She's cute. I'm tired. Boys are carrying on like nothing much happened. Two year old Stella is carrying on like her world is over most of the time (and blowing kisses to the baby the rest of the time). Life is crazy but awesome at the same time!
Many congratulations on the birth of Nora! She looks beautiful! But I guess she's changed a fair amount since this photo was taken?!
I'm sorry to be so selfish as to ask for your help when you have a new baby and must be shattered. If you are not able to respond I totally understand. However, I'm messaging with the hope you'll be able to offer some advice on our babe.
She is a week off 9 months, self settles and generally pretty gorgeous! She got the hang of naps about 3 months ago and currently has two naps; 9.15-10.30am ish (I usually wake her up from this nap), and 1.30-3.30pm (where I usually let her sleep until she wakes herself, unless it goes over 2 hours or gets too close to 4pm). She goes to bed at 7pm and she's asleep by 7.10pm.
Our issue is that she has been waking early consistently now for almost 2 months. It started being a wake up between 5.45/6am, which we didn't think was too bad so didn't do anything about it. Then if started to be between 5.15-5.45am and we realised this was too early and we needed to do something about it. Around a month/6 weeks ago she was starting to make attempts to crawl and was waking around this time, huffing and puffing, practicing crawling and generally getting a bit wound up! So again, I kept thinking all will calm down again once she is able to move and get rid of some of her energy during the day. She can now shuffle about fairly well during the day and is also pulling herself up on everything (can't say she's really crawling happily yet, but already on to the next thing!!) Over the last month or so I've been trying to get up before she wakes herself up, give her some weak milk or water to drink and let her resettle. This worked for a while and then I let it slip, hoping the habit had been broken. After she didn't resettle at all yesterday morning (so she was awake from 5am) I set my alarm for 4.50am this morning to get there whilst she was still asleep...only to find her sitting up in her cot awake!!!!! It is now 6am and she still isn't asleep!
OK...update...my husband has just got her to sleep by holding her (it's now 6.20am).
Can you offer any help? I am so glad she self settles and I know there can be a bit of a sleep regression around this time and don't want to get into another habit of holding her til she sleeps etc (tho that doesn't always work in any case!). Is she napping too much/little during the day? Should we move her bedtime? Or I could get up earlier to try the dream feed around 4.30/4.40am? Or - we could just leave her and put earplugs in?!?! She is eating very well during the day now and has done for a month I'd say. I don't think she's waking up due to hunger.
Rachel Grimes, Be sure to check out the post on early morning waking and also sleep habits.
I doubt she is waking due to hunger too, but do make sure she is starting to get solids three times a day since she's now 9 months old (if it's ok with her doctor).
I think the main thing to do is probably not give her any attention at this time until it is an acceptable wake up time. You could go in once to tell her it is time to sleep, or do whatever you have done in the past for sleep training, but I would avoid holding her to sleep which is pretty much just playing to her at this point. You could try leaving her for longer and longer in her bed every few days. take a look at the post I mentioned and decide what seems like a good plan to you.
Hello Rachel, Congratulations on your little girl! You must be tired, missing some sleep at this stage and I understand if you don't get to answer my post, but I wanted to at list try. My LO is 5.5 months old, I'm a first time mom to whom everyone says I should just put the baby to sleep around 9-10 p.m. because he is an early bird.I keep a log with he’s sleep length from when he was 4 months old and he never slept more than 11 hours a night (Usually 9-10:30 totally in the last weeks) He wakes up around 5 a.m. but is not a fixed hour, so I don't know exactly when to do wake to sleep. To sleep, we put him 7:00-7:30 pm and he sleeps until ~ 4 a.m (I didn't know about DF until reading about it on your blog, tried it once some nights ago but my boy woke up several times during that night and I was afraid to try it again). After the night feeding, I start the noise machine but baby still wakes up ~1 hour later. Most of the time, he wakes but makes little noise, starts baby talk, then 5-10 minutes later.... he poops.I go in,change him and he is all :”Hellooooo” and ready for a new day.(This once a night feeding is happening for the last 2 weeks, before that I think it was the sleep regression). So this is the beginning of the day for me bc he is not going to sleep afterwards, continues baby talk and after about 30 minutes starts the fussing/crying by the time is already past 6:00 a.m.
During the day he has 3 naps 1-1.5 hours usually each, but I have to stretch between them a little to get to 5 p.m. or close to it with them. Any advice would be useful, because I’m not sure what to try. Best Regards, Daria
Hi Rachel!
