Sounds like you are doing very well. If you are walking along or rocking the pram, then this should be enough to soothe her whilst you are out and about. She will start to settle quite quickly if you stay consistent.

reply by Mentor-Wendy - 5 weeks ago

DAY 2

CURRENT PROGRESS
Nap 1 PUPD in cot - no sleep
Nap 2 1 hour in car
Nap 3 1 hour after being rocked in pram, 1/2 hour car
Nap 4 1/2 hour in car
Bedtime PUPD 1 hour fell asleep on CD woke 10 min later, grizzled/cried, slept 5 min later

QUESTIONS
PRAM-She will sleep in the pram first off but wakes after 45 min or as soon as I stop moving. What I was meaning in my first post was she cries after she has woken and wont go to sleep again even if we start moving. yesterday she cried for 55min after he initial 1 hour nap then finally went to sleep but by that stage she was due for a feed in 5 minutes so just woke up a few minutes later to be fed.

SINGING-Is it ok to sing to her during PUPDCD, this settles her when we pick her up but is it ok to keep singing when we put her down, was thinking that maybe this might turn into a sleep prop?

SHOULD I LEAVE HER-All the day time naps have gone out the window pretty much unless we use the pram & car, Am assuming this is normal from other thread. I feel like a jailer keeping her in the pram when she is crying. My mum today just wanted to pick her up and play with her, am I right to keep her in the pram? I told mum off for trying to entertain her too. After she has gone to sleep for the daytime naps should I just be content that she has had a nap at all and let her get up when she wakes or persevere to try to teach her settle through to the next sleep cycle?

NAP DROPPING- Do you think I should look at dropping a nap, I currently do 4, 2 morning and 1 afternoon and one from 5-til 6but have read in a few threads that this isn't advised.

SWADDLING- Before starting sleep training we swaddled her for every sleep/nap. Now we have started not swaddling her for her naps. Is it ok to still swaddle her at night? My reasoning was she doesn't get the sleep she used to get in the day anymore so didn't want to disturb her night time sleep as well. I think if I tried she would not settle herself when she wakes @ 4am

reply by sleepy7720 - 5 weeks ago

To answer your questions:

Pram: She is waking after 45 minutes which is the length of a typical sleep cycle. What you are teaching her to do is settle herself at this point. The aim at the moment would be to get one nap in the day in the cot and using pupdcd - often the first nap of the day is most successful as the less tired the baby is, the better they nap. Set yourself a sleep window of one hour. When she wakes after 45 minutes use pupd to make up the sleep window. At first she won't go back to sleep, but with perseverance after a couple of weeks she will start to extend. Once she is sleeping for 1 hour, you can look at encouraging a longer nap at some point during the day (usually the post lunch nap). To do this extend the sleep window to 1 hour 15 minutes and when she sleeps for that if necessary extend it again to 1.5 hours. So yesterday, after the 45 minute wake up, use pupdcd (unless you are out) for 15 minutes. If she hadn't gone back to sleep get her up. If you need to, have the rest of the naps in pram / car etc until she starts to get the hang of settling better when you can start to make all naps in the cot if you happen to be home.

Singing: stop singing when you do the put down, so that this doesn't become the prop.

If she is within the time of the 'sleep window' but awake, don't interact with her more than doing the pupdcd. Oncethe sleep window is up (or she wakes up after that point), then entertaining is all good.

3 naps a day work best. As you get her napping a bit better you can work on this (if she doesn't naturally drop a nap).

Swaddling at night should be fine for a little bit longer if that works OK. Naps and night sleeps are different and can have different cues etc so no probs.

Keep us posted

reply by DT-Elisabeth - 5 weeks ago

So over the past few days she has been getting much better at her day naps and at night she will go to sleep within half and hour, also twice she has gone to sleep without crying at all!

Question for the day naps,

Today she slept for 45 min for her first nap then woke and went back to sleep several times for the next hour but her hands would always wake her back up.

for her second nap @ 11am she slept for 2.5 hours. This meant she has gone 3.5 hours between feeds. Should I have woken her up after 2 hours

This happened the other day as well and threw her afternoon timings out .

reply by sleepy7720 - 4 weeks ago

Well done with naps - things are definitely heading the right way. If she's napping, it's fine to go up to an hour past a scheduled feed time then move the feeds closer together for the rest of the day to make up the difference.

reply by Mentor-Sarah - 4 weeks ago

Well I thought I was going good but since the weekend things have steadily declined.

On Friday Iyla surprised me and sleept the whole 2 hours for her first nap in the cot but since then have only been able to get 30- 45min. She also wont sleep for more than this anymore in the pram, car or capsule like she used to for her afternoon naps. On top of this she has started waking up in the night every second night! I feel like I just want to go back to our old ways!

Because she is waking earlier before her 3 hour food cycle is up everyting is out. If I feed her when she waked up she ends up snaking for the rest of the day or if I distract her the she just falls asleep while feeding, Im gettig to my wits end with this and dont know what to do.

reply by sleepy7720 - 3 weeks ago

Is she breast or bottle fed? Either way, you should be trying to move her towards a 4 hourly feeding cycle which will help stop any snacking. The time of her naps may have changed so try putting her down 1 hour later.

reply by Mentor-Wendy - 3 weeks ago

how do i move her towards a 4 hourly feed now that she wont even make it to 3?

