No sleep and getting worse

[pammie1]

Ava, is 3months old, I breastfeed and co-sleep with her She has never been an easy-sleeper, she was waking about 5-6 times a night and I recently decided to move her bedtime forward from 8 to 7pm as I felt I was enforcing the later time and she was too tired. I also introduced a routine involving low-lights, a bath, PJ's and lullabys. I always get her to sleep by feeding. Since this new routine she has got steadily worse and now she is only sleeping a max of half an hour at anytime then waking and wanting to comfort/feed on my breast, she also spends about 2 hours in the middle of the night completely unable to get back to sleep and going in a circle of sucking, dosing for a couple of minutes, waking and doing the same over again and again. After roughly 2 weeks of this we are both exhausted, I am finding it hard to sleep at all as the half hour she sleeps for is not long enough for me to get back to sleep and I am spending alot of time worrying about it. Ava is looking over tired, waking up from naps crying and is generally harder to deal with and less happy than she was, a couple of weeks ago she was chatting alot especially in the mornings but now she has stopped almost completely which is very worrying.
One thing I have noticed is that the bath seems to wake her up, she loves it and starts kicking etc - she goes in rubbing her eyes and yawning but comes out bright eyed and not ready for sleep. I dont know whether to carry on with the routine; as she is clearly not used to this signalling bed time yet or if I am making things worse and maybe a bath at bedtime just doesnt suit her?? In fact I am fairly unble to think clearly about anything at the moment! Has anyone any ideas/thoughts on this?

 

[LisaJ1986]

I'm gonna be rubbish help as i've been in a similar situation, but you need someone to take her for an hour or so to give you a break and catch up on some sleep. Also go and speak to your HV. She may suggest things to try. I went last week and begged for help. I was given some tips buy for her age. You may have slightly different being younger.

Sorry i can't help but i sympathise I haven't slept in 3 weeks!

 

[andreag]

It may be that she is hitting the 4 month growth spurt a bit early, and that has made her a bit unsettled. C became very unsettled around her daytime naps around the same time - I think they just start being much more aware of what is going on then. Personally I would stick with the routine if that is how you would like things to be in the future. When C was that age, it was bath, then a feed and then bed. Singing/lullabyes upset her.

Maybe you could start bath earlier so she's bored of it by the time its ready to get out (ie earlier but longer bath?)
You could also try some baby massage after the bath, as this should settle them. There are specific movements which are calming. I would ask your hv it there are any local classes.

I'm not sure about the fussing during the night, but I'm sure there will be plenty of advice on that from the other girls. In the meantime, try and rest as much as you can during the day.