Newborn won't sleep! HELP!!!!!!!

[Wei]

I have a 1 month old DD and have just started to implement EASY.... and finally get her to nap & sleep solely in the crib instead of the car seat on occasion.  It took me at least 1.5 hour at least each time today to get her to nap with shhhh-pat and I was only successful twice.  Each time she could only nap45 min and I would try to park her in bed for naps no later than yawn 2.  She'd cry cry cry for most of the hour while doing shhh-pat.... Other times I would be due to feed her (every 3 hrs) so she wouldn't even had a chance to nap.   then it was evening and I had to stick her in the swing just so I could cook even though I may have been doing shhh-pat for 1/2 hr already. 

In the past week DD finally switched her nights and days around so I was able to get 10 hrs sleep vice 2 with 2 feedings in between.  The past 3 days she has had problems napping period.  I thought it might be due to the fact that grandma and grandpa, for the last 3 weeks have been rocking her and doing all the things that the Whisperer has identified as reasons for having trouble going to sleep.  Now without them, I won't rock her anymore and wanted to start on a good path... finally!  Tonight, though I know she is overtired, she won't even sleep like she usually will... she's only had 3.5 hours tonight so this little baby has only maybe had 7-10 hours sleep max and that's including the times in the swing.  I just parked her in the crib to cry it out for a bit because I've only had maybe 3 hours of sleep and I just can't handle shhing-pat anymore when I've been doing it for well over 60 min and she keeps needing to get picked back up for it.  Is it supposed to take this long??  I'm gonna go nuts if I have to do this for a week and watch her keep getting overtired... isn't that just a vicious cycle??   PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!  I can't thrive on 2-3 hours a day anymore... especially after a complicated labour.

I've been up since the wee morning and could really use some advice.  Thanks!

Wei

[squeaky's mum]

Hi There,

Hang on in there, I know it is tough at the minute but things will get better.

I would take small steps in getting your little girl onto a 3 hour easy. Firstly don't clock watch. Just make sure everything you do is in the EASY order. So when she first wakes feed her and I would have thought (others may know more about this than I though) that at 1 month old the A time is really short (30-45 minutes?). So after she has had a little activity put her to bed. If she doesn't want to sleep then I would just sit with her and have a very quiet time in a dimmed room until either she drops off, or starts crying for a feed again. Then repeat the EASY cycle again.

I would keep a note of all the EASY times thoughout the day so you can get an idea of what her natural rhythm is, then as she gets a bit older (6-8 weeks) you can try to extend her activity times so she is closer to the 3 hour EASY.

Also, other may disagree with me here, but as it sounds as if DD is chronically overtired I would do anything to get her to sleep at the moment as once she has got a little of that sleep back she will be able to fall asleep much better on her own and cope with shh-pat if you need to do that again.

Good luck and rope her Grandparents to give you a bit of time off if you need some extra sleep.

Claire

[Jaime]

hi,

Clare's already given you some good advice.  just wanted to add that after 40 minutes of shh/pat, if your baby isn't asleep, take her out for some very low-key A time (like on the floor in her room). 

[Wei]

Thanks for the advice!  At about 6am I finally said... "that's it!" and since it was feeding time anyway I decided to nurse her in bed so that I could get some more rest.  If baby's tired, it's one thing... but mom can't be tired so she can take care of baby!!

She slept like a log after nursing.  She'd been up for hours already after all...so I didn't bother trying to do any activity or anything.  3 hours later she woke up on her own and was ready for more food.. and is now playing happily again.  She'll probably need a nap in a few minutes so we'll see if shh-pat works any better.

I guess the one thing I find frustrating is the book mostly deals with older infants... so I think I may become more of an EASY follower once my baby hits the 3 month mark and her nap times become more noticeable.

I am keeping my eyes on the board though... seems like there is a lot of good advice.

Wei

[Lizziebeth]

I agree and  think the reason shush/pat seems so hard right now is that you are mainly battling over-tiredness.  When your LO gets out of the cycle of over-tiredness, I think you should find that your shush/patting times will reduce.

When we weaned the paci,my LO got so over-tired it could take over 2 hours to shush/pat her to sleep.   

Sometimes she just never even got to sleep and we'd do the next feed. 

Once the paci was weaned and she got through the over-tiredness, things got better exponentially. 

Now we're down to 2-10 mins shush/pat for most naps.  (My LO is 8 weeks corrected age -  6.5 weeks prem - so we've been shush/patting for 14 weeks)

[KELLYTOYS]

hi



my 5 week old is about the same, I have having great difficulty in getting her to sleep.  With me she just wants to feed.   