She is breastfeed.

I'll try putting her down an hour later tomorrow and let you know how it goes

reply by sleepy7720 - 3 weeks ago

How long does each breast feed last? Have you tried expressing? If you can, then you can offer her a top up at the end of each feed. If she is struggling to make 3 hours then she is either not able to get enough because your supply isn't enough or she is snacking. Let us know the length of the feed and we will see if we can pinpoint the problem.

reply by DT-Jenny - 3 weeks ago

Ok so this is how today panned out

7am Wake

9am 1st nap 15min PUPD slept for 10 minutes, PUPD again until 10am for feed

11:30am drove to coffee group, went to sleep for 20minutes, woke as soon as the car stopped. Tried to rock her back to sleep in her capsule, gave in to the screaming @ 12:15

12:50pm Distracted her cries as best I could until when I feed her

1:30pm Left coffee group, Iyla went to sleep straight away and kept sleeping while I ran errands around town until I turned the car off when I got home @ 3pm

4:30pm Walk, Iyla went to sleep @ 4:45pm and woke @ 5:15pm while still walking. Got home @ 5:30pm

Feed 5:45
Bath 6:30
Massage 6:45
Sleep 7:30

So all and all she got 3 1/2 hours sleep during the day. She was really happy being up for longer in the morning but am concerned of her not sleeping for her usual 45min blocks.

I dont think the problem is my milk supply, she always feeds until she is WAY full and wont take anymore, feeds usually for 20 - 30min.

The problem from my point of view is only napping now when out in the pram or car. On our old routine she could always sleep in her cot for at least 45 min for all of her day naps. Now she pretty much needs to be rocked to sleep. It feels like I just replaced one sleep prop with another.

Thoughts would be so much appreciated.

reply by sleepy7720 - 3 weeks ago

Here is some feedback:

You probably put her down for her first nap too early - aim for at least 2.5 hours from waking. If she had slept for longer in the mornign then a lot of the later tired crying would have been avoided. Try later this morning and seewhat happens.

reply by Mentor-Wendy - 3 weeks ago

There is no way she can stay up for longer than 2 hours, she is pretty grumpy & whingy from 1.5 hours onwards and by the time 2 hours hits she is well ready for sleep.

Over the last couple days I have just run with her short naps in the morning and both Friday & Saturday she has caught up on her sleep with a big nap in the afternoon which has meant she has dropped her 4th nap.

I might just follow her lead for the next couple of days again to see if she is happy doing this, her morning naps have gotten slightly bigger each day too, from 10 min on Thursday, 20 min on Fri & half an hour today. Heres hoping they will continue getting a bit bigger so she isnt as grumpy late morning.

reply by sleepy7720 - 3 weeks ago

Ok, keep us posted.

reply by Mentor-Wendy - 3 weeks ago

So this is the 4th day that Iyla has not had a second afternoon nap. And is pretty much on the same routine now with her naps slowly getting better each day. FINALLY!! I have updated my routine in my profile to our current one.

She went down earlier than usual today, around 8:30am and woke after 30 min but went back to sleep after a few minutes of crying then slept for another 30 odd minutes. YES!!

She still wakes before her feed times and I just make her wait for them, she is getting more patient now I think but she just isnt happy at all until after he feed.

She is waking every night now for a feed around 2/3am even though she has 2 sometimes 3 tank feeds then a dream feed as well. I tried just trying to settle her rather than feeding her thinking it was just a resettle issue rather than her actually being hungry, but no she was really hungry. Could this mean that I may need to start solids early as her feeds just aren't seeming to stay in her system for long enough.

reply by sleepy7720 - 3 weeks ago

The routine looks ok and if she is genuinely hungry then the 1 night feed is reasonable at 14 weeks. However, she is not hungry after 1.5 hours if she wakes at 8pm so I wouldn't feed her then. I would consider expressing off your milk and giving her a top up after her her last feed at 6pm (which ideally should be closer to 7pm) to help fill her up. Rather than early weaning (which shouldn't be done before 17 weeks and under the supervision of your HV) consider giving her a bottle of hungry baby formula at 10:30pm. Keep us posted.

reply by Mentor-Wendy - 3 weeks ago

I think I need to keep fully waking her up to get her to eat more at the last feed. Im just rousing her at the moment. She always had, before this, at least three tank feeds eg. 4 6 7/8 but now with her skipping a nap she is missing out on that last feed. And she isnt being able to last the distance without it yet. Will try out my theory tomorrow night. Will also try it with a bottle so she gets it faster like you suggested. I hold her out for as long as I can but going anywhere over 2 hours being awake is too much of a stretch for her at the moment. From 1.5 hours she just wants to go to bed.

reply by sleepy7720 - 2 weeks ago

Last night she also woke up @ 12pm because she got out of her wrap eeeeekkkk need to tackle that one next!

reply by sleepy7720 - 2 weeks ago