6 week old - refusing dummy - can not find finders

[cmckenna]

PLEASE HELP!  My LO has had a very difficult time getting herself to sleep.  It ususally takes at least 3 hrs to get her down at night and then I need to feed her. Her cues are very easy to read but she just can't seem to sooth herself to sleep.  We have been aiming for an early bedtime between 7pm and 8pm.  She has never gone down before 10:30pm.  We used the Dummy with her and in some cases she would get herself to sleep. Now she is refusing the Dummy.  How can we get her to sleep on her own is she is refusing the Dummy and can not seem to get her hands undercontrol. 

Our current situation is not ideal at all.  I basically put her down early and give her the opportunity to put herself to sleep with pat/sshh but usually give up after a couple of hours because it seems like there is no end in site.  After that she is rocked, and ends up sleeping on me.  I am getting very Tired!  How can I get her to get to sleep on her own if she has no way to sooth herself?

[jwig]

Hello - I wish this were an email filled with ways to get on track but I wanted to say that I am in the exact same situation.  My baby girl was born on March 28th and she is a spirited little thing.  I have a toddler at home and while some days are good most are filled with trying to get her to sleep and then staying asleep.  She wakes up every 10 minutes and will rarely take a dummy.  Right now I am listening to her scream (as I often do) upstairs and will eventually feed her after soothing her another 4 times with pat/shush.  She usually has one long and good nap a day.

I honestly think that these methods may not be for me.  She will not sleep anywhere but her crib (I know this sounds like a good thing but with a toddler not really) and her cries are so high pitched I feel like she is in pain.  She cries the entire time I do pat/shush and this has been going on for 3 weeks consistently.  I have not swayed from the schedule except at times when she sleeps in the bjorn because we are at the park or out for a walk.  I am also so tired and ready to let her cry it out which I do not believe in but I feel like I am doing anyway because she cries the entire time we try to put her down for naps or bed - sometimes taking 2 hours or more.

HELP!

[Jaime]

hi,

i only have a minute, but wanted to point you here...
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=451.0

also - swaddling & wind-down routines are absolute godsends....

[sarah67]

Hi

Our son would not sleep for more than 2 hours at the most until we swaddled him (we used the Miracle Blanket).  We first tried this at 2 weeks old and he slept for 5 hours, fed, then another 4 hours the first time we tried it.  He settled really quickly when swaddled.  He's now 11 weeks and has just begun to suck his thumb, so we now wrap him in the Swaddleaze blanket and this enables him to free his fists enough to find his little thumb.  At 6 weeks, though, he would never have been able to soothe himself this way.  He's my 4th baby and the first one I've swaddled, but how I wish I'd known how effective it is before now!

[Spectra]

I've seen this word a lot... What is a 'dummy'?

[sarah67]

Our word in UK for pacifier

[Spectra]

Ahh okay, thanks!