Establishing easy with 4.5 month old

[sarabande]

With my older son, I was able to easily establish an easy routine at 3 months old when I first became aware of it.  DD is another issue.  I've tried to establish an easy for her her whole life, following the schedules from the books.  It's never really worked.  I've always struggled with 45 mintue naps, no matter how much a time she had.  Then over the last two months, whenever things start to progress, there's a setback.  Once she started recovering from July vacation, she started daycare at the same time she hit the 4 month sleep regression.  Then it was a cold.  Then 4 month shots earlier this week.  She has never really napped at daycare.  On a good day, she takes a 1.5 hr nap and a 1 hr nap in the swing.  At home, its 45 minutes each time in bed.  At night, she's waking upevery 2 hours, and taking 30+ minutes latched onto my breast to get back to sleep.  I can't take this any longer.

I was planning on tackling all of the issues at once over labor day weekend, then continue the work when I have a week vacation two weeks later.  I was going to use the strategy Tracy detailed for a baby who has never been on an easy using pupd.  But now I don't know if I can wait that long, but I can't take any time off from work.  Would picking one issue to tackle this weekend work, over 2 nights?  Or would it be pointless.  I was thinking working on going to sleep not latched on for the initial falling asleep. hoping it would trickle through the night.  But would 2 nights be enough to see a difference or would I just causing myself grief?

Here was her schedule for the day.  I know it was horrible and she didn't nap nearly enough.  I've asked daycare to try to get bottles 4 hours apart, but they say she cries and the bottle is the only thing that calms her.  I tried to get her to sleep using every method of ap other than nursing, but she was just screaming and screaming.
6 - wake
7:10 - eat
8:35-9:35 sleep
10:45 - eat
1-1:45 sleep
2:45 - eat
4ish - slept in swing outside, not sure how long.  not noted on her daily sheet.
5-6ish, 2 10 minute car naps to and from dinner.
6:30 eat
6:45 - started bed.  Jammies, book, swaddle into bed.  Started with patting.  As she escalated, went to rocking.  After about 5 minutes of complete screaming, nursed her even though I knew she wasn't hungry.,
7:00 - asleep
7:50 - crying again, screaming as I tried to comfort her through patting then rocking.  Strangely, as I laid her down to get her dad to help, she feel back asleep.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Hi there, sorry to hear you're having such a hard time. I can understand you not wanting to wait to sleep train, and think you could mostly do it in a weekend if you didn't mind it potentially spilling into the Sunday or Monday night? Tracey called it 3 day magic because most babies get it in that time, though some do take a bit longer.  However, I reckon for most the first and second nights are the worst, with a bit of a regression sometimes around days 5-7. So you could start on a Friday and have the worst over by Sunday I'd have thought. The key is to carry on once you've started,  even if that does mean a bit of a rough night on Sunday / Monday too, cos otherwise you will have all gone through the hardest bit with nothing to show for it AND it may make it harder to sleep train again cos she won't think you'll stick to it, so she'll hold out for longer to get what she wants!

How old is your LO? If you'd like some help with her routine too I'm happy to take a look,  though it's probably best to sleep train first and then tackle the routine.

[sarabande]

Last night was horrible again, even worse. There was 1 3hr stretch, other than that she was up hourly. If I start training tonight, it would only be for overnight sleep. We have plans over the weekend so she'll be doing car naps. Would overnight training still work, or would it be better to wait and tackle it all at once.

Here's how her day today went. Her daycare keepers do try to get her to sleep more, but most time she won't back down. They also try toget her to go 4 hrs between bottles, but they say she often gets fussy at 3 hrs. They say the bottle is the only thing that works.

6-wake
7:50- bottle (prior eat was at 5)
8:20-9:45-sleep
11-eat
11:55-12:40 sleep
2:30-3:00-sleep
3-eat.
5:45-brief 15 min nap in car
6:45- eat
7:05 -in bed
7:30-asleep

So going to sleep involved 10 min of mantra cry, then 10 min of pu/pd. it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Sorry for the late reply.  We were away and then travelling all day yesterday. It sounds like you've had some success putting your LO down without feeding - well done!    How's it going now?