New mum going out of her mind . 7 week old baby girl refusing naps / sleep

[Simmotra]

Hello,

I am new mum new to the forum and desperately hoping you ladies can give me some advice.

I have a 7 week old baby girl and we have been on EASY for about 2 weeks. She can go 2.5-3hours between feeding and on the whole sleeps well.....the issue is she refuses to fall asleep anywhere else that isn't on DH and I.

 She won't fall asleep in her pushchair / car seat/ cot- NOTHING . She gets so worked up she makes herself sick . This is making going out very hard and really getting me down

She will only sleep on me / sling in the day . When she is on me she can sleep a good 1hr 30 stretch. At night time we have managed to get her to fall asleep in her bed but this is a massive trial and error situation . When she is down for the night on a good day she can do a 6-7 hour stretch between feedings. However if she hasn't had much day sleep this doesn't happen.

Some nights she is so over tired it can take 3 hours to calm her down.

In the day we try and try and try to get her to fall asleep in her bed ( do the wind down / put her in drowsy ) sometimes she will fall asleep but at the 10 or 20 min mark she wakes up and screams . Shh pat doesn't work and the only thing that calms her down is a cuddle and she will fall back asleep on us.

The more we try the more overtired she gets and then we do anything to get her to sleep ( rock / bounce - everything your not meant to do !!!):

Any suggestions ?? She can stay away for around 1hr 15 but we start wind down around the hour mark . She also fights the swaddle a lot but I resist taking her out of it .


Please please help I am going out of my mind

[jessmum46]

Oh bless you!  These little people can be so exhausting at times can't they? 

First thoughts would be at this stage this could be completely normal (sorry).  I didn't find that either of mine were particularly good at going to sleep in bed as early as 7 weeks - from memory things did get better in this respect from about 10 weeks or so.  It may well be a case of hanging in there a bit longer and making use of any and every offer of help to get you a break.

That said, it might also be worth considering if there is anything which could be caring her discomfort and making it hard for her to settle?  It looks like an upright tummy sleeping position on you is most comfortable for her which is often the case for babies with reflux.  Does she show any signs of this?  https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=654.0  There are also some tips for sleep and reflux babies here, but which could equally apply to any unsettled colicky baby: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=65742.0

Have you had a chat with your health visitor or doctor about it?

(((Hugs)))

[Simmotra]

Thank you so so much for replying .
I don't think she has reflux - she doesn't seem to display any of the obvious signs and as I said she will go down in her bed once in a deep sleep. Will keep a close eye on her .

I really hope your right - I am just petrified I am already getting into bad habits .

Do you have any suggestions on how often to try and get her in her own bed . From the sleep interview Tracy suggests going the whole hog but then I just have a super over tired baby. Was trying to Do 1 or maybe two naps a day and night sleep . But is this too inconsistent ??

I know every baby is different but how long did it take for you to start seeing an improvement . At the moment this feels like it will never end ..... who knew being a mum would be so so hard .

[jessmum46]

You are right that Tracy said to 'start as you mean to go on', but speaking from personal experience I feel that expecting all naps in the crib and independent sleep every time just isn't really realistic at this early stage.  You may have come across the concept of the '4th trimester'?  Certainly there is a school of thought that says that in the first 3 months of life babies really can't be 'spoiled' or develop 'bad habits' and I feel that has rung true for both of mine.  A more gentle way to begin is perhaps to start trying for one nap per day in the crib, perhaps the first one (often the easiest), but don't push it to ridiculous lengths - by that I mean I would often try for the nap, and give it a good 15-20 mins, but if they clearly weren't settling I'd just put them in the sling and get them to sleep (a seriously OT baby really isn't in a position to learn good settling skills), then try again at another time.  I did find we reached a peak of fussy behaviour and difficulty settling around 8 weeks, with some quite obvious improvements and better settling from 9-10 weeks onwards, certainly by about 4 months we were getting reliable crib naps.  Just a word of warning though - there is certainly merit in having a baby willing to sleep in more than one place!!  My DD wouldn't sleep anywhere but her crib in a blacked-out room from 4 months which made going out very hard.  DS slept well in car or pushchair as well as the crib and I think that was better for all of us!

Good luck x

[Simmotra]

I have been doing the morning nap and bedtime . Last two days she has gone down but wakes at the 45 minute mark.

Bedtime was hard work and it took 2 hours ( I fed her inbetween). Is that too long to keep trying ? It worked well after night feeds and she went down pretty quickly . I think she was over tired and I put her down too late .

Any tips for getting baby to sleep other places other than her bed. This is one of the things I am finding hard as I can't go out very much ??


Thanks so much again

[jessmum46]

2 hours is quite a long time to be trying, I would probably have given up and just got her to sleep however given how young she is.  Certainly if she was very tired and upset I would be helping as much as needed.  That said, it may have been that whatever you did it was going to take a long time for her to give in and settle.  Fussy bedtimes/evenings are very common and personally I feel the first 12 weeks or so are about survival a lot of the time! 

In terms of where babies will or won't sleep I don't have any great tips.  I think it comes down to personality as much as anything.  I've had one who will (still) sleep anywhere and one who would only sleep in a dark quiet room and I'm not sure it was anything I did that made any difference....I guess just keep trying and hopefully LO will start to settle down a bit in the next few weeks x

[Ciuci]

Hi Simmotra,

Just want to give you a big (((hug))) because I know how it is in your shoes. I have a 6 weeks old and sometimes I also think it's all about survival.

With my 1st I started doing EASY when she was 4 months old and it wasn't wasy at all. It did teach her to fall asleep independently and to have a routine but many times until she was 12-14 months old I was shooting in the dark.

This time, with my 2nd, I said I would start EASY from the first day. And I did - however he didn't ) I drew again the unlucky nuber of a colicky spirited baby who would scream at the top of his lungs even one hour no matter how much I'd shush, walk, rock, sing, pat, whatever.

We're facing the 30-minute monster already since 2 weeks. EASY is therefore all over the place, he screams so much I just end up giving the breast to calm him down.

And you know what? I think I will slowly just accept or convince myself that to apply the whole routine ad literam and expect the marvellous results promised in the book in the first 3-4 months is simply unrealistic, at least with some babies.

So right now I think I will just do the best I can and later will tackle each issue as soon as I see I have someone to cooperate with.

I remember that my daughter slept in 30 min naps until well after 6 months and no matter what technique I tried, nothing worked until she was simply older and mature enough to put together more sleep cycles on her own. The same with night wakings - she woke up once a night to bf until she was 14 months old.

So hang in there - the start is rough and there are a lot of scaremongering giving fresh moms the jibbiez that they will start off wrong or ruin somehow the baby. I am slowly coming to the conclusion of just enjoying it - doing the best we can, but not to expect textbook magic instantly.

[Simmotra]

Ciuci- thank you so much for the words of encouragement .

It's so hard isn't it!!?? I am driving myself mad with googling things and worrying about if I am making bad habits that I know I am not making the most of her and enjoying her,  then I get even more annoyed at myself .

Your right it's something I am coming to realise ( slowly ) that as great and as helpful as these books are sometimes they just aren't realistic .

If I also have one more person tell me just to "let them cry" or to be "tougher" with her I am going to scream. How come when you have a baby everyone around you all of a sudden thinks they are baby experts

So nice knowing i am not the only one with a baby that doesn't do things "by the book"