Encouraging 5 week out independent sleep

[kdawson]

My dd is 5 weeks old, close to 9.5 lbs and is doing well but I want to encourage independent sleep and get on the right path so I don't start any bad habits that I did with my ds.

I've started a naptime/bedtime routine and it seems to be working well because majority of the time she will start to yawn as soon as we do it.  It involves diaper change, putting pj's on and then her resting on my chest and me singing to her.  There are a few questions about this routine though...
1) When should I encourage her to fall asleep on her own in her bed?  I've been successful a few times and not sure if I should push a little more or not?
2) Because she is falling asleep on my chest, could she be waking up too early from her naps because she realizes she's in a different location?  Many times she will only sleep 1 hour and I know that sometimes it just isn't enough because I will feed her when she wakes up and she can't stay awake and will sometimes fall asleep for another 30 minutes to 1 hr.
2b) As she does seem to wake up after an hour, how can I encourage her to go into another sleep cycle?  Should I do the same routine over again?  i.e. pick her up and put her on my chest?  She doesn't take a soother.

Thanks!!

[clc4r]

Hey kdawson,

Congrats on your new LO! I can only share my experiences with early sleep training...

I started trying to figure it out at 4 weeks, but we didn't truly implement it correctly until 6 weeks. She is now 9 weeks. Honestly, I feel like we pushed her too far too fast. I learned that the important thing is to follow their lead. If she constantly fights being put down awake right now, I would hold her a little longer. Take baby steps for several days. When we pushed too far, we wound up with other issues such as waking up after 20-45 mins constantly and her crying herself to sleep. Therefore, I'd take it easy since she's only 5 weeks old. That being said, you need to take care of you! So stick her in between two pillows or rock n play when she sleeps to feel snuggled. Or place her by your leg for a nap. That way she can feel and smell you, but you'll have your hands free. Honestly at this age, its not going to ruin her.

Do you lay her on your chest with skin to skin or clothes on? Also does she sleep on your chest on his stomach and sleep in the crib on her back?

When she wakes up and you do the routine, Tracy says when crying we're suppose to pick them up and do the shush/pat. (The shush pat drives my LO crazy.) But do pick her up and calm her down. Try to have as little stimulation as possible. For my little one, i can't look her in the eyes or move very much. Every child is different though. And if you do the movement (shush pat, rock, anything) only do it to calm them back down. Then stop the movement for awhile and hold them. Then a few minutes later, depending on their comfortability with being placed in the crib, put them down. 

I read one of Tracy's interview where she addressed short naps. I'm not sure if this is the case with your child since she so small, but Tracys said her child was overtired and not eating enough. Therefore, she wasn't filling up enough to last the entire nap. Therefore, it was a vicious cycle. This was the case with us, so we changed her schedule to last longer between feedings. And we started by trying to get her to sleep longer so that she would eat better. She still falls sleep briefly in feedings, but I think that simply in response to the "Sleepy hormone." (Forgot the name of it.) Plus at that age, sucking for food is hard work. So I'd suggest working on getting her to sleep longer, and the feeding might take care of itself.

Good luck! It sounds like your doing a great job!

[kdawson]

Thanks clc!  I actually haven't tried going through the routine when she wakes up after an hour yet.  She's a textbook (maybe easy going) baby so she doesn't cry when she wakes up...at least not anything that isn't fixed as son as I pick her up.  I appreciate your comments about not pushing it too much.  I felt I did that with ds in some ways...like trying to get him to stay awake between feeds and going 3 hours between feeds when he was very young and he got into a bad habit of only sleeping for 1/2 hr at a time by the time he was 2.5 months...that's exactly why I want to make sure dd doesn't get into the habit of waking early during a nap particularly because she doesn't take a soother.  So that's why for dd, I don't want to rush it either.

She sleeps on her back when I put her in her little be on my bed.  Unfortunately, I've only slept with her chest to chest on me once.  I would love to do more skin to skin with her but I generally and doing something around the house when she naps.

I haven't done pat/shh because it is just too awkward of a position to try but I do pat her back and sing to her when she falls asleep on me so I think it will be a good transition when the time comes.

Also, I've wondered if she was only sleeping an hour because she was hungry but there have been times when I held off on feeding and took her for a walk in the stroller and she was fine (but I certainly can't always do that). I wish I could better tell the signs between hunger, uncomfortable and OT.  Anyone know a good video for that?

[weaver]

When she's so little, I really wouldn't be thinking about 'sleep training' yet.  You can encourage her gently to go to sleep in her cot, but I wouldn't worry too much if she doesn't want to.  She's still very tiny and getting used to be out in the big world!

A useful thing you can do is just get her into the EAS rhythm.  Activity will be something like a nappy change but get her used to the pattern.

Even feeding to sleep won't get her into bad habits if you don't do it for every nap.  At this age, with my LO2, I used a sling a lot and she slept really well in there, and it was nice to have her so close to me.

As for knowing her different signs, that's something you'll have to figure out over time. The EAS pattern helps because you can rule some things out based on time: did she just feed? then she's not hungry.  did we just do a nappy change? then it's not that.  has she been up for a while?  maybe she's tired etc.  Even if you don't feel you can spot her signs yet, and they are probably tiny, you can probably work it out like that.

HTH.

[kdawson]

My dd is nearly 7 weeks old and her naps are getting worse.  She used to sleep for 1 hour on the dot but her naps are almost get progressively worse throughout the day.  She doesn't have strong sleep cues so I am somewhat going by the clock.  I've got her 1st nap timed alright or at least getting there; today was 1 hr 7 min so i'm guessing she was UT but after that it is a complete guessing game.  I thought her poor naps were because she fell asleep on me and I transfered her but I've successfully put her down on her own and it is still an issue.  I think it might be OT but I'm just not sure.  She will be tired but then won't fall asleep; I've even tried the swing but I am not sure if she really likes it although if I go out in the stroller with her she'll do an hour for sure.  Any suggestions on what to do? Is the 1 hour to 1 hr 15 minutes a fairly average activity time for most babies her age?  Do people find the activity time fairly consistent in duration or does it get longer or shorter throughout the day? I really don't want to see this get any worse.  Thanks so much!!!