13 week old fights sleep ALL the time!

[MagicGirl79]

:crying: :hissy::hair::crying:


Just want to vent...

Riley has decided the last 4 days that he's going to refuse to sleep and it is an absolute fight to get him to sleep! I have no idea why and where this has come from.

We were doing well with our self-settling and he was going down relatively easily. But about one or two weeks ago he started to recognise our sleep routine and now whenever it starts he fights it right from the start. And then in the last 4 days it has hit melting point and has turned into full blown scream crying.

I don't have any solutions and feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

It's even got to the point now that at night time as soon as he gets out of the bath he starts to protest. Even though he won't be going to bed until he's dressed, had anothe feed and cuddle time. So bedtime is still probably at least an hour away, but as soon as you start to dry and dress him, he starts screaming.

It's driving me nuts. I think I'm going to have to move his bath time to in the morning or something, but that doesn't help with him fighting me for every other sleep.

It just took me over half an hour to settle him and get him to sleep and that's a battle for a 40min nap cause he never sleeps longer than that so it hardly seems worth the fight except I know that it'll be worse later if I don't make him sleep now. Took an hour to settle him last night.

I've tried keeping him up longer, tried keeping him up shorter, tried wrapping him differently, wrapping with hands out, tried a new comfort toy - and no matter what he fights me everytime.

Is this just a phase, do I just push through? Any insights/words of wisdom?

[MagicGirl79]

*bump*

Doesn't anyone have any insights? Pulling my hair out here - please tell me this is a phase and it will pass.

[kar]

How old is he? I dont know, f fought sleep with every ounce of his considerable willpower until about 5 months then started relaxing about it. Would start screaming as soon as he saw the wrap, crying when getting dressed after bath etc.

[ellyash]

What do your days look like? Can you give a run down (eg up at 7,feed at...) maybe you are keeping him up for too long, or not long enough.

[kar]

Sorry, just saw he is 13 weeks. I was told at about this age the absolute max up time is 1.45. Was Tod a good way to see if babe was tired or just grumping was to try and distract when seemed to be grizzly. If couldn't be distracted by something new put to sleep asap. Worked well for us as f did not have obvious tired signs. I also started rocking him to sleep in his pram rather than trying to get get him to sleep in his cot which never worked and instead I would have to walk around the house for 40 mins with a screaming baby who would then sleep in my arms only and often only as long as I remained standing!! As soon as I sat in a chair he would scream again.

[FairyPrincessOf1]

I was having the same problem. Does you little one take a dummy? I know not all people will agree, but i have found it works, if DD is really unsettled and screaming and nothing else is working, i put a tiny bit of glycerine on her dummy and it calms her right down and she falls asleep quite easy after that. Up to you, some people have said it may cause tooth decay, but it's only a tiny bit and i actually got the idea from a friend who have been using it in their family for generations and no problems!

[MagicGirl79]

Hi Guys - thanks for your responses.

Our day looks something like this, but it varies because he's demand fed.

Wakes somewhere between 5-6:30 for a feed and then back down straight away for a sleep - he will keep sleeping till 8:30-10 depending on the day.

After that he feeds every 3 hours. His wake time is usually 1-2 hours, generally less time up in the mornings and he stays up longer as the day goes on. He is a persistent cat-napper so when he goes down for a sleep he only ever sleeps for 40mins.

During wake time, we do things like tummy time, playmat, reading, singing songs etc.

As a result we sometimes feed 2.5 hourly if he wakes after a cat-nap and is grizzly.

Try to bath him around 5:30 and then he has his last feed between 7-8 and then straight to bed. Sleeps at night till around 1am, then again at 4am, then usually around 6-6:30am (but as I said above this time varies depending on where his night feeds have been).


Kar - I usually don't let him stay up longer than 1.5 hours except for in the early evening when I'm stretching him out for his last feed as late as possible so his night feeds are better.

FairyPrincess - We use a dummy, but in the last 3 days during his screaming sessions he won't take it, just spits it out. I'll have to google using glycerine on it.