She's a fighter

[KingCabbage]

So the good news is my 1 month old sleeps at night pretty well...we put her to bed around 730 or 8 and she usually wakens twice (around 1 am then again at 4 am), but that is pretty normal for a newborn right?  Baby's gotta eat! I feel like that's a realistic expectation. (we have tried tanking up - and dreamfeeding but only got DF to work once...and she still woke up later. The other times I tried she was too sleepy to feed).

My main problem is during the day. She fights taking naps pretty hard. We shh-pat for long stretches (though if she goes longer than 40 minutes we try feeding her and starting again later - but she doesn't often take THAT long to fall asleep). We swaddle her but she starts thrashing around, trying to draw her arms up. We even found a way to swaddle that would hold her arms down even more  and while this helps her from getting loose and becoming over stimulated from a re-swaddle, I am confused as to what my reaction should be.

I usually hold her arms down while I shh-pat, to try to keep her from wiggling free or thrashing about too much. But I worry there is something I might not be considering. Is she uncomfortable? I know some babies don't like being swaddled but it usually calms her when we first do it....it's just when we put her in her crib that she starts to fight the nap and then she fights the swaddle as well.

We tried not swaddling but then she just thrashes around anyway and ends up jabbing herself in the face or something. So I don't know that it's the swaddle itself.

Any tips? Should we just carry on as usual?

[lolsyb1982]

Hi there

Your night is very good and you couldn't expect anymore from a baby her age so that's great.

Can you give us an idea of your routine during the day. So what time she wakes and eats and when you start the nap. They have such a short A time at this age it could be you are just missing her window and then she's OT.

Thanks

[KingCabbage]

I'll copy paste my EASY from another post:  (I think I was counting getting her to sleep as part of her A time)

8/6
E 530
A 600-730
S 730
E 820
A 820-945
S 945
E 1100
A 1115
S 1210 (woke at 100-130)
E 200
A 200-300
S 300 (woke on and off at 330-415)
E 445
A 445-620 (hard time getting her to sleep)
S 630 (woke every 10-20 minutes)
E 715
A 715-845 (took 30 minutes to get her to sleep)
S 845
E 930 (dream feed but she only ate 5 minutes)
A none
S 935
E 100 (2 oz from bottle)
A none
S 130-330 (was up and wiggling in crib a lot but no crying)
E 415 (2 oz from bottle)
A none
S - held her til she slept, she nodded off very quickly

8/7
E 630
A 630-730
S 730 (Went down very easily. Tried a new swaddle too which kept her snugger and seemed to calm her better)
E 930
A 930-1015
S 1030
E 1230
A 1230-130
S 130-330
E 330
A 345-445 (she fussed throughout most of her feeding maybe due to gas? It took the whole hour to feed/burp/resettle her).
S 445-530 catnap
E 530 1st cluster feed (she was super sleepy for this feeding I had an extra hard time getting her to stay awake and she seemed a bit cranky afterwards)
A 600 bath and bedtime (she fussed a bit during bath, she doesn't like them)
S 630 catnap (fussiest naptime yet but she still went down easier than on previous days. Woke about 10 minutes in for a bit to cry some more, we resettled her)

She usually is up for 45 mins to an hour after a feeding. Today I am trying putting her down at the 30 minute mark since it takes a while to get her calmed and sleeping. Maybe I should treat the getting-to-bed time as A?

She is going a bit easier today. I tried pushing her legs into her stomach gently instead of shush-patting and that seemed to work really well. I knew she had some gas so I thought I'd try that. So far so good! Does that seem like an okay shush-pat replacement? Maybe she is just tired from not sleeping too long at her last nap

[lolsyb1982]

Yes A times are counted from eyes open to eyes shut so if her A time is an hour and she needs a longer wind down then that would count as A time.

She is still very young and they do like to be held at this age to feel secure so don't feel like you have to stick solely to shh patting to get her to sleep. That will all come in time as she's a little older.

If she is gassy and you find how you settled her today worked well then by all means stick to it. Are you using the drops to help with gas?

[KingCabbage]

I am but we're not sure how effective they are. They might be helping some though. She likes being over the shoulder in the burping position a lot but almost every other way of holding she fusses a lot after a couple minutes or less. She's not super snuggly. I do the shush pat a bit over the shoulder sometimes too