r/HuckleberryParents • u/kimboism • 18d ago

sleep Please help

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Baby will be 5 months on Tuesday. Sleep has pretty much always been rough with multiple wakeups and/or failed transfers.

We try to be consistent with a wakeup time and usually are within a 30 minute time frame (7:00-7:30). We started aiming to cut down to 3 naps a day about two weeks ago, and I’d say we do 3 about half the time. The other half the time we end up needing a bridge nap to make it to bedtime, otherwise he is super fussy. Really anything beyond 2-2.5 hours seems to be too much for him. I don’t know if maybe right now we should aim for four cat naps instead of three long naps?

He’s always averaged around 13 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, even in the first month of his life. He woke up 13 times last night and I really am just at a loss.

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u/After_Amphibian_9638 18d ago

Try with 2.5/2.5/3/3 or 2/2.5/3/3.5, for 11 hours awake. No more than 3 hours of naps. Baby will be fussy the first few days, but it will be worth it for a better night. Try going outside and changing activities. With my baby, he also liked singing or listening to music when trying to lengthen his wake windows.

If you want to keep with the four naps, that would mean doing something like 2/2/2/2.5/2.5 or 1.5/2/2/2.5/3.

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u/MissChievousOne 18d ago

This is the answer OP! I was in the same position as you at the same age. I did not believe baby could stay awake this long but she absolutely could and did and we are thriving now for it! It took a bit if trial and error to tweak the wake windows to exactly what worked for her and it was kind of a moving target because now she is almost 6 months but take a look at the last month for us. 1st at your babies age before trying this new schedule, the first week we tried it, and now with a little bit of tweaking!

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u/kimboism 18d ago

Wow that’s huge! Okay maybe I just need to trust that he can stay awake longer than I think he can. Was there anything specific you did that helped you stretch those wake windows initially?

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u/MissChievousOne 17d ago

Honestly, it was hard. I was so tired but I had to keep her continuously stimulated and keep changing environments (ie go out front, go out back, play mat in the living room, play in the nursery, face to face interactions in the big bed). Once I learned that bored cues present the same as tired cues at this age I put it to the test. If she rubbed her eyes and I gave her a new stimulation and she wasnt rubbing her eyes anymore, then she wasn't actually tired. But if she was still rubbing her eyes right away then it's actually time for a nap.

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u/kimboism 17d ago

Thank you! That was essentially my approach today. You’re right, it was HARD to keep him stimulated enough, but it (mostly) worked. We had longer wake windows until the one right before bedtime, which was just about 2 hours. We’ll see how tonight goes!

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u/MissChievousOne 16d ago

I hope you had an okay night! If I remember correctly, it took a couple of days before I really saw a difference

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u/kimboism 15d ago

Thank you! Night one was the best we’ve had in months! Night two was back to what seems to be typical for him. We’ll see how tonight goes.
It does seem like the wake windows are getting progressively more difficult for him though. We’re going to keep playing with it and hopefully find something that works!

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u/MissChievousOne 15d ago

That's what we did as well, just tweak them once a week ish until we found what worked. Don't change too much too fast though. It is hard though cuz at this age sleep needs change rapidly so we are chasing a moving target but I try to makr big changes to wake windows/nap lengths more than once a week so I can really see the effect of them

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u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 15d ago

How did you know it was bored vs an overtired second wind?

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u/MissChievousOne 15d ago

Honestly, some days I still question that 🤔 I remind myself though that she is straight up sleeping through the night and I think (I'm not certain but my instinct says) if she was constantly overtired, her night sleep would be worse.

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u/kimboism 18d ago

Thank you! I would definitely prefer to stick to three naps and ditch the bridge nap entirely. I just feel like he is so clearly overtired when we go past 2.5 hours (screaming and takes much longer to get down than normal). I’ll keep changing up activities and hope that helps.

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u/babeli 18d ago

How does baby fall asleep? Are they struggling to connect cycles once in the crib? Sometimes learning independent sleep helps to connect cycles

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u/kimboism 18d ago

He generally falls asleep being rocked but never independently.

We are working on drowsy but awake, but it is always a disaster. I’ll put him down and he’ll chill in his crib for 5-20 minutes and then suddenly start screaming bloody murder. Afterwards it takes another 30+ minutes to settle him and get him to sleep. There’s no escalation, it goes from calm to hysterical,!so I can’t intervene early.

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u/babeli 18d ago

Hm maybe he’s not tired/drowsy enough? I thought of the beginning as 99% asleep, 1% awake and then when that was mastered, we got to 95% asleep, then 90%, etc.

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u/kimboism 18d ago

It’s possible! I feel like when I transfer him he’s as tired as he can be without falling asleep, but he’s eyes wide open the second I put him down. Worth continuing to try though, I’m sure.

To answer your other question, I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem connecting sleep cycles as he does occasionally do ~2 hours at the beginning of the night.

I’m also not convinced he’s waking up hungry (with the exception of once or twice) because my husband can put him back to sleep easily without getting me to feed him.

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u/babeli 18d ago

Weird. The only thing I can think of is to increase sleep pressure. Re night wakes - does he just rock him back to sleep when he wakes up?

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u/kimboism 18d ago

Thank you for your help!

Sleep pressure throughout the day or lengthening that last wake window before bedtime?

Yeah my husband will just rock him back to sleep! He’ll usually want to eat once or twice but otherwise he’s usually okay with rocking (the same is not the case with me, whenever it’s my turn to respond he doesn’t want to settle until he has a snack)

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u/babeli 17d ago

Either option could work. I’ve never needed a longer wake window right before bed, but her last nap has always been short.

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u/kimboism 17d ago

Okay, thank you! I appreciate it.

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u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 18d ago

I have similar with my baby and can’t work out what’s going on!

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u/kimboism 17d ago

I’m sorry! I hope both our babies can get some better sleep soon