4.5 months struggling with pacifier cold turkey

[Ceba]

Hey,

You girls have been such great help in the past to keep my head calm so I'm turning to you for advice again. I was writing here before about help teaching my DS2 sleep with his brother running around. It basically ended the way I hoped it will not – with a pacifier - shush and pat - likes to be held addict.

DS2 is now 4,5 months old. He was sleeping fairly well (2 night wakings but short naps) until the beginning of this month. We established a nap time and bed time routine but we needed to shush and pat him with his pacifier in that he fell asleep.
New Year started with a cold which resulted in many night wakings. Even when he was feeling better he was still waking every hour in the night and taking extra short naps. To settle him at night we needed to re-plug the pacifier and pat him a bit.

Because of his short naps he is not really on EASY but I do try to have a day routine.
Awake: 6.30 am (sometimes before)
Eat: 7 am
Sleep: 8:30 am (30 minutes-45 minutes)
Eat: 10:15-10:30 (I am trying to extend his feedings-he is EBF)
Sleep: 11 am (1h - 1.5 h – this is his best nap)
Eat: 1.30 pm
Sleep: 2 pm - 2.30 pm (depends on the previous nap) – this nap happens in the stroller so he sleeps for entire time anything from on hour to two hours. We pick up DS1 from daycare, run errands, walk the dog, …
Eat: 4pm
Eat: 6.30 pm
Bath: 6:45 pm
Asleep: 7:30-8 pm

I am struggling with activity times, moving them for 15 minutes in both directions just to see if it helps him sleep longer during the day.
The problem with this routine was that DS1 is ill a lot and not in daycare all days. Two weeks he is in day care, 1 week at home. When he is at home I can’t go out with the stroller so basically we are stuck with one more short nap at home.

On Saturday we took away the pacifier because we just couldn’t handle the re-plugs. The first morning nap was horrible, he cryed really hard – because he had/has reflux I did shush and pat and not PU/PD. After 30 minutes he fell asleep on my shoulder. The first night he woke up only twice – I breastfed him and it took him 15-30 minutes to fall back to sleep (shush pat the entire time). Yesterday wasn’t so bad with the naps but he always fell asleep on my shoulder – I can’t get him drowsy to his bed and keep him there. This night (it’s Monday morning here now) was terrible, he woke every hour again, he only managed one 2 hour sleep from 4 am-6 am. Every time he cried we picked him up, shushed and patted on our shoulder and then back to bed. We never manage to get him to bed awake and I know that is not ok.

I just don’t know how to proceed. It seems that he doesn’t miss his pacifier anymore /the first day he was shoving everything in his mouth like a maniac). I just want to take the right steps to come out of this terrible month sane and luckily with a baby who can fall asleep independently. For the first nap today he was on my shoulder, one minute his eyes were wide awake, the next minute he was asleep. Should I be doing the same thing and just trying to get him awake to his bed or you have any other suggestions?

I am really struggling here, so thank you so much for your help !

[Martini~]

Can you start settling him IN his crib? No matter what is happening just survive and try to shhh pat in the crib.

[jessmum46]

Hi, sorry you're struggling   I agree with Marta's suggestion, I think the key to this will be putting him in bed awake (not 'drowsy but awake') and settling him there.  That said, waking every single hour is pretty rough, was there anything else bothering him do you think?  Is his reflux medicated and under control?

The other thing I notice (besides the fact that he is 4 months and there is a HUGE sleep regression!) is with his routine - his last A time is super-long.  Is there any reason he couldn't go to bed a bit earlier?  That might really help with the tiredness/wakings.  I also wonder whether he needs a longer A time first thing - he sleeps really well 2h after a short nap so I bet he could handle a bit more when properly rested.  Why not try 2h15 to start?  So aiming for a day (let's be optimistic!) something like:

WU 6.30
Nap 8.45-10.15/30
Nap 1.30/1ish for 1.5-2h
Catnap 5ish
Bt 7/7.30?

Would that fit around your day???

[Ceba]

Thank you so much for your quick answers. Lately he hasn’t had any problems related to reflux as he did in the first 3 months but were we live reflux medication is not a really common thing and you are just told to basically wait it out. So I am not 100% sure that everything is ok. I think that this is my main problem. I didn’t want things to be the same as they were but on the other hand I am afraid that he is in pain so I pick him up and I am not committed to the change enough.
With my first son we sleep trained him when he was 7.5 months old so I am not sure what a four month old can handle. I will try to settle him in bed and not take him out unless really necessary. What time frame am I looking at for naps? How long should I keep settling him? Until the next feeding time?
When he will get a better sleep during the night I will push the first A time as you suggested to see what happens. The reason why he goes to bed late is because that is when my husband comes home from work and he can help me but will definitively change that as well. He has this week off from work so he will be able to help. Yey! 

