Hi all
I'm in desperate need of advice. My little girl is 8 weeks old tomorrow and won't nap in the day. She has always slept well at night but has never been a great sleeper but it's getting worse and worse, some days she will literally only sleep about an hour all throughout the day, made up of 10 min cat naps here and there. As you can imagine she spends a lot of her time being a grizzly, grumpy overtired mess and sometimes has a massive meltdown in the evenings.
I just don't know what to do anymore, I'm at the end of my tether as I don't have a minute to myself for 12 hours a day 5 days a week while my husband is at work. She won't be put down to 'play' reallf by herself either which means I can't even go to the toilet without having to just leave her to cry (which I won't do as a 'technique' by the way, but sometimes obviously I have to for a few mins). My partner and I never get to eat dinner together as one of us has to hold her while the other eats then swap. I kinda thought that by now things would be getting better. I'm sure it's all related to her overtiredness.
She used to sleep a little bit in her basket although often only for up to 30 mins at a time, I can count on one hand the amount of times she's slept more than half an hour in there during the day. At night she 'sleeps' well, usually going down about 9pm, and waking once usually around 3-5am although lately has sometimes been once around 3 and again around 6. Sometimes she will go back down til 8:30ish. She goes down fairly easily most of the time (and usually awake!) so I know she can do it. I say 'sleep' as she is incredibly noisy and restless, she sleeps in a side sleeping crib and she will often end up wedged in there diagonally at the bottom (I raise it on an incline incase it's reflux).
She looks like she seriously fights sleep, I don't know if this is on purpose, or if there's something stopping her from sleeping. It's got to the point now where she won't even properly sleep on me. I can spend 45 mins rocking her to sleep (she will open and close her eyes many times during this time and just when you think she's gone to asleep she will open her eyes wide awake again). If she does go off I can guarantee she will be awake within 20-30 mins. This is being held. In the basket it can be minutes up to about 15 mins.
I just don't know what to do, I've tried everything- crib, basket, noise, no noise, white noise, sleeping bag, swaddled, not swaddled, light, dark, etc etc! I know you will say routine is key but we are way past the point of a routine at the mo I think, as she literally will not sleep, sometimes she will get a total of an hour in the day from 10 mins here and there. I've tried to inplement EASY, using different awake times but spend far more time trying to get to her sleep than feeding, playing and sleeping combined and it's messed up before weve done one cycle!
HELP!!!
