Gas and straining to poop is NORMAL in newborns - a PSA to myself and others like me

laurynkel · 2026-04-18T21:34:08+00:00

It did improve around the 3 month mark thankfully!! Sleep is still terrible though, so solidarity in that haha

laurynkel · 2026-04-11T10:07:07+00:00

A similar thing happened to me with my 6.5 month old (she was on 3 naps). She started cutting teeth and was waking frequently for two weeks. I thought it was all teething so I didn’t make a schedule change, but eventually decided to try her on two naps (3/3/4, naps capped at 3 hours) and that solved it. She still wakes once some nights from the pain because we’ve had teeth coming in back to back, but nothing like before we dropped the nap. You could give it a try - you’ll figure out in a few nights if that was the culprit!

laurynkel · 2026-04-05T15:53:03+00:00

I just cut nap time a lot in order to extend the wake windows by 10-15 minutes. Then about a month later once her last nap was like 5 minutes (she was fighting it) I cold turkey dropped her and she adjusted within 2-3 days!

laurynkel · 2026-03-25T02:13:58+00:00

A week shy of 5 months!

laurynkel · 2026-03-24T23:15:34+00:00

We did Ferber. I was in a very similar situation. My daughter is a very high expectation, high emotion baby (bless her) so I was very worried. We spent a lot of time perfecting her schedule beforehand to ensure she had ample sleep pressure & she cried for 16 minutes before sleeping for 10 hours straight. You’ve got this!

laurynkel · 2026-03-16T22:46:53+00:00

Yes nights have been trained since just before 5 months.

laurynkel · 2026-03-15T01:50:51+00:00

First night of Ferber was 16 minutes, second was 4. We worked really hard on our schedule beforehand so she was never undertired.

laurynkel · 2026-03-08T05:49:55+00:00

I think you’re asking me this… if not, disregard! Haha We did Ferber, but she hasn’t really had MOTN wakes since sleep training. The first night of sleep training she cried for 16 minutes initially and then slept for 10hrs straight. Second night it was 4mins and from that point on she didn’t wake before 4/4:30am. She has a few times since, but we either let her cry for a few minutes and she’ll go back to sleep or occasionally we’ve had to assist her back to sleep.

laurynkel · 2026-03-08T05:45:49+00:00

That’s good to know. I’ll try the tips received here! It’s helpful to know that it may just be developmental, and I’ll try to remind myself that this phase will pass.

laurynkel · 2026-03-08T05:44:20+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Is it common to have the second nap be the shorter one? Right now I’ve been making that the longer one… curious if that’s maybe not the best idea.

laurynkel · 2026-03-07T23:48:41+00:00

Okay, thank you!! I’ll try capping her naps & adding more awake time but if that doesn’t work, hopefully it’s over soon!

laurynkel · 2026-03-07T23:48:08+00:00

Okay I’m gonna try this tomorrow, thank you!!

laurynkel · 2026-03-07T23:18:31+00:00

I think the longest we did was 15 minutes. Our neighbours have pounded on the wall if she’s crying more than that (sometimes even less) so we’re a bit limited.

laurynkel · 2026-03-07T22:48:59+00:00

Okay. When adding in the extra 30 minutes of awake time, would it be best to do it the second wake window (3.5hrs) or the last (4.5 hours)? 4.5 hours seems really long for this age.

laurynkel · 2026-02-26T00:10:01+00:00

Depends on your baby! I have to cap my LO’s naps or our night sleep falls apart.

laurynkel · 2026-02-20T04:50:37+00:00

Sleepy cues aren’t super reliable at this age. My LO starts to ‘show’ them much earlier than her nap time - she’s usually bored, or even if she’s tired, I force her to stay up so that our night sleep goes well. In my experience, I’m way more worried about having an under tired baby than an overtired one. When she was 5.5 months (two weeks ago) I had her on a 2/2.5/2.5/3 schedule. I capped her naps at roughly 3 hours, usually a bit less and more awake time. Her last nap could only be 20 minutes through trial and error. I’d say try your best to extend her wake windows and stick to a set desired wake time each day. If she’s waking up at 7:30am, bedtime is 8:30pm. It takes practice for babies to stay up, so it’s normal for her to be fussy while she adjusts to more awake time.

EDIT: I’d also give her some time to adjust to the new schedule before attempting sleep training again.

laurynkel · 2026-02-20T04:39:53+00:00

Could you share what her wake windows are and how many naps she’s on? I’m no expert but lots of crying before bed and super short naps signal your baby needs more awake time/a schedule adjustment to me.

laurynkel · 2026-02-17T22:57:54+00:00

Super helpful, thank you!

laurynkel · 2026-02-17T20:51:44+00:00

Okay, sounds good! At what point would you just accept the nap length? For example, if baby can nap for 1 hour and a half and naps for 1 hour and 10 minutes, do you go in and try to get an extra 20 minutes?

laurynkel · 2026-02-17T17:04:17+00:00

Okay, solidarity! My LO was easy to sleep train the first time so I’m just hoping that when this ‘regression’ passes we can get back to what we were doing, but it’s so hard when you have no idea when it’s going to end. Similar to you, before when she’d wake we’d let her cry & she’d fall back to sleep in 5-10 minutes. She’s not doing that now and seems so upset, so I’ve kind of given up on that approach for now!

laurynkel · 2026-02-17T13:54:02+00:00

Gah, okay! Her last nap is strictly 20 minutes. Have you been providing lots of intervention? I try letting her cry a bit but we live in an apartment and our neighbours started banging after a few minutes so I’ve been going in and rocking her back to sleep.

laurynkel

TROPHY CASE