1 month old can't sleep during the day ...?

[marcusg]

Hi folks,

Our 5 week old daughter Sofia has terrible trouble napping during the day, gets hardly any sleep, so by about 4pm is screaming through over-tiredness ... then she drops off, but obviously this is not the ideal situation ...

We try to get her into her cot by the 3rd yawn, but she generally won't sleep then and seems pretty awake & alert, and cries if we leave her in there ...

Does the nursery need to be really dark? The curtains are not too thick so the room is not too dark on a sunny day ...

Plus we don't really have a routine yet ...

Any advice welcome! 

[Deb_in_oz]

hi - welcome to the boards and congrats on your lo.

how long is she awake for before you put her down?  what is her temperament if you can tell yet?

i ask because my dd2 did not go down well for naps until 7 weeks - she was spirited and it took until 7 weeks for us to accept that she did not give good tired signs so by the time we were putting her down she was overtired (usually her first yawn did not even appear until she was in the cot so we could not rely on yawns)

when we started putting her down 45 min from waking (or earlier if she was extra fussy or started yawning at 1/2hr at that age) we started seeing great success and got her to nap in every EASY cycle.  it took weeks before we then extended her awake time to 1hr and then a long time before we got past 1hr... but since we started watching the clock a bit we were able to catch her before she was overtired.  some babies are past it by the time they yawn and your lo coudl be this type of baby. better to catch them TOO early than too late (if not too tired yet they can happily lay in cot awake for a while relaxing until actual ready for sleep, but at least not 10 min too late and crying and fighting sleep)

[marcusg]

Hi - thanks for the quick reply! 

She is definitely a spirited baby - full of energy! And she is generally happy, often very smiley first thing in the morning which is lovely, but as the day goes on and she gets more tired is obviously more cranky ...

maybe we are missing her tired signs ... how long should she generally be awake before we put her down? been looking at some of the EASY routines, can you suggest a good daytime schedule?

btw. sorry if this is a dumb question, but what do all the little abbreviations on this site mean? i take it 'lo' means little one ...  :wink:  :lol:

[marcusg]

... i should add we've not tried swaddling her yet!  :oops:

is this important?

[Deb_in_oz]

ok - i figured she was spirited - i can recognize it a mile away now unfortunately  :cry:

it sounds same as mine that if you wait until the yawns it is too late.  try this:  at 40 min after waking up take her to her room and change her nappy, dim the light or off,  swaddle her tightly, and do whatever you do for putting to bed (what we do: we sway a little for about 10 sec and then sing rockabye baby while swaying - found the swaying actually gets rid of any gas that MIGHT still be there, put in bed and say "nighty night sleepytime".) this is in bed around 45-50 min from waking AT THE LATEST

remember that is what i do you shgoudl find what works for you - keep it short and sinple and do the same every time.

spirited ones will often FIGHT the swaddle but it definitely helps them sleep - whenever Dh was home and di the swaddle extra tight we got a 2 hr nap  :roll:  i never got as good as him, but we do what we can (you can practice when she is awake if you want)  we keptup the swaddle until 5 months but only because i was afraid tpo let it go - she was ready by 4 mo - when she would get out of the swaddle (strong spirited ones are like houdini) we would just go in and rewrap her and resettle (as many times as it took- all IN THE COT - do not lift her out unless absolutely necessary)

if she needs help getting to sleep you can try shhing her or pattng but we found when we tried both it only worked 50% of the time, she was too distracted by our presence and tried to "engage" us. if i did both i had to turn my head away so i did not catch her eye by accident.
see how you go with putting her down tomorrow (FRI) at 45 min - let me know how long it took for her to go to sleep and length of naps and we will take it from there.  One step at a time.

we can work on a routine after that. it is important to first get her napping in every EASY cycle and falling asleep independently.

i will check back later - i can tell you that once we got this on track things improved dramatically for us.  but the worst is that they SEEM happy to be up and then you try to put them down and they are overtired (i am experiencing this right now - i missed her window this morning and whereas she usually goes to sleep fast she is overtyired andrefusing her first nap)  :cry:

[marcusg]

Hi Debbie,

thanks for the help & info so far, sorry for lack of reponse, i've not been online the last few days.

well, our first attempts at swaddling were pretty useless, so we've invested in a Miracle Blanket, which is so much easier! She fought the swaddle for a good while, but then settled to sleep ... only slept for about 30 mins tho!  :?

[Matthew's Mommy]

I'm just adding this short cut to the Teaching Newborns to Sleep

http://www.babywhisperer.com/forum/teaching-sleep-to-newborns-and-young-infants-vt39164.html

[hurr1]

Hi Debbie,
I have 9 week old Isaac and I had problems during the day getting him down to nap even when observing his tired signs and trying to use the pat/sh technique. I stopped drinking caffeine-I am breastfeeding- and it's made a big difference to his daytime naps. Still a few crying issues at the start  but he sleeps 1.5-2 hours most times now    Could be worth a try if you are breastfeeding.
Cheers and good luck
Heather