Nap time help!

Roesy

Our 15 week old daughter is doing pretty well at night. Goes down between 8/8.30-7.30/8ish. She might wake once during the night with a dirty nappy and will have a bottle and go back to sleep. She has slept through a few times too though. At night the routine is grobag, bottle, upright time, cot or bath, grobag, bottle, upright time, cot. On bath nights she's usually asleep before she finishes the bottle but can be put down drowsy and will go off herself.

Naps are a big problem though. She has silent reflux and colic. She is being treated with Zantac and is on anti reflux formula. It's more under control but she can still have bad spells with it. During the peak of the colic and reflux the only way we could get her to sleep was to walk and rock/bounce her in our arms. I think she has become reliant on this now. She will not fall asleep during the day without some sort of walking/rocking or if she's in the car she'll conk. The struggle to get her down for a nap can take an hour or more. We've tried putting her down drowsy but she screams and works herself up into an awful state. It can take three attempts of putting her into the cot asleep and even then we usually only get 30-45 minute. We are lucky if we get 3 of these mini naps a day and then she's like a bear by bedtime. The paediatrician says she should be having three 1 hour naps a day. We have tried moving her into her darkened room and putting her into her cot at the first visible sign of tiredness which usually happens about an hour and a half to two hours after her bottle. One thing we have also noticed is that she will sleep for 1-2 hours if she is left sleep more upright in our arms. This rarely happens but we have had to do it a couple of times in the last couple of weeks over work being done in our house and being out of our house for a day or two when we lost power during the last storm.

Sorry for the big spiel but I'd love to get her out of this habit especially since she's getting bigger and I'll have to go back to work on the next few months. Any advice would be graciously accepted

frostyjacks

Have u tried Cow & Gate comfort milk? It worked for ours. A drop of infacol beforehand as well.

Roesy

frostyjacks wrote: »

Have u tried Cow & Gate comfort milk? It worked for ours. A drop of infacol beforehand as well.

We've been told to stick with the anti reflux formula but we do use the infacol alright.

Roesy

Update! We just put her in her cot about 20 minutes ago with the mobile on. She grumbled and give out and eventually started crying. When it turned to proper crying my husband picked her up and within a minute or two she conked and went back into the cot without waking :-/

Chattastrophe!

Roesy wrote: »

One thing we have also noticed is that she will sleep for 1-2 hours if she is left sleep more upright in our arms.

Do you have her cot mattress inclined?

I was on the phone to our PHN today because it seems my little boy has reflux, that was the first thing she recommended, says it makes a huge difference.

nikpmup

Chattastrophe! wrote: »

Do you have her cot mattress inclined?

I was on the phone to our PHN today because it seems my little boy has reflux, that was the first thing she recommended, says it makes a huge difference.

Only in some cases it would seem... made no difference to our fella.

Roesy

We have it inclined alright. Can't say it made a big difference when we did it to be honest. Has the phn nurse recommended you try Infant Gaviscon? We got a little relief out of that initially but be prepared, if you do try it, that it can make them very constipated. Poor little mite had chalky, hard poo.

Chattastrophe!

Roesy wrote: »

We have it inclined alright. Can't say it made a big difference when we did it to be honest. Has the phn nurse recommended you try Infant Gaviscon? We got a little relief out of that initially but be prepared, if you do try it, that it can make them very constipated. Poor little mite had chalky, hard poo.

No she didn't really recommend anything apart from inclining the mattress. And tbh he looks really uncomfortable with it inclined, like his wee head is squashed down onto his neck.

Roesy

You might be lucky and inclining him might help. The things I tried were keeping her upright more, the sling was a godsend for cranky, uncomfortable days. I also use some massage techniques to help with it. I keep her burped well too. We also tried gaviscon, it helped a little initially. We had some improvement when I stopped breastfeeding and changed to anti reflux milk and Dr Browns bottles. Unfortunately in our case we ended up on Zantac when it worsened a few weeks ago. Apparently in a lot of cases it goes by 16 weeks though.

Rachineire

I would just keep trying and continue what your doing. The fact that she can nap in her cot is a goos thing, just keep on putting her in there at signs od tiredness and witb consistency she will eventually learn to settle in the cot for naps.

I never did this and now have a 14 month old that will ONLY nap in his pram after it is rolled back and forth for ages! Its such a pain and if I ever have another child I will do my best to make sure they nap in a cot/travel cot.

Neyite

My guy never napped like baby books said. They lied! He would only nap for 40 -45 mins at a time, until he was about a year old. And we used to have to rock him, but what I did do which worked as a gradual transition was to lie on our bed , both of us on our sides facing each other, and stroke his temple to sleep.

