Schedules and false starts for 3 month old
About 2 weeks ago our now 13 week old started having false starts every night. I know he is too young to sleep train but we are starting daycare in a few weeks and he will need to start waking at 6:30 am. He was sleeping 7:30-5 am with no wake ups from 4-11 weeks. We have 2 issues. One is the false start and the other is that he can’t sooth himself and gets worked up.
We are putting him down drowsy but awake and he literally falls asleep on his own in less than a minute. No rocking, patting, or pacifier. He wakes after 32 minutes. He immediately starts sucking on his hands. I know that can be a self-soothing technique but once he starts, he can’t calm himself down and begins flailing his arms and legs. I do not think he’s hungry because he drinks 7 ounces before bed and there is always leftover formula. He gets really worked up after about 2 minutes. Some nights, he can “drift off” for a few seconds but then his arms start flailing and wakes him up. This will go on and on until we intervene. As a test, one night we didn’t go in and he was still flailing and wide awake an hour later. We had to intervene at that point. He has no issues getting himself to sleep when he wakes up on his own throughout the night.
We transitioned him out of the swaddle at 8 weeks because they aren’t allowed at daycare and we figured we might as well get a jump on the transition. He has been in a sleep
sack since 8 weeks and only started have this “flailing” and “getting worked up” issue at 11 weeks so it doesn’t seem like the startle reflex. We can’t use a magic Merlin suit at daycare either. He does not like the love to dream or zippidee swaddle. From what we can tell, he seems to wants his hands at his chest so every time they fall down, he wakes up and can’t calm down.
I feel like we are missing something in the daily schedule but I can’t figure it out. I really don’t want to push bedtime later since he will be getting up for daycare at 6:30 and I will be getting up at 4:30 for work.
Below is our typical schedule lately:
Wakes for the day between 7 and 7:15
Nap 1: start 8:45-10:45
Nap 2: start 12:15ish-1ish (we can’t seem to extend this one)
Nap 3: 2:30-3:30
Nap 4: 5-5:30
Bedtime routine: starts at 6:45 with bath, bottle, story, and usually asleep by 7:30
False start: 30 minutes after and back asleep around 8:45/9:30 until 4-5am for a feed
Is this an overtired issue? He literally falls right asleep on his own but just can’t stay asleep.
We tried extending the last wake window to 2.5-3 hours but that was a disaster.
Ideally, we want to get him to a 7 am bedtime but anytime we try to push is earlier than 8, he has a false start. I’ve tried extending wake windows but he gets so crabby and tired as the day goes on that I feel terrible. I know he’s too young to sleep train but I’m hoping to develop some good habits before we do so. I’m terrified he’s going to be so tired when he has to get up at 6:30 for daycare and he still has a late bed time.