What are the sleeping cues!!!   how do I know when she is tired??


sorry for the mad question and this is my 3 child.


regards


debbie

[Lizziebeth]

Usually the signs are the eyes start to get heavy or you'll see some yawning.  You have to act immediately and get them to bed, swaddled, room darkened.  Have you got the Baby Whisperer Solves all Your Problems book?   It' a superb resource for getting your LO to sleep independently.

[Wei]

I am definitely not doing the shhh-pat thing until she's back to her usual sleep again.  I just tried it again & she's just waaay too tired. Every time she calms down I try to put her in the crib & she jerks awake even swaddled.  I am very gentle putting her down too! Swing & rocking it is!  I'm thinkin I will wait a couple weeks before attempting this again... by then she'll be almost 7 weeks old.  By the way, I hold her over my shoulder to shh-pat but she manages to squrm her arms out of her swaddle to claw at my face... is there a better alternative?

Thanks
Wei

[Jaime]

Wei,

are you swaddling??  if not, i think it would help your baby a lot if you start.  if you are, and her arms are still escaping, you might want to try wrapping her this way:

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=1439.0

[The Drake]

When a baby is tired, fed, and dry, why don't they just fall of to sleep?  It's not like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders or anything....

A serious question.  Why does my  2 week old daughter fight it so much?

[MackMum]

Hugs to all of you struggling with those early weeks of sleep frustrations!! Just wanted to mention a couple of things that really helped with my DS when he was just a few weeks old -

a super consistent wind down routine is essential. Ours was, walk into room, swaddle, turn lights off and sit in chair with baby hugged into my chest, pat back and shhh by baby's ear until they start to relax and eyes get droopy (usually about 5mins), saying 'it's time to go to sleep'. Then lower baby into bed (if it's not hot, then preheating bed with hoer bottle really helps them relax into bed). Tuck in snug and give couple of pats, then leave room. If he then got upset and couldn't settle, I'd go back in and do pat/shh (or pick him up and re-calm him if he was really crying hard).

At about 8 weeks we had to put DS into bed before he started to get sleepy/eyes closed cos he'd start to jolt awake as soon as he hit the bed. We tweaked the routine to involve singing 10green bottles before putting him into bed still wide awake. By then we also had a little thing that made a noise like ocean waves for 20mins after we put him to bed (it's a bit like someone going shh...shhh...shhh), and a little musical mobile that goes for a couple of minutes. All of this isn't so much to soothe him to sleep as to cue him that he is about to go to sleep. It takes a few days of consistently using your routine for all naps and bedtime before you'll see the results.

Something to keep in mind when doing that frustrating pat/shh is that you and baby are on the same side - they genuinely want to sleep, they're not actually fighting it, it's just that they don't know how to go about making that transition- especially if they've always been rocked or fed to sleep. I find it really helps to keep my sanity by gently repeating 'I know you're so tired sweetie, we're just teaching you how to get to sleep and then you'll feel so much better...'.

When DS was little the yawn was the first obvious sign that he was getting tired (and perhaps the eye rubbing but since they can't control their hands at that age, it was often just a general, tight fisted face rubbing), I acted on that first yawn to begin the winddown routine (usually at 50mins after his last sleep). If your winddown routine is a bit longer then you'd want to start before those first signs.

Also even though it's hard to get it going, the sooner you get LO into the EASY routine, the better, because sleeptime is more predictable for both you and LO - they like to know what's going to happen next. So they'll be more prepared to go to sleep when the time comes. It's tempting to leave it till they're older rather than face a struggle now, but unfortunately teaching anything just gets harder as they get older (and bad habits get more ingrained and harder to break - like rocking and feeding to sleep) so while it might take you a week to get it going now, it could take two weeks and a lot more crying later on.

Anyway, I promise that things will get better as LOs get older and more settled into routine - you'll be amazed at the difference easy can make to your enjoyment of the parenting thing. It's not always smooth sailing, there are hiccups along the way, but once back on track it can work a treat for both of you.

[Wei]

Well, I guess you were right about the naps getting better.  Yesterday and today (so far) it only takes me 5-7 min for her to conk out in her crib.  Normally it took 30-40 min.  Almost the instant I lay her down, her eyes will go from wide awake to flutter and then a couple of pats through her crying and she stops...stays silent and is gone to the world!

In fact, now she seems to go for the 2 hour nap stretches.  I can't seem to cut it down because she gets tired and then gives me cues for nap time but because now it takes so much less time (it used to take 40 min for her to settle) to get TO sleep... she has way more time for her nap.

