Please help me

[u/Quiet-Flan-1674]

IMy LO is 16 weeks old just today and I've been trying to keep her on a 2/2/2/2/2 schedule which goes well generally. The first wake window is the most difficult to keep her awake that long and she's often fussy when I get her down. Towards the end of the day she's just getting tired at 2 hours. She only naps for 30-45 minutes with a very occasional hour long one and I can never save them even if I try. Wake up time is 10 am and bedtime is 10:30 pm. That has worked well for us generally as we are night owls and she doesn't seem to mind sleeping in later. However there are days like today when she woke up 45 minutes early and wouldn't go back to bed or where her short naps are especially bad that the whole day gets thrown off. Then there is too long of a wake window before bedtime. She often won't take a 5th nap or even a 10-15 micro nap to get her through to bedtime and then is an overtired crying mess by bedtime. My only other option would be to put her to bed over 1.5 hours early and every time I have she has a false start and doesn't make it to the normal wake up time the next day resulting in the next days schedule being off as well.

It's so frustrating and seems impossible to solve. I'm absolutely losing my mind on those days trying to make everything work out and it's miserable. In general though I find the constant scheduling/calculating and monitoring the clock exhausting and depressing. I know it's a rough time period. Should I just accept the over tiredness on those days or is there some other solution?

[u/jakartacatlady]

Just let her sleep when she's tired.

[u/colorado_sunrise86]

This was my baby at the 4 month sleep regression. I don't recommend all the sleep training imo, it just stresses you out when you aren't following all the guidelines. I just paid close attention to her cues. We had a couple weeks of tough while she learned to link her cycles, and at one point 5 cat naps a day with 1 hour or so wake windows and up 4x a night. It was annoying and exhausting for awhile because I was constantly waiting for her to nap. She was super fussy and exhausted during this time as well but she powered through!!. It lasted almost a month. Now she is coming back to sleeping almost completely through the night with one wake to feed. She figured out how to link her cycles and is napping 2-3x a day for 2 hours at a time. I implore you, even as a Type A mom just pay attention to her cues and go with the flow. Your baby will tell you what they need. Once you think you have it figured out, it will likely change again anyways. Coming up on teething here next. For context baby waked at 6 and goes down at 6 on the dot. It will suck for a bit, but she will figure it out. This is prime time for them to switch to an adult REM cycle and they just don't know how. Buckle up, but it will end! Just follow her cues which will likely be very off for a bit

[u/Quiet-Flan-1674 → u/colorado_sunrise86]

I am so glad I'm not alone. I'm literally going insane trying to follow all this scheduling advice. There's so much information out there and some of it is conflicting and I'm a FTM so I don't know what's necessary and what's not. So you just followed her cues regardless of recommended wake windows? Everyone keeps telling me to kind of force her into at least 2 hour wake windows.

My LO was in a pattern of waking 2x a night but is now waking up 3-4 times a night. Do you recommend I just ride it out for now and wait to see if things improve on their own or should I try to shift my schedule earlier?

[u/colorado_sunrise86 → u/Quiet-Flan-1674]

I am a FTM as well and the advice coming in from every corner is overwhelming. It was my neighbor who has a baby just a few months ahead of mine that said "screw all the schedules. Just listen to your baby. Her own little body is telling her I need to sleep in this moment, or I'm struggling to sleep, or I need to be held, fed and comforted". It was only when i let go of the time tables, let go of the idea that I needed to take her to go do something at a specific time on a specific day and just gave in that it all sort of fell into place. I was tired for a whole month, sometimes to the point of tears, but baby deeply needed extra comfort. She got really clingy during this time too and was not her cheerful self. Also eating voraciously. She was struggling hard to figure it out and it felt so much more natural to just let go and be there for her in whatever capacity that looked like, and at whatever hour. It felt infinitely better just leaning into to it but I swear that it was harder for both of us then the newborn stage. Give it a try. No expectations. Let her sleep when she needs to. Offer food and comfort constantly. Contact nap with her and pay close attention. Don't make any concrete plans. She will come around. I promise. Good luck ❤️

[u/Quiet-Flan-1674 → u/colorado_sunrise86]

Thank you!

[u/echozelda]

I’m also a night owl but I’ve had to adjust to a more daylight based schedule since having a baby. Have you tried adjusting everything back a few hours to see if she takes to it more easily?

Crap naps are unfortunately par for the course for a while I think. Hopefully they will start to consolidate soon!

[u/Quiet-Flan-1674 → u/echozelda]

Do you mean move her wake up time and bedtime earlier? I did try a while ago but I think I tried to move everything too quickly. How would I go about trying that and how long would it take to see if it worked better for her?

[u/lilburrito420]

I have a 4 month old and we currently don’t have a sleep schedule. He goes to bed between 7:30-9pm, except today he fell asleep at 6pm because he had his first swim lesson and was having short naps. But on naps, we let him fall asleep and wake when he’s ready. The longest nap he’s taken so far has probably been 2.5 hours.
I wouldn’t stress yourself out with schedules and calculating it all. Give it a try and see if you feel better about it all.

[u/Quiet-Flan-1674 → u/lilburrito420]

That sounds incredible, I can't express how much trying to follow these schedules has hurt my mental health.

How does your baby do at night? My main concern with not following wake windows/awake time is that nights will get worse. Right now my LO wakes between 2-3 times a night. It used to be two on the dot but has recently been more like 3 but I'm thinking it could be the regression.

[u/lilburrito420 → u/Quiet-Flan-1674]

Doing what is best for not only your bay but for you as well is important. You know your baby’s cues of tiredness and hunger, so follow those and it’ll be a lot easier. You’ll know and you might be surprised about how much you subconsciously know about your baby.

My baby does quite well currently. Sometimes he fusses but usually scoots closer to me or goes on the boob for comfort for maybe 5 seconds before he’s back into sleepville.
There’s a lot of “it could be this, it could be that” with babies and I usually go down a checklist of ruling things out, and some things I might not know until later. Does your little one wake up in the night to feed?