It's 3:30am here. Can't get my 8 week old back to sleep.

[kjr928]

I need to know how to teach my 8 week old DD to self soothe. Night after night after night she keeps me awake crying (sometimes for hours). She definitely has a lot of gas and is probably colicky as well.

Generally when I'm putting her to bed at night, and for the night wakings, I feed her and try to put her straight to bed. She always cries, and to make a long story short, I end up carrying her around pacing the room until I can get her to fall asleep. Many times she wakes up immediately when I put her in the crib and I have to start all over again. Like I said, sometimes this goes on for hours.

She is swaddled and it doesn't seem to matter. I do let her fuss in the crib until it becomes legitimate crying. Any advice on sleep training this little one or do I just need to suck it up until the gassiness & tummy troubles resolve themselves (I've been working on resolving these problems with no luck so far).

[lily_layne]

She is quite young but you could try some gentle sleep training like sh/pat. There's some good links in the FAQs. Honestly, I didn't have the energy to sleep train my LOs that young so they often slept in the swing (fast speed) with loud white noise and it helped tremendously. I also often had to hold DS for 20 minutes or so after a NF before I could put him down.

Does she take a soother at all?

[kjr928]

Hi there, shh/pat doesn't seem to be working for me at this point. Seems to make her more agitated. Introduced pacifier today and she seemed to enjoy it but keeps losing it.

This is what my night has been like so far:

8pm - put DD1 and DS to bed. DD2 wide awake. BF, rock, and pace around with DD2 while my husband and I watch a tv show (he just gets to sit comfortably on the couch).

10pm-12am - continue bf, rock, and pacing around upstairs. Gave pacifier in crib, DD2 falls asleep, loses pacifier, wakes up, cries. Replace pacifier 3-4 times with same results. Give up on pacifier and pace around with her until she falls asleep. Put in crib and go to bed at midnight.

3am - DD1 sneaks into my bed. Bring her back to hers.

3:45am - DD2 wakes up. Change diaper & BF. Baby wide awake. Pace around for a while, bf again, pace around. Baby is falling asleep. Put baby in crib, baby wakes up. Start over. Pace around room, put baby in crib, baby wakes up.

5:20am (current time) - just put baby in bed and wrote this thread. Baby is crying now. I've been at it for an hour and a half and still on square one. Considering bringing baby in bed with me at this point. I am cold and exhausted.

Basically this is what I go through every night. Then the next day DD2 is also exhausted and wants to sleep ALL DAY, probably making my nighttime problems worse.

Got to go. She's starting to scream in there.

[kjr928]

Now it's 5:30am. I went in there and picked her up, paced around for 5 minutes and she was passed out cold (or at least appears to be). Put her back in crib and now I'm finally going to bed myself, at 5:30am.

Tomorrow she will probably be very tired and want to sleep all day. I'll try to keep her awake but probably won't be able to (like today). The perpetual vicious cycle continues. 

[lily_layne]

(((hugs))) That's really tough. At this point, I would actually bring her into bed with you for a night or two so you can get some sleep. She's still very little and may just need that extra comfort. If you're not keen on that, do you have a swing you could try?

Sh/pat often doesn't work on screamy little newborns so I would just give up on it for now if it's frustrating both of you.

With the paci, once she has it in, try tugging on it. This will make her suck harder to keep it in. Do it as many times as you can each time she latches on to it. THis will teach her how to keep it in.

[michaeljacknnugg]

I too have a baby who hates to be put down, so I feel your pain. You must be exhausted!

I have ended up co-sleeping with him every night. The downside is that I have to go to bed when he does, but other than that it is really lovely. I'm not even attempting to put him down, just feeding and cuddling him. Getting lots of rest and staying warm, too. I never expected to do this but I'm confident we're both safe and so am going with it until it's time to change.

Would that be an option?

[kjr928]

Hi there, first of all, thank you both VERY much for your replies. Every little bit of support is truly helpful.

I do occasionally bring her into bed with me if we're having an extremely bad night. I typically only do that when I'm really out of options or if I'm really starting to get very emotional about it. (I'm terrified of creating a dependency so I do try to limit it).

@MJ&N - aren't you afraid that you'll have a huge problem when you do finally want him to sleep in his own bed?

@Lily - thanks for the paci tip - I will start trying that tomorrow. (Paci is a dependency I can handle )

We also did a little better on our EASY routine today. Trying to follow the baby whisperer "ideal" schedule). I actually set up reminder alarms in my phone for when she should be napping because I am horrible at tracking time. It definitely helped! Tried getting DD to bed around 9pm and ended up bfing her and got her down around 10:15pm. Not great but a hell of a lot better than midnight!!!

[michaeljacknnugg]

Yes, a bit! But this is a process, and they change so quickly. Overnight we went from struggling with feeding to it becoming easy, for example. I just have to trust that when he's ready I'll know.

I have been making teeny tiny steps to help him. White noise, a lovey which has been in with us all night and now I'm starting to put him into the bedside crib for an hour or so. I missed him though!! I want to enjoy these early months and I won't if I'm stressed out about his sleep.

[lily_layne]

I want to enjoy these early months and I won't if I'm stressed out about his sleep.

This is so true. I spent way too much time worrying about sleep and creating habits with DD and it sucked some of the joy out of those first months. With DS, I relaxed a lot and did a lot of APOP (sling, swing, sleeping on me) to get him to nap and he transitioned easily to his crib when he was ready.

[kjr928]

Hi there, I wanted to update you all with what happened.

I spoke with my mom's friend, who is a lactation nurse about all the dilemma, and she asked me a whole lot of questions about my milk flow and what the baby is doing, etc.
She said that she believed I was overproducing and "drowning" DD in milk. She said that's why the baby was choking & gulping and resisting during feeds, and leads to excess gas. She also said that the baby was getting too much lactose which explained the green poop and adds to the gas problem.

So I did block feeding - Fed twice on one side, fed twice on the other side, and when things seems to be getting better then I switched to one boob each feeding, and that's where I've stayed.

As a result, DD stopped crying for hours on end, stopped crying in the middle of the night. She will sleep at night for a SOLID 8 hours and sometimes more, I don't often have to get up at night at all anymore. She is a very happy baby now and I am a very happy mommy!

Now I'll have to head over to the toddler section and find some help with my DS who is an absolute terror!
Thanks for all your help ladies! 

[lily_layne]

Thanks for the update. I'm so glad things have improved so much

I had the same issue with my DD and block feeding also helped immensely.