The struggle I am consistently having is her her last feed before bed time and before awake time.  She can't seem to stay awake after her last feed..if she is awake, she's barely hanging by a thread.  I tried changing her and putting a cold cloth to her face but this little beauty just won't jolt awake.  So I put her in her crib and usually within 20 min she will blink semi-awake...look around for 2 secs and then wiggle herself into a comfy spot...and zzzz...off to dreamland.  So, it doesn't seem she minds being put down taht way at all.

She usually feeds a couple times during the night after dreamfeed... but the last one before her awake time is the hardest one to put her back to sleep in.  She just struggles against it so much... and sometimes she will only sleep for another hour which makes her still short 1.5 hours from her usual wake up time. This I find is quite hit and miss....some days are good, some are bad.  I don't know if anyone has any suggestions but any would be appreciated.

Wei

[Wei]

Well, I would like the day to start off at 9:30 am for now... as we are heading into Standard Time soon so that would mean I wouldn't have to change the routine if that gets settled.

This is kinda what it's like.... DD's routine is currently all over the place at 7 weeks old...and from what I gather that is pretty normal.

E 9:30
A 9:52
S 10:30

E 12:30
A 12:55
S 1:30

E 3:30
A 3:50
S 4:30

E 5:30
A 6:25

maybe power nap in between but it rarely happens

E 7:30 (This is where she tends to conk out...but doesn't mind being put in the crib after)
S 8:00

Dreamfeed 10:30

E 2:30
S 3:00
E 6:15
S 6:50...but struggled to get her to sleep not till 7:20am.  It's almost always the last feed that is the struggle.

Awake 9:30am

So this is one example of a day but the times are always a little off.  Some days we got till 8:30pm just because of the length of naps she had during the day...if they were short short then we'd have to squeeze in a power nap just to hold her until the evening bedtime.  Lately, it's taken 30-40 min to get her to finally snooze from the time I put her in the crib...it was only until yesterday that the time went down drastically to 5-7 min...or 20 if she's a bit too tired.

Wei

[Wei]

Thanks for your help.  I usually need an extra cluster feeding period just so that I can get 4 hrs sleep in a row after dreamfeed.  I find even if the rest of the evening went to bits... with that 4 hours in a row I feel like a new woman and I can be the mommy she needs!  Any less and I am a zombie.  I've tried keeping the same bedtime...or at least within 15-30 minute range depending on what time she ended up waking up and how here naps are.  I just want her to get enough naps otherwise I find bedtime to be a real nightmare.

I've finally resorted to giving up on imposing a set time in the mornings for wake up.  I just can't fight her anymore!!  It's been 2 weeks of turmoil and meltdowns when she wouldn't stay sleeping for more than an extra hour in the mornings and I can't bear to listen to her cry while i'm patting her back for longer than 40 minutes.  Right now, if she wakes up before 7am I will be rocking her until it is 7am and then proceed with 3 hr EASY... if she want to sleep later till 8am I am okay with that too.  It just seems that even though I stick to my guns and keep the same bedtime...she still manages to squeak a different wake up.  For some reason, some days she naps better than others and wants to wake up later or earlier.  Some days she is hungrier earlier than other days... no clue why.

Some moms have already told me that it's okay for her to be a bit wonky for routine at this age... if I'm fortunate, she may likely have a good stable routine down by 3 months but not to stress over it and instead, just work with it for now.  Frankly, I think that's what I'm gonna have to do.  I gotta save my sanity!!

And I want to be able to enjoy her while she's still so small.  Pretty soon down the road, she will be a toddler and I'll have wondered why I stressed so much about trying to mold her and wished I had just let go a bit and enjoy it a bit more.  So, EASY works great for naps and I found those techniques sooo helpful to put her to sleep...saves me from rocking her to death... but as far as getting set awake time I think that's one area I gotta wait around for.

Thanks a bunch though. 
Wei

[Wei]

For some reason, since my last post... DD has regressed.  She was doing beautifully for naps going down within 7-10 min but now she's back to 30-40 min and it's not very restful sleep either.  She has discoverd sucking her fists but if I let them out she will jerk awake so I gotta keep them bundled up or it's worse than if she gets frustrated with not being able to suck that well .   Now she sucks through the material and that seems to keep her okay...but she's started to stare at the ceiling and that keeps her up longer..at the same time..she gets more tired.

I don't know what to do!!  ACK!  Fighting the early mornings was enough... but now nap times too?  Is it normal for a few days of regression??

Wei