ReplyDeleteMany congratulations on the birth of Nora! She looks beautiful! But I guess she's changed a fair amount since this photo was taken?!
I'm sorry to be so selfish as to ask for your help when you have a new baby and must be shattered. If you are not able to respond I totally understand. However, I'm messaging with the hope you'll be able to offer some advice on our babe.
She is a week off 9 months, self settles and generally pretty gorgeous! She got the hang of naps about 3 months ago and currently has two naps; 9.15-10.30am ish (I usually wake her up from this nap), and 1.30-3.30pm (where I usually let her sleep until she wakes herself, unless it goes over 2 hours or gets too close to 4pm). She goes to bed at 7pm and she's asleep by 7.10pm.
Our issue is that she has been waking early consistently now for almost 2 months. It started being a wake up between 5.45/6am, which we didn't think was too bad so didn't do anything about it. Then if started to be between 5.15-5.45am and we realised this was too early and we needed to do something about it. Around a month/6 weeks ago she was starting to make attempts to crawl and was waking around this time, huffing and puffing, practicing crawling and generally getting a bit wound up! So again, I kept thinking all will calm down again once she is able to move and get rid of some of her energy during the day. She can now shuffle about fairly well during the day and is also pulling herself up on everything (can't say she's really crawling happily yet, but already on to the next thing!!) Over the last month or so I've been trying to get up before she wakes herself up, give her some weak milk or water to drink and let her resettle. This worked for a while and then I let it slip, hoping the habit had been broken. After she didn't resettle at all yesterday morning (so she was awake from 5am) I set my alarm for 4.50am this morning to get there whilst she was still asleep...only to find her sitting up in her cot awake!!!!! It is now 6am and she still isn't asleep!
OK...update...my husband has just got her to sleep by holding her (it's now 6.20am).
Can you offer any help? I am so glad she self settles and I know there can be a bit of a sleep regression around this time and don't want to get into another habit of holding her til she sleeps etc (tho that doesn't always work in any case!). Is she napping too much/little during the day? Should we move her bedtime? Or I could get up earlier to try the dream feed around 4.30/4.40am? Or - we could just leave her and put earplugs in?!?! She is eating very well during the day now and has done for a month I'd say. I don't think she's waking up due to hunger.
What do you think?
Rachel Grimes,
DeleteBe sure to check out the post on early morning waking and also sleep habits.
I doubt she is waking due to hunger too, but do make sure she is starting to get solids three times a day since she's now 9 months old (if it's ok with her doctor).
I think the main thing to do is probably not give her any attention at this time until it is an acceptable wake up time. You could go in once to tell her it is time to sleep, or do whatever you have done in the past for sleep training, but I would avoid holding her to sleep which is pretty much just playing to her at this point. You could try leaving her for longer and longer in her bed every few days. take a look at the post I mentioned and decide what seems like a good plan to you.
best,
rachel
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Agnes Kurthy!
DeleteDear Rachel,
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU for this advice! It's extremely helpful!
Thank you for finding the time to respond, even with a tiny baby. I hope you are well and Nora is settling into the family!
Rachel X
PS - great name ��
;)
DeleteHello Rachel,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your little girl!
You must be tired, missing some sleep at this stage and I understand if you don't get to answer my post, but I wanted to at list try.
My LO is 5.5 months old, I'm a first time mom to whom everyone says I should just put the baby to sleep around 9-10 p.m. because he is an early bird.I keep a log with he’s sleep length from when he was 4 months old and he never slept more than 11 hours a night (Usually 9-10:30 totally in the last weeks)
He wakes up around 5 a.m. but is not a fixed hour, so I don't know exactly when to do wake to sleep.
To sleep, we put him 7:00-7:30 pm and he sleeps until ~ 4 a.m (I didn't know about DF until reading about it on your blog, tried it once some nights ago but my boy woke up several times during that night and I was afraid to try it again).
After the night feeding, I start the noise machine but baby still wakes up ~1 hour later. Most of the time, he wakes but makes little noise, starts baby talk, then 5-10 minutes later.... he poops.I go in,change him and he is all :”Hellooooo” and ready for a new day.(This once a night feeding is happening for the last 2 weeks, before that I think it was the sleep regression).
So this is the beginning of the day for me bc he is not going to sleep afterwards, continues baby talk and after about 30 minutes starts the fussing/crying by the time is already past 6:00 a.m.
During the day he has 3 naps 1-1.5 hours usually each, but I have to stretch between them a little to get to 5 p.m. or close to it with them.
Any advice would be useful, because I’m not sure what to try.
Best Regards,
Daria