Sleeping & food & swaddling @ 6 months
Our angel is now 6.5 months old. She's started on solids - baby-led, she only eats what she can grab and shove into her mouth and she loves it. We're having a tough time trying to work out how this fits in with her day, like when to breastfeed and so on. Some books say just beforehand, some say an hour before. She's refluxing a lot less than she did when she was only on breastmilk, but still occasionally if she drinks too much too fast. She's definitely fartier now!
Anyway, at almost the same time, she's started getting strong enough to wriggle out of her swaddle at night. She's been swaddled one arm out for about a month and doing fine, sleeping in good four-hour chunks. But now she's getting the other arm halfway out and waking up screaming and scared. So we've started trying her completely unswaddled. The first night she had a fabulous time and the day after, she had two one-and-a-half hour naps, unheard of for our little catnapper. We thought we'd found the solution! But since then, she's having a really hard time going down for naps at home - goes to sleep, startles awake a minute later screaming, settles, rinse and repeat. She's sleeping fine in the car seat or in the Ergo carrier, just not in her cradle right now. And she's waking every two hours at night and won't settle to a pat, has to be fed... And the waking at night is whether she's in the sidecarred cradle or in with me, there's no difference.
I'm wondering:
Anyway, at almost the same time, she's started getting strong enough to wriggle out of her swaddle at night. She's been swaddled one arm out for about a month and doing fine, sleeping in good four-hour chunks. But now she's getting the other arm halfway out and waking up screaming and scared. So we've started trying her completely unswaddled. The first night she had a fabulous time and the day after, she had two one-and-a-half hour naps, unheard of for our little catnapper. We thought we'd found the solution! But since then, she's having a really hard time going down for naps at home - goes to sleep, startles awake a minute later screaming, settles, rinse and repeat. She's sleeping fine in the car seat or in the Ergo carrier, just not in her cradle right now. And she's waking every two hours at night and won't settle to a pat, has to be fed... And the waking at night is whether she's in the sidecarred cradle or in with me, there's no difference.
I'm wondering:
- Has anyone else transitioned out of a swaddle at this age and what are your tips?
- Could it be food-related? She's only eaten potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, banana and pear (she doesn't like avocado) and we've introduced each one in the morning on its own and watched for allergy signs and haven't seen any related to one particular food. Could it be wind?
- Could it be because she's now getting fed more often in the day that she's wanting to be fed more often at night?
- Could it be that she needs fewer naps? How do you cut out a nap? Which nap? We're still responding when she looks tired (yawning, rubbing her eyes) and that's still about two hours after she wakes up. She then only has a 45 minute nap IF THAT - with the current fussing, she's getting a 10 minute nap sometimes.