[Ceba]

Hey!
Just an update and a follow up on how our week is going. So, on Monday I decided to just keep him in his crib and comfort him there. I did that the first time for bed time. After 15 minutes of crying (at the end both of us) every bone in my body was telling me to pick him up. So I started doing PU/PD. It worked great. Yesterday I had to pick him up maybe 5 times at bed time before he settled in his bed and fell asleep. Night sleep in sooooo much better, we get a 6 hour stretch in the first part of the night. So he usually wakes around 1am, the second night feed is around 3.30 am. I think that 2 feeds are too much and he just wakes out of habit but first I need to get the falling asleep sorted.
Now, when I lay him down, he doesn’t really cry. It is more of a complaining and whimpering kind of noise. But I haven’t figured out how to calm him in his crib so I do PU/PD which (according to the book) I shouldn’t do in this case. If I just let him in his crib and try to reassure him he gets more and more upset until he is crying and I have to pick him up.
Am I doing the PU/PD wrong or is this just part of the learning process?

On the other hand naps are soooo stressful!! Not the falling asleep part but staying asleep. Getting the timing right is really hard. I decided to take it one nap at a time. So first I will get the first one sorted and then work from there. So yesterday he napped for a good hour and a half which was great. Today he woke after 30 minutes but I managed to get him back to sleep (so I can write this post  ). For example today when I was changing his diaper just before nap time his brother had to take a poo. It was just a difference of 5 maybe 10 minutes.
All the other naps are still a disaster but I try not to worry too much so that I don’t go completely mental.

Thanks again for all your help I don't think I would be able to survive this week without your kind words.

[jessmum46]

That's quite ok, it's you doing all the hard work!  Sounds like you have listened really well to what you both need and if he is setting in bed after a few PUs, great!  

If I just let him in his crib and try to reassure him he gets more and more upset until he is crying and I have to pick him up.

I think you are doing this exactly right, actually.  If anything you could just leave him to get on with whimpering/fussing and only intervene to try to reassure if the cries escalate.  The fussing may be his way of winding down, and it may be by trying to reassure you are actually disturbing him from settling.  Or it could just be he's trying to settle but just hasn't fully worked out how to yet.  You're the person there and if you feel more comfortable offering reassurance then go for it

The one at a time plan for naps is a great one.  Every small success is a success - so a good first nap is brilliant even if the rest of the day is a disaster   Celebrate the small things, you're doing a good job x

[Ceba]

Hey.

I have to ask for advice and your help once again. It seems as if we just go from one thing to another. When will it stop?! 
So, my son, now just a few days short of 6 months started having terrible nights again. He was waking 2 times a night and sleeping until 6.30. Now the mornings are getting earlier and he is waking every hour, 2 hours, sometimes he manages a longer stretch but it is not common. This has been going on now for 2 weeks. At first I thought that it's because he fell asleep during breastfeeding at night. So I worked hard not to let him fall asleep on the breast but it didn't help and he was just awake for 30 minutes to an hour and then woke again just the same it he would if he fell asleep on the breast. Then I thought that he is teething but I am not sure (the gums aren't red or swollen but he is constantly rubbing them).
In the past days I just gave in and started getting him up at 6am but yesterday and today he woke up at 5.30 so I can see the trend emerging.
His scedual:
Wake and breastfeed: 6am
S: 8:30am (sleeps for 1h20minutes – 1h 30min)
E: 10 am (breastfeed)
E:11.45 (solids)
S: around 12.30 (again cca 1h30min)
breast feeds when he wakes up around 2pm
CN: 4.30 pm -5.00 pm (around 30 minutes, usually in the stroller)
breastfeeds when he wakes up
7.00pm – bath
7.20pm top up feed
7.45pm sleep

I will not write the NW since they are all over the place. I usually breastfeed him, even if only for a couple of minutes, and then put him to bed. He doesn’t fall asleep by himself but needs a bit of sush and pat.
We tried putting him to bed earlier for the night but he woke up even earlier in the morning and it was really hard for us as a family to make it work.
I am struggling with the timing of the first nap after an EW. I have the nap 2.5h after EW for a few days he only starts to wakeup earlier. But if I keep the time of the nap where it should be he is overtired and only sleeps for 30 minutes.

I think that I need to work on the night wakings first but I have no idea what to do. With my first son, I stopped breastfeeding him at night at this age but I am not sure if this is the way to go with this one too. They are both big babies, DS2 is almost 9 kg at the moment.

I will appreciate and advice you have for me!

Thanks!

[jessmum46]

It might well be the 3-2 nap transition starting to cause issues - All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months  There is also often a growth spurt around this age - is he seeming hungry at the night feeds or using the breast more as a pacifier?

[Ceba]

Yea, it really looks like a 3-2 transition. Thank you, it’s just good to know that it’s something developmental and not just my accidental parenting again.
I am sure that the transition is mixed with breastfeeding problems during the night. He definitely takes a whole feed but it is divided into 2 chunks in he usually isn’t hungry in the morning. As I said, I do not let him fall asleep on the breast but he does use it to calm down.

We had two better mornings, waking up at 6.30, although he was up for an hour both nights.

I will have to start feeding him solids more now if I will want to push for a 3 hour A time.

It just all came at a really bad time since my other son is ill and needs me more.  So it is hard for me to spend 30 minutes every time putting him to sleep.

[jessmum46]

I will have to start feeding him solids more now if I will want to push for a 3 hour A time.

You could always offer a top-up milk feed instead if you prefer