Daytime Sleeping Woes

Hello,
My baby is driving me absolutely crazy with his daytime sleeps (or lack of). I have been trying to set a fairly flexible routine following the feed play sleep mantra that plunkett promote as this allows him to still demand feed but for me to feel like I have a small amount of control on what our day is going to be like.

We generally get up smack on 7am he has a feed a play and then goes to sleep but 30mins to an hour later he is awake and screaming. I have spent up to an hour and half before trying to resettle him, nothing seems to work. I have tried taking him out in the car and the pram. The car stops the crying but does not put him to sleep and as soon as we get out of the car the crying starts again. The pram has stopped working all together, the last couple of times I have been out shopping with him have had to carry him around even though he was awake and happy. I have a front pack and sometimes this will settle him, but only if I keep moving while wearing it. His dummy will calm him down but not put him to sleep. I am sure that he is tired and not hungry as once he calms down a bit he will be yawning and rubbing his eyes.
In the end I normally feed him because it has gone on so long that if he wasn't hungry to start with he would be after an hour of not going back to sleep. Once he has been fed he will pass out for another small sleep, and my whole feed, play sleep attempt has been ruined and is not even 10am yet.

At night he is fairly good, we have a feed at 6.30pm, he is then normally in bed and sleeping by 7-7.30pm I then dream feed him at 10.30pm and he sleeps through till 4.30am feeds then back to sleep till 7am.

When I first put him down at night or during the day he goes into his bassinette awake and settles himself.

Please help as come 4pm I have a very grumpy tired baby.

Hi,
He is 12 weeks today, he doesn't have any reflux.
He is quite small for his age as he was 2 weeks early and only weighed 6lb 2, I think he is about 10lb now, it has been a couple of weeks since he was lasted weighed.

On an unrelated subject how do you guys get the little charts across the bottom of your posts?

We have tried feeding him if he wakes up grumpy this worked when he
was on breastmilk, but I have had to put him on formula and he refuses this, as is still full up.
But like you say after an hour of grumpyness he has definately got hungry as well as still be tired.
Sometimes he is quite happy after a 30min snooze, and either wants a feed or will play a bit before his next feed and thats fine I don't want him to sleep if he doesn't need it.
Think I might take your advise and give up with feed play sleep. Already gave up with putting him down at first yawn, as he would just lay awake smiling and laughing to himself for ages so obviously wasn't quite ready for a sleep.

Yeah I think sometimes 45mins is enough (if he wakes up smiley and happy) but when he is screaming there is obviously something wrong.
I do put him down to sleep awake in his bassinette and he settles himself, sometimes with a few minutes of grizzling first.
The trouble is when he wakes after a cycle or sometimes after only 30mins I can't resettle him. The only thing I haven't tried is letting him cry it out. I will let him grizzle but if he starts full blown crying I don't leave him as I don't think its right when they are this young. I can usually get him to stop crying quite quickly by holding him and rocking but can't get him to go back to sleep, and if I put him back down he goes mental straight away. Sometimes he will fall asleep in my arms but will usually only be for another 10mins as he has got hungry.
I will give the white noise a try.

Heres some info my midwife gave me to help settle James when he was younger pretty much the same as what Stacy has described.

Settling Babies

Here are some suggestions to help:

    * Feed baby regularly throughout the day, between 2 to 4 hourly. Take the time of the feed from the beginning of the feed.
    * Make sure every feed is a full feed. If baby falls asleep wake him/her to finis the feed.
    * Laying baby on a rug on the floor is one effective way of waking baby.
    * Around 5-10 minutes is as long as should be spent on winding baby.



Settling to bed awake

    * Change nappy at the end of the feed to help waken baby and so the baby can learn to go to sleep on its own.
    * Try to have baby back in bed within 1-11/2 hours from the time baby got up.
    * Wrap baby firmly in a cuddle rug e.g a muslin wrap.
    * Always put baby to bed awake. Leave to settle and if baby starts crying wait 2-3 min, then comfort baby by tucking down again.
    * Wait 4-5 min then comfort and tuck down again.
    * Wait 6-7 min , repeat as above.
    * Wait 8-10 min, repeat as above.
    * this is usually over a period of 30 minutes.
    * If there is a quiet period of time after tucking baby down start the routine from the beginning.



If baby hasn't gone to sleep

    * Feed the baby if it is 2 hours since the last feed.
    * Take a walk in the pram or front pack.
    * Take nappies of and lie baby on the floor for a while.

BE CONSISTENT AND BABY WILL LEARN THIS BEHAVIOUR IN 5-7 DAYS

Hi, thanks alot everyone, definately have a few new things to try. Can't understand how he can settle down for first bit of sleep or for night sleep but won't resettle during the day. I have heard him resettle himself at night so he is definately capable of doing it.

I find if he is messing around with his feed that changing his nappy normally wakes him up enough so he can take the rest.

Hey nzpiper, I cried tons in that first few weeks, is just baby blues mixed with exhaustion. Will definately get easier, remember you and baby have only just met, takes a while to get into the swing of things.
I found laying baby chest to chest was a really good way to settle him, sometimes they just get over stimulated in the day and then find it really hard to switch off and a bit of skin to skin can really help. Good for dad to do if the smell of booby food gets to him too much, and is also a good excuse for you to have some time out.

Two of the books I have say that if you leave a baby to cry before 6 months they don't learn to wait a bit longer or to go to sleep they just learn that no one is there for them. I personally think that until they are old enough to be trying it on that you shouldn't leave them to cry. They are far too young to understand, they will not become spoilt and there has been a lot of research done that shows that a baby that is left to cry ends up crying more not less.

Sorry if that conflicts with what anyone else thinks, is just my feelings on it.

Also a sleep seminar I went to with the author of save our sleep said that the controlled crying method can teach some babies that if they cry for long enough someone will turn up.

Yeah I let him grizzle himself to sleep, as that is very much different to crying like you say.
At the seminar she said that not all babies interpret it as if I cry longer someone will come, some interpret it the way your bub has and for those people it works.

Edited by cuppatea

Is definately good to get into a habit of putting them down to sleep awake if at all possible. He will always put himself to sleep which is really handy at night especially as he still wakes for one feed. Means I can feed him put him down and he settles himself and I'm able to climb back into bed straight away. Just a shame he doesn't resettle himself during the day, but still I have a fairly decent nights sleep so can normally take what he throws at me during the day.

Edited by cuppatea

my midwife made me let jack cio at 3 weeks! I didn't know any better so i sat there and she wouldn't let me go in. He did have a good sleep but I never did it again.

I don't think even controlled crying is going to work with Caprece cos she really screams there is no grizzling and I'm not going to leave her to scream. I guess its back to the rocking the bassinet