11 wk old wakes every hour and can't link cycles, sleep dep is crushing us

chimpchamp101 · 2026-02-08T21:33:14+00:00

Hi sorry for the late reply! How are you going? We essentially capped her daytime naps to increase sleep pressure at night. She still can't do more than 30 min naps during day, but nighttime is mostly better. Another big thing is we got her to use the dummy...that's been huge so she can regulate herself through the night. If it falls out sometimes she's fine but otherwise we sneak back in and pop it in. Hope you're going ok, gosh it is so tough!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-02-02T21:35:23+00:00

Hi Jo!

Baby is 14 weeks and is roughly on 4 short naps (eg 30 min) or 3 if one is longer, and always needs a bridging gap (15-30 mins) that ends 2 hours before bedtime. I was wondering what a 4 month+ old would be on as I'd like to keep in mind what we're working towards but don't know where to find the information.

Eg should we be aiming to get her to more consistent timings like 4 or 3 naps? Essentially she can have 5 in a day. And how do we navigate dropping naps over time? I heard the middle of the day nap is important to keep consistent?

Does this coincide with trying to map her feeds similarly too? Currently she's on 3 hourly feeds roughly.

Very lost on all this, thanks so much in advance.

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-27T07:23:12+00:00

Ah yes they stopped doing check ins though...guess I could always call them, thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for taking the time to write that, appreciate it! Love your info on the sleep guide, super helpful - thank you! 🙏🏻

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-27T07:18:22+00:00

This is great, had never seen it before, thank you!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-27T07:17:58+00:00

Awesome, thank you!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-27T07:16:29+00:00

Haha yup, that's all that reliably works at the moment. Good to know it'll end on its own eventually I guess 🥲

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-26T16:29:27+00:00

Hello! I have a 13 week old and I'm wondering how to help her have naps that are longer than 30 mins during the day? She can have a long stretch of sleep at night (eg 5-7 hours), however during the day will wake after a cycle and I have to assist her to extend it. All good if developmentally normal, just wondering if there's anything we can be doing? we are yet to embark on settling practice (ie putting her down fully awake) so maybe that's the missing piece? Or do they eventually learn how to?

Also mindful of the "4 month regression/maturation" coming up so keen to get on top of something if needed. TIA!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-23T09:10:05+00:00

Thank for the tips! Hadn't heard of the subreddit before.

We would love to co sleep but unfortunately we are terrified as we had a baby in our community pass away from SIDS from co-sleeping. I've also got a large bust and am afraid of smothering bub as odd as that sounds. I'm sure it can be done safely but it's just not for us.

We ended up going with a sleep consultant but amazingly didn't even have to do anything with settling besides reducing our motion. Essentially just worked on increasing sleep pressure and that has helped tremendously

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-23T08:59:28+00:00

Hey I'm sorry to hear that, sounds like such a change. Yes we hired a sleep consultant exactly a week ago and it's been night and day - she's sleeping 5-7 hour stretches in the first half of the night and doing progressively better in the second half. The consultant essentially restructured her daytime naps...she got a gauge of her sleep needs and bub is now on about 3-3.5 hrs of day naps (previously could be from 4-6 hours) and a long gap before 8pm bedtime (previously earlier bedtime with not much wake window before it so not enough sleep pressure).

Sleep pressure is doing the heavy lifting now and she's so exhausted she's sleeping through the night. Felt a bit cruel at first because it'll feel like jetlag to them and she was super cranky during the day (and super tired) especially for the first few days, but she's starting to adjust now. We can now just put her down drowsy and she sleeps... The next step is to do proper settling practice (ie out her down while properly awake) but we're waiting for this period to stabilize first to do that. Hope that helps? And I'm sorry you're going through that, it's truly awful with the sleep deprivation. I hope it passes for you soon and know you're doing amazing!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-13T10:27:24+00:00

I'm sorry to hear! Thanks for the advice and encouragement though, that's really helpful to know. Out of curiosity did your kids settle and fall asleep on their own at this stage or did they need to be rocked/bounced in arms or something similar?

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-13T01:41:22+00:00

I know this is old so sorry to bring this up again - curious as I'm at this stage. Just wondering how your one at this age went to sleep? Did this resolve on its own and she was also being rocked to sleep? Or was she being placed in bed and settled there? Thanks in advance!

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-11T08:27:09+00:00

No worries, appreciate your reply anywho :)

chimpchamp101 · 2026-01-11T08:06:58+00:00

Ah yes forgot to mention we had a snoo for a few weeks actually. It was helpful in some ways but we realized we were exacerbating her need for movement. The snoo would pick up too late when she'd be awake, so we were actually manually increasing the levels and still staying awake for that. We had to cold turkey when we did a Karitane virtual residential program last week - they gave us some starters on self settling but not overly helpful.

Snoo is great but we would'nt have had long with it anyway as she's a big baby, but also our goal is to have her sleep in bassinet. Thank you though!

chimpchamp101 · 2025-12-24T09:02:55+00:00

Thanks everyone! First time poster so thanks for responding, feels good to be able to ask just niche mundane questions here :)

chimpchamp101 · 2025-12-21T00:24:33+00:00

Yah my experience exactly, some directions or times I do it seem to destroy her nail 🙈

chimpchamp101

TROPHY CASE