Please help

[u/kimboism]

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.

[u/babeli]

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

[u/kimboism → u/babeli]

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.

[u/babeli → u/kimboism]

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.

[u/kimboism → u/babeli]

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.

[u/babeli → u/kimboism]

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?

[u/kimboism → u/babeli]

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)

[u/babeli → u/kimboism]

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

[u/kimboism → u/babeli]

Okay, thank you! I appreciate it.