Will I ever sleep again ?

[franship]

My 5 week old ds wakes constantly throughout the night and I know it's not because he's always hungry. What I am concerned about is that he will always be like this as it seems that he can sleep no longer than 2 hours day or night. His daytime sleep is also getting less and less so if he does sleep in the day I tend to leave him sleep as I think he needs it. 

We have been doing a bath/bed routine for the last week and he sleeps fairly easily between 7 and 9 and will always wake up at 9.00 precisely and I end up having him in my bed until 10 when I feed him a 6oz bottle. Last night he went down at 10.30 pretty easily and then woke again at 12.10. I let him lie on me until I could put him down at 2.00 and then he was awake at 3 to be fed. In the end I have him in bed with me as I am so tired that I just want to sleep and he slept for 3 hours then. I don't want to create a problem for myself later on but I've tried to shh/pat him to sleep when he wakes but he won't have it.   Any advice would be greatly appreciated .
 
The longest he has ever slept was the other night when my mum babysat. He had only slept for 2 hours in the day and refused to sleep at 7, mum finally got him to sleep at 10.30 after his bottle and he didn't wake until 05.00 but this must have been through sheer exhaustion !

Please help !!

[Maddy's Mum]

Hi there - your little man is about to hit upon his first milestone, which can throw any routine out of the window - his 6 week growth spurt! So more frequent nightwakings and needing to nurse more are common at this age, however there are things you can do to help him (and you!) through it.

Firstly, I would start to cluster feed him at night - you are trying to get as many calories as possible into him to 'tank him up' so that he will start sleeping longer at night - and carry on with the DF. In addition to this, swaddling is very useful at this age as is mastering the art of pat/shush to get him to sleep. There are some great links at the top of this board on how to do pat/shush with babies under 3 months and also instructions on the aussie swaddle.

Hang on in there, I can remember how exhausting those first few weeks are, but they do get better...honest!

Dee
x

[Mom2katiebug]

I agree with CF!  We saw longer sleeping times the first night we tried.  5 hours seemed like eternity when we were used to getting up every 3 hours!

A nice snug swaddle will probably help if you're not doing it already.  And, we recently introduced white noise (actually a CD of rain sounds) to help our LO nod off.  Others have had great success with this. 

And, I know it's hard to wake a sleeping baby during the day, but do try to get those calories in during the daytime.  You might try a "dreamfeed" during the day if you don't want to wake your LO.

[KellyC]

Hi

I agree with the others re the cluster feeding and swaddling and just wanted to recommend a miracle blanket, which is a very tight swaddle (a bit like a straight jacket!) that lots of people I know have found really works.  My DS is now 14 weeks old and still sleeping in his.  You can get them from Boots - order it online if they don't have it in your local store.

Good luck - time flies I promise!

Kelly x

[franship]

thanks all for your advice, I do swaddle him but he's like a little houdini and always finds a way out !!!!!!

[Mom2katiebug]

Charlotte J recommend this swaddle technique that has worked 100% at keeping our Houdini swaddled all night long:

Use a receiving blanket and fold it into thirds.  (I actually cut mine into thirds because I thought DD would get hot in three extra layers.)  Lay it under you LO at armpit level.  Wrap each end of the rcv blanket around the arms.  Weave it between the body and the armpit, around the outside of your LOs arms and then tuck it snugly underneath him/her.  Repeat on the other side.  Then, use your favorite swaddle blanket or another receiving blanket to do a normal swaddle.  I think this is similar to what the Miracle Blanket does, but (1) you don't have to buy another blanket and (2) your LO won't grow out of it.

It's really worked for us!

[KellyC]

Thanks for the tip - DS has almost outgrown his miracle blanket so I'll be doing this soon I think!

Kelly x