Gradually, I was able to put him down in his cot once I broke the rocking-to-sleep habit.

Blueskye

I have 9 month old twins, they were awful nappers, would only sleep in buggy in the day and often woke after 10/15 mins. Needed to be rocked to sleep at night and woke numerous times. Well that was our fault really.

We contacted a sleep consultant and taught them to fall asleep themselves (sat by cot while they fell asleep, some crying initially but they weren't left alone) and now they need 3 hours daytime sleep and usually get it in 3 naps. And they sleep 12 hours at night. Sometimes wake for bottle which I don't mind. If they miss a nap they are v unsettled at night. At 6 months they were sleeping 3.5 hours in the day. I do believe babies need to be taught to sleep well. But I know that's not a popular opinion.

Roesy

Blueskye wrote: »

I have 9 month old twins, they were awful nappers, would only sleep in buggy in the day and often woke after 10/15 mins. Needed to be rocked to sleep at night and woke numerous times. Well that was our fault really.

We contacted a sleep consultant and taught them to fall asleep themselves (sat by cot while they fell asleep, some crying initially but they weren't left alone) and now they need 3 hours daytime sleep and usually get it in 3 naps. And they sleep 12 hours at night. Sometimes wake for bottle which I don't mind. If they miss a nap they are v unsettled at night. At 6 months they were sleeping 3.5 hours in the day. I do believe babies need to be taught to sleep well. But I know that's not a popular opinion.

She's young still I know but she will be going to grandparents/childminder when I go back to work so I'd love to have this walking and rocking her to sleep sorted before then. I really don't know is the reflux still part of the napping problem. Take this morning for example, she started getting a bit tired while playing on her mat so instead of picking her up and automatically starting to walk up and down rocking her in her room I sat in the rocking chair in her room and sang to her. She didn't protest so after a few minutes and very sleepy eyes I decided to put her in the cot. The minute she hit lying down position she started crying and was wide awake. I sat beside her and tried to comfort her with the mobile and rubbing her head but it did nothing. She was getting quite worked up so I picked her up and she dozed off crying. I left her a few minutes in my arms and the minute I went to put her back down we had the same thing. It took 5 attempts before she went down without waking crying. Each time I tried to comfort her in the cot before resorting to picking her up. She was quite gulpy while dozing in my arms so I don't know is it too much to expect of her at the moment when the reflux is still an issue.

Blueskye

Roesy wrote: »

She's young still I know but she will be going to grandparents/childminder when I go back to work so I'd love to have this walking and rocking her to sleep sorted before then. I really don't know is the reflux still part of the napping problem. Take this morning for example, she started getting a bit tired while playing on her mat so instead of picking her up and automatically starting to walk up and down rocking her in her room I sat in the rocking chair in her room and sang to her. She didn't protest so after a few minutes and very sleepy eyes I decided to put her in the cot. The minute she hit lying down position she started crying and was wide awake. I sat beside her and tried to comfort her with the mobile and rubbing her head but it did nothing. She was getting quite worked up so I picked her up and she dozed off crying. I left her a few minutes in my arms and the minute I went to put her back down we had the same thing. It took 5 attempts before she went down without waking crying. Each time I tried to comfort her in the cot before resorting to picking her up. She was quite gulpy while dozing in my arms so I don't know is it too much to expect of her at the moment when the reflux is still an issue.

Yes she's only 15 weeks so v young and has reflux. Only you will know the right time to deal with it.

Like you, I was worried about going back to work and how could 1 person get these babies to sleep plus deal with all the night wakings and work. But I wasn't ready to 'train' them til they were 6 months, just felt they were too young. I really was against letting them cry but I was so desperate we stuck with it and within 3 weeks had both of them going into their cots happily and going to sleep. But it's a difficult thing to do and it has to be something you really want to do otherwise you 'll cave in and pick her up and then she learns she can't fall asleep by herself.

The first night with twin 1 He took an hour to fall asleep. It was v hard but I could only comfort him verbally or patting. And he did cry (and so did I) but he wasn't alone. Twin 2 took less time, maybe 35 mins. The first night is the worst, they catch on fast and we started with naps the morning after.

Roesy

So, we've had a couple of successes. Yesterday she was getting tired so I started the usual walking and rocking combo. She was not settling and a delivery arrived so I had to go up and sign for it so I popped her in the cot with the mobile on, like I have a 100 times before. A couple of minutes later there was no complaining so I tidied up my lunch dishes and when I went back in a few minutes later the little fairy had fallen asleep and stayed asleep for two hours. Tried it again for her afternoon nap and got 35 minutes. Same again this morning but I did have to pick her up once before she settled. Might be a fluke but I'll continue and happily take the wins while I can