I am not in the house she refuses to take the bottle from dad until I return- any suggestions?
And finally would you suggest a safeTsleep wrap for her in her cot, she hasn't started to roll but not far off.
Thank you in advance and thank you for a great afternoon.

I know you said this is the hardest thing to do...but my 7m old boy often wakes after one sleep cycle in his cot and is impossible to resettle. He will just cry and if it sounds like he's ramping up after 5mins or so, I will go in. I have tried leaving him in his cot and stroking his tummy (he would never stay on his side for shunting-type movements), sssshing him etc, but he often just cries harder. I have tried picking him up and he usually stops crying immediately, but will be looking all round the room in a very overtired way, and cries as soon as I put him down again. I usually leave the room with him still crying, which I hate. I have started taking him for a walk each morning so he sleeps a decent amount, but can't do this for every sleep.

Also, I have noticed he seems grizzly and even a bit sleepy for the hour after he gets up in the morning. He started sleeping 12 hours through the night (7-7ish) a couple of weeks ago, so I expected he would seem more refreshed than he does. Any thoughts and tips on the above?

P.S. We have just discovered he had a prominent tongue tie that was affecting his milk intake yet hadn't been picked up at birth, and this has has contributed a lot to the less than ideal sleep patterns he has developed. He was always a catnapper and never seemed to follow a natural schedule no matter how hard I tried. I think we're getting there now that he's had the tongue tie released, but obviously the habits are still there! Thanks.

My baby is 11 weeks and a half and he is a happy active boy. He does sleep from 9pm to 7am ( or 6:30am)but not good at napping. He likes to feed, play and play, not feed play and nap. He does do a good nap after a morning feed for a couple of hours, but afternoon is always a challenge and I'd be lucky to give him a half an hour nap between feeds. Any tips here? I am remembering your phrase of "babies need two types of nutrients, feed and sleep".

Another thing that is concerning me is him moving around in his cot. For a couple of days, I got up to find him having done a 270 degrees turn in his cot ( on his back) and lying down perpendicular to his normal cot side. He uses a sleeping bag so I didn't tuck him in tightly before he went to bed. I am concerned whether he may push himself against wall (he does that) and hit his head against bars. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi there, Mr 3 months has not been having a lot of awake time lately as we have been looking for 'tired signs' and putting him to bed shortly after feeding. Yesterday I followed your guidelines and kept him up for 1.5 hours then put him down. He settled well, & would sleep 2-2.5 hours, resettling by himself if he woke. Last night, however, he still woke 3 times.

This morning I did the same.. kept him up 1.5 hours then put him down. He settled okay but woke 40 mins later & wouldn't resettle. My questions are 1) how long should I persist in trying to resettle him before giving up? 2) If I'm not able to resettle him what do I do? Feed him & start the routine over again? 3) If he's slept less than the suggested 1.5-2.5 hours, do I keep him up for less time next cycle, or still 1.5 hours? And does that start from the time he wakes? Thanks

Edited by KyliePorter121417 - 22 January 2014 at 11:46am

Hi there,

We have been putting my 15 week down for day naps in her pram in the lounge and were initially deliberately not trying to creep too much around her because our theory was to hopefully encourage her to be able to sleep anywhere and not to require peace and quiet, and also to help differentiate between day and night. However, as she has got older I have found this harder and she is less likely to drop off if there is too much going on so I have started now putting her in our bedroom in the basinette with the curtains drawn (where she sleeps at night) - am I right in thinking you recommended a quiet dark room both day and night?

I have also stopped swaddling in the last few days as she seems to have suddenly taken a dislike to it - has started grizzling and writhing and fighting it when I try and swaddle. However, the tightness and security of the swaddle does seem to help her sleep plus, when I don't swaddle, she plays with her hands which keeps her awake. Would you persevere with the swaddling for a bit longer, even though she now fights it? I have been putting her in a sleeping bag and just using a thin muslin tightly tucked over the top to give her a bit of tightness and encourage her arms to stay down (although she can easily get them out if she tries hard enough!) Any other recommendations?

Also, in the last few days she has started often crying as soon as she hits the basinette mattress (proper crying with tears, not just grizzling) - is this just a phase they go through? As soon as I pick her up again she will go back to being happy and smiley. By picking her up and cuddling her am I instilling bad habits? I'm not sure why she's started doing this - she's never had a bad experience in there, we don't let her cry it out so she shouldn't have any negative associations with her bed. It seems to be getting worse, although it's more of a problem at night than during the day. Any suggestions?   

Thanks for any help you can give! :)

Edited by Vista - 22 January 2014 at 4:11pm

Hi Dorothy

Thanks for Monday - I find your seminars so interesting and I came away with a few more good tips. Its a shame I had to leave early as we were just starting to talk about things that related to my girls stage.

I do have one question - can you please give me a rough plan for a six month old so i have something to work towards for my 5 month old girls. They currently get up at 7am, are awake for 1.5 hours and sleep for 1.5 - 2 hours pretty much like clockwork throughout the day with their last nap more of a catnap of 45mins. I know i will need to stretch their awake times over the next month or so, so it would be interesting to see what a days schedule might look like starting at 7 and ending between 6 and 7. I am EBF and planning to start solids at about 6 months.

Many thanks again

Anna

I've been trying to persevere with the 1.5 hour awake time however things have been going downhill. Every nap today (Thurs) he has woken after 30-45 minutes. I only managed to resettle him once and he slept for just an extra 15 minutes. I'm not sure what to do with him when he wakes early - let him cry; feed him; entertain him...?
Should I be extending his awake time gradually, or just jumping straight to 1.5 hours and expecting him to cope? He's so overtired, today has been hell. Thanks in advance.

Hi I have attached my toddler routine for you . As you can see I keep meals and milk together rather than spreading them out, however I do offer milk before going for naps.   At 8 months it is important and recommend by MHO and Plunket that solids are given before milk. FOr some babies it can take a while to adjust so if this is the case I would offer a little milk, solids, then remainder of milk until you can reverse to solids first.

Your routine for me would look more like this - I have based the wake up time at 630am and having awake times of 3 hours and 2 naps of a minimum 1 1/2 hours so if this isn't the case then you need to adjust accordingly

7.00am Solids plus milk

9.45am Milk feed
10.00am Nap

12.00pm Lunch optional to offer water or milk here


215pm Milk feed
2.30pm Nap

4.30pm Dinner plus milk
bath, milk, clean teeth

7.00pm Bed
toddler_2_nap_routine_OHBaby_.pdf

Hi yes ideally over time she will learn to resettle without you having to help her, however I find that resettling is time consuming and takes time but the end result is worth it. With my experience it can take me anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 weeks to teach a newborn baby to resettle. Hope that helps