Hi, I’m new here, and the new mum of an absolutely adorable little baby girl – now just over a week old. First impression is that she is somewhere between a little angel and text book baby – well at least most of the day.
I have her on a rough schedule of 3 hour intervals and since a few days we have started to introduce slightly longer sleeps 4-5 hours at night.
During the day time she is so easy and just goes to sleep by herself no problems at all, but after her night time feed she makes a lot of fuzz and can’t settle herself back to sleep. We’ve tried to pick her up, put her back down, make soothing noises, pat her back, checked her nappy, made sure she doesn’t need another feed, re-swaddle her – basically made sure she is comfortable and so on. It’s gone on for a couple of hours. She generally calms down for a few minutes then starts whimpering again – not like full blown crying, but then she never does.
As a last resort I have taken her into our bed where she has fallen asleep and slept for hours. I know I shouldn’t do this and that it creates a bad habit but at least this way I have managed to rule out any other reason for her unrest (hunger, discomfort of any kind etc) So I don’t know – it seems like this is just the time of the day when she needs a little company? Feels a little lonely? What should I do about it?
I’ve been thinking to try an reduce her sleep slightly in the afternoons – so that she needs it more during night? Is this a good idea? I have also tried giving her my finger to suck on which does calm her momentarily - so I’m therefore considering introducing a pacifier – but am a little bit worried about it. How do I make sure that I don’t use it to much – I mean at the moment she is able so self-soothe in the daytime without one (sometimes suck her own tongue) and it would be a shame if she lost that ability or? Any tips of what else I can do or just some guidance on how to use the pacifier correctly?
I shouldn’t complain really, I’m getting a lot more sleep then I ever expected with a new-born and we are doing great. But still would be great to sort out this little niggle – before it becomes a bigger problem.
Sorry for the long one, hope you can help!
